Senior Project Director (Contingent)

Company Description

EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT CENTER (EDC)

EDC is one of the world’s leading nonprofit research and development firms. EDC designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide. Collaborating with both public and private partners, we strive for a world where all people are empowered to live healthy, productive lives.

EDC’s approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion is grounded in EDC’s commitment to respect the dignity of each individual. EDC has a commitment to promoting equity and access to high quality education and health services that contribute to thriving communities where people from diverse backgrounds learn, live, and work together. EDC expresses its commitment to increasing equity through its strategies, services and products, which contribute to building capacity and transforming lives.

Job Description

*Strong Candidate Identified*

With a commitment to addressing disparities and ensuring equity, the Early Childhood Portfolio promotes the overall health, development, and early learning of children—from before birth throughout childhood. Our work informs the field, supports families and caregivers, builds the capacity of organizations and people, and advances effective policy.

The Early Childhood Portfolio within EDC’s U.S. Division is hiring a Senior Project Director for a national training and technical assistance center that will support the coordination of early childhood systems at the state and territory level. This is a dynamic opportunity for someone with strong early childhood and state agency experience to help build the capacity of early childhood professionals across the country and support the development and enhancement of high-quality early childhood programs and services nationwide. This position will report to the Director of the Early Childhood Portfolio

You will:  

This position will fulfill project director responsibilities for a large, high-impact early childhood training and technical assistance project along with other related project work including supervision of project team members, coordination of the budget, timeline, and workplan of the project, federal reporting and oversight of training and technical assistance provision and quality. This position will regularly interact with national constituents receiving training and technical assistance services and will collaborate with other national capacity-building projects to align efforts and maximize the funders investment. This position will engage directly with the funder, reporting on the successful delivery of high-quality services, ensuring timelines are met, and responding to any urgent and emergent needs. Position is contingent based on funding.

• Be responsible for programmatic/technical success as well as for administrative/business/financial viability of the project. This includes daily operations, project workplans, contracts, invoices and technical requirements.
• Collaborate closely with the funder, colleagues, partners, and project teams to lead, develop, and manage TA activities.
• Approve plans, set priorities, and strategies; evaluate progress; explain and report variances from strategic plans
• Determine resource needs and negotiate resource allocation issues; secure consensus about priorities and competing project/workload demands
• Offer senior-level technical content support in early childhood systems priority topics
• Present project progress and/or results in public fora and/or publications
• Generate additional work for EDC through business development efforts

Qualifications

Education:  

• Master’s degree or equivalent combination of training & experience in a related discipline, preferably in early childhood education

Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years experience in early childhood education and systems building, with 4–6 years state agency experience overseeing complex project management requiring budget responsibility and staff supervision
• Demonstrable leadership skills.
• Excellent analytical skills and aptitude for details
• Nationally known in field of expertise

Preferred Education, Skills & Experience:

• Experience working to advance cross-sector collaboration and systems transformation for young children and their families

Additional Information

EDC is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to enhancing the diversity of its workforce and ensuring an equitable and highly inclusive work environment. EDC is a smoke-free workplace, and offers a supportive work environment, competitive salary, and excellent benefits. Women, mi