Jobs

Executive Vice President/Senior Vice President for Policy and Program Development

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a high-caliber strategic policy institute that informs and shapes public policies to reduce poverty, promote equity, and build opportunity, while also supporting efforts to ensure progressive fiscal policies that can support these investments. It has a national reputation for conducting rigorous research and analysis, developing evidence-based policy ideas and strategies, shaping a broad array of policy debates at the federal and state level, influencing policy outcomes on a range of critical issues, and advancing strong implementation through a variety of strategies. It focuses its efforts on improving the lives of people with low or moderate incomes and examines how policies affect particular groups, including people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people. The Center is known for its unique capacity to blend rigorous, timely analysis with effective communications that enable policymakers and the media to make use of its work.

The Role

Reporting to the President, the Executive Vice President/Senior Vice President will be a visionary, proactive, strategic leader in the areas of economic and health justice, who will bring deep policy expertise and experience overseeing and coordinating policy work, internal processes, and external products across issue areas. This person will help guide and facilitate policy development and collaboration across policy teams. They will serve as both a policy expert and an external spokesperson for the Center, play a key role in ensuring that equity is centered in the Center’s policy work, manage substantive policy and programmatic work, supervise team leads, serve as a senior leader for the organization, and work closely with the Development team.

The EVP/SVP will help to set a strategic vision for our federal policy work — including work related to broad economic policy, federal budget and tax issues, and economic and health security programs and policies — and will collaborate closely with the Senior Vice President for State Engagement on our work around the intersection and implementation of federal policy at the state level. The EVP/SVP will help conceptualize, contribute to, review, and oversee research and analytic work, including the large body of written materials we produce each year. Additionally, the EVP/SVP will help foster collaboration across teams and with outside partner groups and provide thought leadership, in collaboration with other CBPP senior leaders, on strategies to advance federal policy agendas over the near- and long-term.

The EVP/SVP will have management responsibilities, including some direct senior level reports (the precise reports will depend on the individual’s expertise and prior experience), and will serve on CBPP’s executive management team.

We recognize that a successful candidate will have a range of relevant skills and abilities but may not have all the qualifications and experiences listed here. We are seeking candidates who will bring talent and knowledge to make them successful, and who have an interest in developing new areas of expertise.

Responsibilities:

Vision and Leadership

• Provide strategic vision and leadership for both day-to-day and longer-term programmatic work across multiple teams, working in close collaboration with senior leaders.
• Oversee and guide analytic and other programmatic work focused on federal economic and health security policies and state-level implementation, including engaging with teams to conceptualize and execute on analytic work, reviewing and contributing to written materials, and ensuring that our work meets a high analytic standard.
• Partner with the policy, government affairs, and communications teams to develop strategies to advance policy goals.
• Help develop and maintain strong partnerships with state and national organizations.
• Assist teams in their efforts to engage with people with lived expertise of the programs, policies, and issues that are CBPP’s focus areas.
• Contribute to organizational-wide efforts to bring an equity and inclusion lens to programmatic work across policy areas.
• Guide, coordinate, and support efforts to generate and develop new ideas, bringing a cross-policy perspective to the federal portfolio of our work.
• Develop, lead, and facilitate internal processes around cross-policy and cross-team collaboration and effectiveness.

Management

• Supervise and manage vice presidents for various policy teams.
• Contribute to other senior leaders’ work in building an equitable and inclusive organizational culture and develop team practices that foster inclusion and enable all staff to thrive and contribute fully.
• Serve as a member of the Executive Management Team and its Leadership Group.
• Participate in organizational hiring and budgeting decisions.

