Director of College Partnerships – West – Western College Partnerships

Job Description

Director, College Partnerships (West) | KIPP Foundation

The Tone:
This is a Director-level role at KIPP Foundation, covering the Western portfolio (California and Colorado + surrounding states). KIPP Foundation is dedicated to significantly increasing the number of KIPP alumni who successfully graduate from college. This position is vital for identifying, cultivating, and formalizing strategic partnerships with colleges and universities, ensuring KIPP alumni enroll and persist in institutions aligned with their aspirations and needs. The role demands an individual who excels at building and maintaining relationships, driving ambitious goals through strong communication and autonomous yet collaborative work.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Type: Full-time
• Location: Remote, Western portfolio (California, Colorado, and surrounding states)

• Team: College Advancement and Partnerships team, reporting to the VP of College Partnerships
• Mission: Increase the number of KIPP alum who graduate from college by building and maintaining strategic university partnerships to support their enrollment and persistence.

What You’ll Actually Do
• Build and Expand Partnerships: Identify, cultivate, and formalize a diverse portfolio of university partnerships, including national universities, regional institutions, HBCUs, and HSIs, to boost college enrollment and completion for KIPP students and alumni. This includes fortifying existing relationships, reactivating dormant ones, and establishing new collaborations.
• Negotiate and Manage Agreements: Develop, negotiate, and finalize Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) that define clear commitments and measurable, symbiotic goals, ensuring ongoing adherence to agreements and revising them as needed to align with evolving outcomes and needs.
• Integrate with Student Support: Partner closely with the national College Advancement Team and regional KIPP Forward teams to effectively integrate established partnerships into student advising and college match strategies, aligning with students’ aspirations and needs.
• Foster Collective Success: Exchange work and share best practices with other Directors of College Partnerships, contributing to team cohesion, the achievement of ambitious collective goals, and stronger overall performance.
• Advance Strategic Knowledge: Strengthen the organization’s institutional memory regarding college partner strategies, plans, successes, and challenges, and actively support the codification of best practices to inform future initiatives and decision-making.

The Must-Haves
• Background: This is a Director-level role focused on building and managing college partnerships, requiring a Bachelor’s Degree. Candidates must have prior experience working with first-generation college students and/or students navigating economic barriers.
• Experience: Possess 7 or more years building and managing a portfolio of partnerships, with a preference for experience with colleges/universities or charter schools across a multi-state territory. This includes at least 2 years building and maintaining MOUs or similar institutional agreements. Demonstrated experience using data to identify trends, inform strategic decisions, and drive desired outcomes is also required, alongside a strong record of success in setting and achieving ambitious goals. Experience working cross-functionally with diverse stakeholders to implement initiatives and reach objectives is essential.
• Skills: Core skills include exceptional partnership and alliance building to generate investment and commitments, stellar and compelling written and oral communication to tailor messaging for various audiences, effective collaboration for developing successful working relationships with diverse constituents, strong self-management to achieve ambitious goals through data-informed decision-making, and robust problem-solving abilities to address root causes and anticipate risks.