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We are seeking a Children’s Funding Coordinator to join our small team leading the charge to increase social-economic mobility in Poughkeepsie. Children’s Cabinets are a collective impact model that reimagines youth development systems through cross-sector collaboration that centers youth and families’ needs across education, economic, health, the built environment, and broader community context. 


In Spring 2024 the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet launched its Cradle to Career Continuum, fully activating Phase I of our 10-year Strategic Plan. We are guided by our Northstar, that by 2033 over 5,000 City of Poughkeepsie young people and their families will be connected annually to transformative cradle-to-career opportunities that place them on pathways to postsecondary completion and socioeconomic mobility. In order to achieve this goal, the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet is working across institutions to understand federal, state and local funding streams and how they can be most effectively leveraged for youth outcomes. We have been working closely with the Children’s Funding Project and created a 2019 Fiscal Map of all resources committed to youth programs in Poughkeepsie and are currently finalizing a cost model for out-of-school time programs.


About the Opportunity:

 The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet is seeking a relationship-oriented, dynamic, self-starter to join our team as a full time Children’s Funding Coordinator to advance sustainable and equitable funding for children and youth. In this role, you will coordinate and align people, data, and money around common goals for children and youth in Poughkeepsie, leverage research, relationship management, and project management skills. This role has an explicit focus on advancing sustainable and equitable funding for children and youth, and will be responsible for helping the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and community partners answer the following three questions: (1) How much are we (as a community) investing in our priorities for children and youth? (2) What is the true cost of investing in our priorities for children and youth? and (3) How can we fill the gap between current investment and the true cost?

Responsibilities:

  • Maintain efficient communication between the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and local government, school districts, community partners and advocacy organizations, particularly in supporting the Poughkeepsie Promise City Initiative. 

  • Guided by the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet established strategic plan, facilitate meetings and decision-making with community partners and local budget holders to make progress towards their strategic public finance goals

  • Build and maintain relationships with national, state, and local partners to stay up-to-date on strategic public finance best practices and lessons learned from across the country

  • Position the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet as a leader in strategic public finance for children and youth by joining a growing national network of strategic public finance experts who are building local capacity and expertise within their states and communities

  • Lead the completion and maintenance of a fiscal map, which will track, map, and analyze public and private funding in children and youth programs and services in Poughkeepsie

  • Estimate true costs of designing and implementing child and youth programming, while learning methods such as cost modeling and/or cost estimation

  • Identify new and emerging funding sources in collaboration with local and national experts to help fill the gap between current investments in children and youth and the actual cost of achieving state/community goals

  • Develop and execute the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet’s capacity-building plan for growing local expertise in strategic finance planning


Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in nonprofit management, education, public administration or related and 3-5 years experience in youth & family focused direct-service work or public polic;y

  • OR associates degree plus a minimum of 7 years experience in youth & family focused direct-service work or public policy;


Candidates with direct-service experience are strongly encouraged to apply (e.g. teaching, social work, college & career counseling, youth mentoring, childcare, after-school and summer programming, parent & youth advocacy & organizing)


  •  Demonstrated experience collecting, tracking, and organizing information using Microsoft Word, Excel, or other software programs with attention to quality and detail in ensuring accuracy of information (e.g. childcare provider collecting and ensuring accuracy and communication of student allergies; after-school program provider using Excel to collect, track, and organize student pick-up information)

  • Demonstrated experience analyzing and using data to inform priorities and decision-making (e.g. teacher using student data to make instructional decisions in order to drive student learning goals; summer programming provider using family survey data to inform future program offerings)

  • Demonstrated experience effectively coordinating cross-sector collaboration (e.g. social worker overseeing caseloads of families and coordinating relevant services; youth mentor collaborating with teachers, parents, and mentees on building a plan for supporting development and growth)

  • Demonstrated experience managing projects to completion (e.g. counselor supporting students in setting and achieving their college/career goals over their academic career; parent organizer supporting parent advocates in the successful launch of a PTA at their community’s school)

  • Demonstrates balance of the urgency of our mission and results-orientation with compassion and grace to colleagues and partners.

  • Demonstrated comfort working in communities with high concentrations of poverty and success in elevating and highlighting community joy, strengths, and assets. 

  • Strong intercultural communication skills, verbal, non-verbal and written, with a demonstrated ability to communicate complex information in a clear and concise manner to multiple audiences.

Experience with or desire to learn:

  • Excel, Power BI, Tableau

  • Cleaning and summarizing data

  • Tagging, coding, organizing, and visualizing data

  • Survey design and other techniques for gathering stakeholder input

  • Researching budgetary documents and related policy resources

  • Group Facilitation Skills 

Additional, preferred qualifications: 

  • Bilingual in spoken and written English and Spanish; 

  • Experience working with the collective impact model;


Experienced, qualified applicants that do not meet 100% of listed qualifications, skills, or experience are encouraged to apply. 


