Job Description:

THE OPPORTUNITY

About the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to identify teens with exceptional artistic and literary talent and present their remarkable work to the world through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Awards give students opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication, and scholarships. You can learn more about the Alliance and the Scholastic Awards on our website.

About the Role

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers seeks a Senior Manager, Program Strategy. Partnering closely with the Deputy Director for Programs & Operations, this role will develop and execute overall programmatic strategies for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards—the largest, longest-running, and most prestigious recognition program for creative teens.

This role  serves as a key leader within the larger Programs and Operations teams,  and is responsible for establishing mission-driven project management roadmaps, developing and maintaining tools and processes necessary for project implementation, and supporting nuanced collaboration across multiple teams to ensure project benchmarks are met. The Senior Manager collaborates closely with senior leadership to help set multi-year goals that are both programmatic and operational, designed to advance the Alliance’s mission, grow the Scholastic Awards, and ensure stability. This goal-setting work includes identifying quantitative metrics and strategically using data to measure performance and inform programmatic decision-making.

The Senior Manager, Program Strategy directly manages the Program Communications team and works closely alongside the Technology team—the two teams most directly responsible for the public-facing experience of the 100k+ teens, as well as their educators and supporting partner organizations, participating in the annual Scholastic Awards cycle. To this end, the Senior Manager serves as the lead business owner of the Scholastic Awards Portal, (“the Portal”) a bespoke online submission platform. As the lead business owner, the Senior Manager oversees translating programmatic needs to the Technology team and external software developers, and ensuring technology is working in service of the Alliance's mission. Further, the Senior Manager ensures that public facing communications and constituent support systems are clear, consistent, and appropriately scoped to ensure the highest quality experience for all Scholastic Awards participants.

The Senior Manager will be a strong systems-thinker and solutions-oriented project manager, capable of creating order amidst complexity. They understand the connections among technology, operations, and programmatic success, and are invested in developing quantitative benchmarks to evaluate that success. They are a good listener who is able to understand, internalize, and balance the unique operational needs of various teams and colleagues, while also being comfortable taking on a decision-making role in order to move projects forward and to completion. Their work ensures that a vast community of creative teenagers has a positive and affirming experience when participating in the Scholastic Awards.

This is a full-time, hybrid position based in New York City; specific in-office/remote schedule is flexible, and can be determined collaboratively with supervisor input. Standard in-person and virtual office hours are 9:30 am – 5:30 pm ET with occasional evening and weekend work. Some travel is required.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership

• Collaborate with the Executive Director, Deputy Director for Programs & Operations, and the Associate Director, Regional Awards to set overall programmatic strategies for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

• Serve as a thought partner, advisor, and collaborator for the entire Programs team, particularly the Regional Awards team and the Adjudications team

• Serve as lead project manager for any project that involves coordination of multiple teams (e.g., finalizing Awards, preparing announcements); create project management systems and timelines that ensure all contributors are working in lockstep

• Partner with Alliance senior leadership and the Senior Technology Product Manager to establish a multi-year technology plan for the Portal; monitor the implementation of the plan and provide feedback and progress reports to senior leadership

• In all interactions with external technology consultants and vendors, lead and serve as the final decision-maker of a cohort of Alliance t