Associate, Partner Relations

Job DetailsJob Location: Newton - Newton, MA 02460Salary Range: $25.00 - $26.00 HourlyAbout Cradles to Crayons:

Cradles to Crayons (C2C), founded in 2002, provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive—at home, at school, and at play. We supply clothing, shoes, diapers, school supplies, and more, free of charge. Our vision is that one day all children will have the essentials they need to thrive. 

Two in 5 kids in the United States are currently facing Clothing Insecurity, going without basic essentials like pants, shoes, diapers, and school supplies during their critical development years. Three of the top 10 reasons kids miss school are rooted in Clothing Insecurity—just one example of the significant short- and long-term social and economic costs when these needs go unmet. Cradles to Crayons keeps Clothing Insecurity at the core of our mission and is the only large-scale nonprofit organization to focus on this resource gap. Since its founding, Cradles to Crayons has distributed more than three million customized packages of essentials to children in Massachusetts, Greater Philadelphia, Chicagoland, and nationally, through Giving Factory Direct—a first-in-kind online product donation platform launched in 2021. 

Cradles to Crayons takes a three-pronged approach to mitigating Clothing Insecurity: 

In-person Engagement—through tens of thousands of children and adults volunteering at our Giving Factory warehouses to sort and package high volumes of new and like-new donations from our communities for our Service Partners to distribute to the children they serve. 
Online Product Donations—Giving Factory Direct matches product donors directly to children who need the items they have to donate. GFD is currently available in a growing number of communities as we expand our reach nationally. 
Advocacy and Awareness—Cradles to Crayons is uniquely positioned to raise Clothing Insecurity as a national issue through awareness campaigns, data/evaluation, and legislative outreach.  

Cradles to Crayons has earned the highest possible rating from Charity Navigator since 2009. Only 2% of charities nationwide have received this distinction. C2C has a budget of $20M for FY25. 

POSITION OVERVIEW:

Cradles to Crayons is a leader in collaboration, building partnerships and raising awareness about the importance of essential items for families in need. We collaborate with a network of over 100 Service Partner organizations located across the Commonwealth and provide them with high quality, individually tailored items for children from birth through the age 12. This network of Service Partners includes schools, hospitals, head start programs, homeless shelters, community centers, early intervention programs and more.

The Partner Relations Associate role is based in our Giving Factory and facilitates the distribution of our essentials to partner organization. The person in this role is responsible for building relationships with our partner account holders, managing partner orders, and providing excellent customer service within this network of Service Partners.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Model and lead a positive “One Cradles” culture, underpinned by Cradles’ Cultural Values and related behaviors

Customer Service

Provide excellent customer service to Service Partners by greeting them upon arrival, locating completed orders, assisting in getting orders to the point of transportation, and offering assistance with donation loading
Ensure quality correspondence with Service Partner account holders regarding their orders, accounts, partnership questions, and more through the partner relations email inbox and phone line.
Provide technical support to partners using the online ordering system aka “the portal”
Assist Account Holders going through the application process including creating new accounts and reactivating existing accounts in the database.
Lead new partner onboarding via partner orientations, trainings, and more; provide one-on-one support to new account holders. Update Account Holder training materials as needed
In collaboration with Partner Relations Manager and Operations Director, manage item availability in the “partner portal” 
Ensure that all guidelines and contract standards are executed; ensure that all paperwork and contracts are current and effectively managed.

Operations

Work collaboratively with Production Team to prepare orders for fulfillment each week
Oversee the daily distribution of orders and coordinate pickups with Partner account holders
Supervise our expedited Emergency Order fulfillment and distribution
Ensure data integrity by:

Closing out orders in the online database as they are picked up
Accurately recording any items that are either cancelled or added at the time of pick-up
Reviewing and maintaining accurate account holder information


Assist with special