Location: Poughkeepsie, NY: Hybrid position which requires 3 days per week in our Poughkeepsie, NY office. May include national travel 1-2 times per year.  


Compensation: The annual salary is $68,000. Comprehensive benefit package includes medical, dental, vision and generous PTO. The first 18-months of this role will include comprehensive professional development and training with our national partner, the Children’s Funding Project. 


Application Deadline: Resumes will be accepted through August 8, 2024. Please note that first round interviews will be scheduled the week of August 12th;  in-person interviews will be scheduled the week of August 19th; finalists will be asked to complete a short performance task due on August 27th. Expected start day is the first week of October.


To Apply:

Please email a cover letter and your resume in two separate files to jobs@pkchildren.org. A cover letter is required for consideration and should address your specific interest in the position and outline skills and lived experiences that fit the role.


The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as established by applicable law. We seek to build a diverse staff representative of the communities we serve. 

 


 





City of Poughkeepsie Mayor Yvonne Flowers, Children's Cabinet Leadership Council Co-Chair, speaks with students during a visit to Morse Elementary School for their annual Black History Month Event.

March 10, 2024 - The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet has joined the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network and is now part of a national movement to help every child succeed in school and in life, regardless of race, ethnicity, zip code or circumstance. 

Poughkeepsie is now one of over 70 communities across the country that StriveTogether partners with to close gaps and create opportunities across education, health, housing and more. The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet facilitates effective collaboration, supports the use of data to make decisions, and aligns resources and efforts toward effective solutions — all aimed at putting more young people on the path to economic mobility.

“The Children’s Cabinet is invigorated by the vote of confidence from the StriveTogether network. Membership will allow the Children’s Cabinet to  leverage StriveTogether’s nationally proven strategies to reduce silos of work and build equitable, collaborative local processes to collectively embrace community accountability and solutions to improve outcomes for our youth,” shared Jill Gomez, Executive Director of the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet. 

Rob Watson, Board Chair of the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, said “[t]his is a monumental achievement for the entire City of Poughkeepsie community. Since the launch of the Cabinet, we have been laser-focused on bringing together leaders and institutions across sectors to establish a cradle-to-career system of opportunities for young people and families that eliminates intergenerational poverty and creates pathways to socioeconomic mobility. Joining the StriveTogether network will allow us to learn from the best-in-class innovations developed by our peers  across the nation and elevate our city’s profile on the national stage. Poughkeepsie is truly on the rise.” 

The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet was formed in early 2020, an outcome of the gathering of over 20 civic leaders at Harvard University to discuss longstanding issues of educational disparities and intergenerational poverty that impact the lives of children, youth, and families in Poughkeepsie. At the conclusion of the summit, a first-of-its-kind partnership and social compact was formed between the city government, public school system and key public and private anchor institutions. Today, the Mayor of Poughkeepsie, Yvonne Flowers and the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Eric Rosser, continue to co-chair the Children Cabinet’s Leadership Council, comprised of Poughkeepsie cross-sector leaders, to champion collaborative efforts towards the Children Cabinet’s Northstar: that by 2033, 5,000 youth and their families will be engaged in cradle-to-career opportunities that create pathways to social mobility. 

“We refuse to settle for a world where a child’s potential is dictated by the conditions into which they are born,” said StriveTogether CEO and President Jennifer Blatz. “Across the country, communities in the Cradle to Career Network are demonstrating that you can get better results for kids when you unite around a common vision and use data effectively. We are excited to welcome The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet  into the Network.”

To join the Cradle to Career Network, communities complete an assessment of their civic infrastructure development. This process measures progress against a continuum of quality benchmarks, known as the StriveTogether Theory of Action™. This proven framework helps communities align resources to get better and more equitable outcomes for youth. 

In its application to the StriveTogether Network, the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet detailed its efforts to date, particularly in creating the conditions for investment in collaborative community initiatives serving youth. For example,  the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet was awarded a $175,000 grant from The Wallace Foundation to improve access to out-of-school time programs for adolescents in the City of Poughkeepsie. The grant supports an in-depth strategic financing project to develop a model to determine the true cost of serving 5,000 youth in Poughkeepsie. It also supports a collaborative year-long program with five leading out-of-school time program providers ( The Art Effect; Boys & Girls Club of Poughkeepsie; Community Matters 2;  Family Services; and Nubian Directions II)  to engage local adolescent voice in exploring barriers to extended learning, developing a model for city-wide youth engagement, and supporting students in leading the development of a public art piece, completed by an artist selected by the students.

Also of note,  in November, the US Department of Education awarded a $2.5 million, five-year Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) grant to the Poughkeepsie City School District (PCSD). The award is one of the largest federal grants ever secured by PCSD and will be used to scale PCSD’s Community Schools Initiative across its five elementary schools specifically increasing use of national evidence-based programs proven to improve outcomes for youth, including the BASICS, City Connects, EveryDay Labs, and Ampact high-dosage tutoring AmeriCorps programs.

