Teach For America

Coordinator, Alumni Affairs

Position Summary

The Teach For America Houston alumni team seeks to maximize the reach and impact of the alumni movement by connecting alumni to each other, to great opportunities, and to the work of Teach For America. There are currently over 500 alumni located in the Houston Area and that number is positioned to grow immensely with our 2010 growth plan. Houston has an incredible alumni impact with alumni leaders represented in the all sectors as well as a very engaged alumni base with over 48% of our alumni giving either time or money to Teach For America in fiscal year 2009.

The coordinator of alumni affairs will play a critical role in supporting the regional alumni team to ensure we meet our ambitious alumni goals. The coordinator of alumni affairs will report directly to the director of alumni affairs. Teach For America seeks individuals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds to apply for the position.

Founded in 1991, Teach For America - Houston has more than 420 corps members reaching nearly 30,000 students in five school districts across the metro area. Nearly 600 alumni are working from all sectors to close the achievement gap in the area. The region is supported by a funding base of approximately $7 million. Twenty-nine regional staff members work to train and support corps members, strengthen partnerships with local schools and districts, foster the leadership of local alumni, and continue to grow the regional funding base to ensure that Teach For America - Houston can have an even greater impact. By 2010, the region aims to support a corps of 500 teachers, allowing the region to affect the educational outcomes of more than 41,000 students every year.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Managing Projects (40%)
• Assisting the director of alumni affairs in tracking the overall alumni engagement appeal strategy to ensure the region remains on track to reach the 48% engagement goal; working with regional development team to learn and implement best practices for donor retention and acquisition; recruit, manage and follow-up with alumni donors of time
• Managing the 2nd year corps member gift campaign to ensure that participation and giving goals are met
• Identifying strategy and marketing LEE (Leadership for Educational Equity) website, encouraging membership and updating with timely regional content and information
• Assisting with the annual alumni survey by engaging in survey data analysis
• Assisting Corps Area Representatives (CARs) in promoting engagement activities and events to young alumni
• Managing the data tracking and coordinating the communication with the CARs to ensure that the region is on track to meeting its engagement goals
• Serving as the liaison with the national engagement team for the CAR program and ensuring that the Houston region CARs meet their goals in regards to alumni engagement

Communication/Outreach (30%)
• Conducting thorough research on top alumni prospects and managing the process of contacting alumni all the way through scheduling and securing a meeting
• Managing the creation and development of our monthly alumni e-newsletter. This includes compiling regional and national stories and opportunities and uploading and editing content, with the goal of increasing open rates for each issue
• Creating tools and processes for tracking weekly alumni outreach emails
• Helping execute promotional strategies to boost membership on Leadership for Educational Equity, our sister organization that focuses on advancing alumni interest in political leadership
• Using alumni data to develop compelling region-specific marketing materials for internal and external audiences
• Drafting high quality written communications and professionally responding to alumni with a high level of customer service
• Managing major communications with alumni, including designing e-invites for community events and managing regional marketing resources for consistency
• Cultivating relationships with second year corps members to support them as they transition into the alumni movement

Event Logistics (15%)
• Supporting the design and coordinating the logistics for a calendar of events related to the School Leadership, Political Leadership, and Alumni Engagement Initiatives, in order to build a more robust alumni network in Houston
• Assisting the director of alumni affairs in managing special event projects such as regional summits
• Managing the recruitment and coordination of alumni volunteers for special events

Data Management (10%)
• Working with the director of alumni affairs to develop, implement, and maintain tracking systems for acquiring and managing alumni information and data
• Responding to information and data requests from other internal teams
• Applying knowledge to an internal data management system to track communications with alumni, record alumni participation in events and identify alumni interests

Systems & Operations (5%)
• Engaging in the Cross-Functional Affairs Team, a regional sub-team comprised of the support staff members in the office, who work to ensure that office operations, staff culture, and collaboration across program, district strategy, alumni, talent recruitment, development, and operations teams are optimized
• Tracking the alumni affairs team budget to ensure the team remains under budget
• Managing the Houston alumni team calendar
• Managing the director of alumni affairs’ calendar
• Sending alumni outreach emails for director of alumni affairs
• Uploading and updating TFANet with alumni affairs team news and opportunities

Candidate Profile and Experience Prerequisites

Skills- demonstrated experience:
• utilizing excellent written and verbal communication skills
• working with a high level of personal responsibility and organization
• operating effectively, and with a sense of possibility, in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
• using strategic-thinking, organizational, and operational skills
• managing projects to reach and exceed ambitious goals

Technical Skills
• Intermediate proficiency in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Education and Professional Experience
• Bachelor’s degree required
• 1-2 years of work experience preferred
• Teach For America experience highly preferred

Benefits and Salary

Salary for this position is competitive and depends on prior experience. In addition, a comprehensive benefits package is included.

Anti-Discrimination Policy and Commitment to Diversity

Teach For America seeks individuals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds to apply for this position. We are committed to maximizing the diversity of our organization, as we want to engage all those who can contribute to this effort.

Additional Requirments / Information

Job Capacity:	Employee (full-time)
Minimum Education Level:	See Job Description
Visa Sponsorship:	No
Related Industries:	Professional Services

Become part of a force for change.

Teach For America is the national corps that calls upon outstanding and diverse recent college graduates to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in ensuring that all our nation’s children have an equal chance in life. Since 1989, 7000 corps members in 16 geographic areas have positively impacted students and communities while gaining the insight, network, skills and credibility to effect change after their two-year commitment.

THE CHALLENGE
Children growing up in urban areas and remote rural regions often face tremendous socio-economic challenges. Public schools are generally not set up to compensate for these challenges. The result is that children growing up in low-income communities are seven times less likely to graduate from college than children in high-income areas.

With fewer educational prospects come fewer life prospects.

IMMEDIATE IMPACT
Teach For America selects a committed, outstanding corps of diverse college graduates who will set ambitious goals for their students and work proactively and relentlessly to meet these goals. Corps members are trained to develop the leadership skills they have demonstrated and to apply them in the classroom, resulting in better educational and life prospects for the students they teach.

The 2001 corps has an average GPA of 3.5 and 35% of the corps are people of color. 86% of corps members held at least one leadership position as undergraduates.

Corps members receive intensive training in the approaches used by successful teachers in under-resourced communities and are supported at the regional and national levels throughout their commitment

96% of principals surveyed rated corps members as "advantageous" to their schools, with the majority rating them "strongly advantageous" (Kane, Parsons, and Associates, 1999).

LONG TERM CHANGE
Teach For America alumni form a network of successful, informed leaders who have insight into the changes needed to improve life prospects in under-resourced areas, and who work towards these changes through all sectors of society.

Approximately 60 % of alumni remain in the field of education, as teachers, school and district administrators, or founders of innovative new schools and programs.

Another 40% of alumni work in fields such as medicine, business, politics, journalism, and law, using their status as leaders and the insight and credibility they gained in the corps to effect change.

All alumni come out of their Teach For America experience positioned for success. Graduate schools and employers value the concrete, transferable skills gained by corps members.

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