Maximize CBPP’s Impact

• Help to ensure that CBPP has strong relationships with other national partners and that we engage our state partners in federal policy debates in effective and thoughtful ways.
• Evaluate CBPP’s role in the progressive policy infrastructure, identify areas for greater effectiveness, and develop strategies for maximizing the impact of the Center’s work.
• Work with other senior leaders to establish goals and priorities and strategies to achieve them.
• Help manage both short-term and long-term work, including identifying opportunities to impact debates and helping to determine shifts in priorities to maximize effectiveness.
• Develop mechanisms for reviewing CBPP’s research and policy agenda to ensure that it aligns with our near-term and long-term policy goals and the external environment.
• Serve as an advisor to the Vice Presidents in addressing high-level strategic issues.

Represent and Advise the Center

• Serve as a spokesperson on the Center’s work and policy positions to a broad set of audiences including the media, policymakers, funders and state and national partners.
• Serve as an advisor to the CBPP President and other senior leaders on federal policy issues, engagement strategies, and the intersection of federal and state policies.

Fundraising

• Partner with the Development team to conceptualize projects.
• Work with the CBPP President, the VP for Development, and the Vice Presidents to identify fundraising opportunities for CBPP and engage in efforts to secure and retain funding.
• Along with the CBPP President, the VP for Development and relevant Vice Presidents, manage relationships with funders.

Qualifications:

The following are the types of knowledge, skills, and experience that would help someone be successful in this role:

Policy-Related

• Relevant subject matter expertise in some of the policy areas CBPP works in.
• Ability to provide strong leadership and vision for federal policy work.
• Understanding of how federal economic and program policies affect economic, health, and racial justice.
• Understanding of how to influence policy debates at the federal level, including the role of analysis, data, and research; strategic communications; national and state partners and outside experts; grassroots organizing; and direct engagement with policymakers.
• Experience shaping and advancing federal policy.
• Ability to articulate a sophisticated understanding of racial equity and structural racism and its impact on policy, and ability to integrate that knowledge into work projects.

Management

• Exceptional leadership and management skills, a collaborative management style that centers equity and inclusion, a successful track record of drawing on the talents of people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and a commitment to staff development.
• Experience working in a leadership capacity, managing diverse and high-performing staff.
• Keen awareness of multiple group identities and their dynamics, and the ability to bring a high level of self-awareness, empathy, and social skills to interpersonal work interactions.
• Willingness to engage in fundraising and, ideally, bringing a track record of successful fundraising.
• Excellent writing and public speaking skills, particularly the ability to communicate in clear and compelling ways to a wide range of stakeholders about cross-cutting policy issues, the importance of policy change, equity, and advocacy campaigns.
• At least 12 years of relevant experience is desired.

This position is being posted as either an Executive Vice President or Senior Vice President. Candidates at the Executive Vice President level may have more extensive subject matter expertise and will have more management experience within a large policy-focused nonprofit, including more extensive experience in managing teams, helping to set organizational priorities, and fundraising. Candidates at the Senior Vice President level will have strong subject matter expertise in some relevant program areas but may have less experience leading and managing within a large non-profit, fundraising, and/or working across teams or programmatic areas.

CBPP is currently operating on a hybrid work schedule. We have a strong preference for candidates who will work in our Washington, D.C. office during in-office days.

This position reports to the CBPP President.

Terms of Employment: Full-time
Bargaining Unit Status: This is not a bargaining unit position.

Please upload a cover letter and resume. In your cover letter, please include a discussion of what draws you to the mission of the Center.

Compensation:

Salary for the EVP role starts at $225,000 annually; salary for the SVP role begins at $195,000 annually, with the exact salary to be determined based on total relevant experience. The Center offers excellent benefits (including health insurance, vision and dental coverage, life and long-term disability insurance, retirement, MERP, and DCAP), and generous vacation, sick leave, and holiday schedules.

Please submit your application here.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values and welcomes diversity in the workplace and strongly encourages all qualified persons to apply regardless of race, color, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, credit information, pregnancy or parental status, family responsibilities, personal appearance, creed, military or veteran status, religion, ancestry or national origin, union activities, disability, or other status protected by applicable law.

Job posted: 2023-01-11