 The Children’s Cabinet was an integral partner to the school district in securing this grant, by convening a working group with school district leadership to develop the grant proposal and providing technical support and partnership to the school district grant writer. As future high-leverage funding opportunities become available, the Children’s Cabinet will continue to work closely with the City of Poughkeepsie, School District, and nonprofit partners to identify the ways we collectively can create strong programs for our youth.   

Over the next year, the Children’s Cabinet will continue to implement Phase I of its ten-year Strategic Plan, particularly launching an initial cohort of Cradle-to-Career Pipeline partners to develop collaborative processes, quality standards, and data sharing. Every step of the work is in furtherance of its mission to connect all members of the Poughkeepsie community who support children in order to create and coordinate a cradle-to-career system of services, supports and opportunities that ensures every child can thrive in Poughkeepsie regardless of race, ethnicity, poverty or circumstance. 

The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet board of directors welcomes inaugural Executive Director Jill Roche Gomez.

[Left to right: City of Poughkeepsie Mayor Marc Nelson; Poughkeepsie City School District Superintendent Dr. Eric Jay Rosser; Dutchess County Executive William F.X. O’Neil; Jill Roche Gomez; Rob Watson Jr.; Sally Cross; Andrea Reynolds]

October 19, 2023

Poughkeepsie, NY: The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet is pleased to announce the appointment of Jill Roche Gomez as the nonprofit organization’s inaugural Executive Director.

Gomez is a seasoned nonprofit leader with more than 15 years of experience working with vulnerable youth. Most recently, Gomez served for six years as Executive Director of the Hunts Point Alliance for Children (HPAC) in the South Bronx, where she led the development of the organization’s collaborative work to raise education outcomes for all neighborhood children with a focus on education equity, family-centered program design, and community building.

Gomez received her JD from the University of Pittsburgh and holds a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Law and Human Rights from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

“Jill is a results-oriented, cross-sector leader who knows what it takes to improve youth outcomes for an entire community,” said Children’s Cabinet board chair Rob Watson Jr. “As Executive Director, her collaborative leadership style, operational expertise, and high standards will be invaluable as the Children’s Cabinet begins the critical work of building a comprehensive cradle-to-career system of opportunities for and with Poughkeepsie’s youth and families in partnership with local direct service providers, public schools, government institutions, philanthropy and community stakeholders.”

“This is such an exciting time for the Children’s Cabinet. It is inspiring to see how the Poughkeepsie community has unified around a common understanding of how a cradle-to-career system of support can fundamentally improve the life trajectories of young people,” said Gomez. “I could not be more thrilled to begin working with the vibrant, passionate network of partners and stakeholders in Poughkeepsie who have embraced this vision and are working hard every day to make it a reality.”

Gomez’s hiring comes as the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet begins the implementation of its strategic plan, recently completed with the support of the William Julius Wilson Institute at Harlem Children’s Zone (the internationally-renowned model for cradle-to-career innovation).

The Cabinet also recently received a $175,000 grant from The Wallace Foundation, one of the nation’s largest philanthropies. The funding is being used to support a first-of-its-kind partnership among Poughkeepsie direct service providers The Art Effect, Boys & Girls Club, Community Matters 2, and Family Services. The four organizations are working with the Cabinet to improve access to out-of-school time programming for Poughkeepsie youth ages 11-19.

The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet was launched in February 2020 as a coordinated effort among city leaders to develop a cradle-to-career agenda and system of opportunities. The Cabinet’s Leadership Council is co-chaired by City of Poughkeepsie Mayor Marc Nelson and Dr. Eric Jay Rosser, Superintendent of the Poughkeepsie City School District. The Leadership Council is comprised of representatives from across sectors, including nonprofits, local government, schools, higher education, faith-based organizations, philanthropy, business and healthcare. The Cabinet has received funding support from Dutchess County and the City of Poughkeepsie, local philanthropy, corporate and individual donors.

“In just over three years, the Children’s Cabinet has become an essential forum for our community to come together to find solutions on behalf of Poughkeepsie’s youth,” said Mayor Nelson. “With our strategic plan, we are now channeling those conversations into action. Supporting this type of collective action is one of the best returns on investment we can make as a city. It is a vital part of the solution as we work to continue improving services for Poughkeepsie’s youth as the historic infusion of federal COVID relief dollars ends next year.”

“The Children’s Cabinet is an essential partner for the Poughkeepsie City School District. By taking a school, home and community approach, we have been able to look closely at the many out-of-school factors that impact success in the classroom and in life,” said Dr. Rosser. “By implementing the partnerships and innovations emerging from the Cabinet, both inside and outside of our schools, this approach is already delivering benefits for Poughkeepsie’s children and promises to only accelerate with the hiring of Jill.”

All of the Cabinet’s work is guided by its “North Star” vision that — by 2033 — over 5,000 City of Poughkeepsie young people and their families will be connected annually to transformative cradle-to-career opportunities that place them on pathways to postsecondary completion and socioeconomic mobility.
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