Program Director

Groundwork Hudson Valley is a 501c3 non-profit organization committed to “changing places and changing lives” in the lower Hudson Valley. Our mission is to create sustainable environmental change in urban neighborhoods through community-based partnerships that promote equity, empowerment, and economic opportunity. Program areas include community resilience, sustainability education, and youth leadership development. Groundwork partners with neighborhood residents, private and non-profit partners, local businesses, and government officials to identify environmental improvements that will advance equitable, healthy, vibrant communities and empower the next generation of community leaders.

The Program Director (PD) will be responsible for overseeing all grants and program deliverables, and supervising GWHV’s staff in its three program areas: Sustainability Education, Community Resilience, and Youth Development.

Responsibilities

This role has three main areas of responsibility.

1. Grant management / project delivery – the PD will be responsible for ensuring that we do the work we’ve promised to do, within budget, and within available staff resources from inception to final signoff. This may include negotiating terms with the funder or partners, contract review, work planning, and reporting. It requires both attention to detail and resilience in the face of challenges.

a. Budgeting new grants – support the Development team in preparing grant proposal budgets and work plans that reflect realistic goals, timelines, and staff efforts.

b. Work planning – support the translation of a new grant contract into a practical, achievable work flow across relevant program areas with clearly defined objectives, tasks, and performance measures.

c. Time allocation and tracking – lead the staffing of all new and ongoing projects, staff time projections and ongoing tracking to ensure timely and within-budget delivery of project milestones.

d. Reporting – track reporting deadlines and write and/or edit and submit reports to funders.

e. Subcontracting – recruit subcontractors and finalize subcontractor agreements.

2. Program management – the PD will oversee our three program pillars, which requires a close understanding of the team capacity, objectives, financials, funders, and day to day work undertaken in these areas.

a. Lead the operations of each program area through supervision and guidance to program managers.

b. Lead the recruitment, hiring, and orientation of program staff.

c. Line manage three direct reports and provide indirect oversight of junior program staff.

d. Oversee and facilitate cross-program and cross-department collaboration to ensure processes and outcomes are non-duplicative and productive.

e. Ensure program staff have the tools, processes, and platforms they need to conduct their work effectively and efficiently.

f. Enhance the career development of program managers with direct supervision and recommendations for professional development opportunities.

3. Strategic direction – the PD will assist the Executive Director in executing on the 5-Year Strategic Plan.

a. Cultivating and maintaining healthy working relationships with key partners across government, civil society, academia, subcontractors, funders, and the community – in many cases as the primary liaison from GWHV.

b. With senior management, develop a ‘roadmap’ to deliver the 5-year Strategic Plan, reviewing and adapting our organizational goals and priorities and translating these into concrete work plans.

c. With senior management, create and monitor KPIs; ensure baseline, output, and impact data is collected and recorded; support the Development team in creating the narrative around our work.

d. Support the Development & Communications department in grant writing and reporting, including with narrative feedback, budgeting input, and sense-checking timelines and level of effort for proposed tasks

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of grant and/or project management experience – demonstrating your ability to juggle competing demands on organizational time and resources, deliver results to funders, and stay well-organized in the process.
• Experience managing a team. This includes setting performance expectations, engaging staff reports regularly, troubleshooting, and supporting the team to advance their own professional goals.
• Experience engaging with a range of external stakeholders at varying levels of professional seniority, across disciplines, and within culturally diverse communities with sound judgment and respect.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills – you can translate technical ideas for regular people, provide evidence-based analysis to funders and partners, and speak concisely about our work to different audiences.
• Demonstrated progressively increasing responsibility within programmatic and/or leadership roles.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline such as non-profit management, environmental studies/conservation, urban planning, and landscape architecture. Master’s degree a plus.
• Resilience, confidence, humility, and a sense of humor.
• Willingness to work in the GWHV office in Yonkers at least 3 days per week.
• Strong Microsoft and Google Office skills.
• Working familiarity with non-profit funding constraints and opportunities, cycles, and requirements would be a plus.

Compensation

The annual salary range for this position is $85,000-95,000 gross. We provide excellent benefits including 27 days of paid time off, 7 paid sick days, medical and dental insurance, a 401(k) plan with employer contributions, flexible hybrid work environment, and ongoing professional development opportunities.

To Apply

We are hoping to bring the new Program Director on board no later than September 1, 2026. We will begin interviewing on a rolling basis until the right candidate has been found, so please apply early. To apply, email a brief (<1 page) letter of interest and brief (<2 page) resume to ***email_hidden***. Please indicate your availability for an in-person interview and a 9/1 start date within the letter.

Groundwork Hudson Valley is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and does not discriminate in any employer/employee relations based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, national origin, age, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information or any other basis protected by applicable discrimination laws. City of Yonkers residents are strongly encouraged to apply.