About GreenLight Fund
GreenLight Fund is a national nonprofit that partners with communities to create opportunities for individuals and families to move out of poverty by matching identified community needs with proven programs that drive results.
Deeply connected to local communities, we facilitate game-changing collaboration, break down barriers, and build momentum so individuals and communities move forward, especially those historically impacted by systemic racial and economic inequities.
Each year, in each GreenLight site, we focus on identifying one critical, unmet community need and begin to take specific action to make real change. We identify and assess programs with successful track records of meeting a similar need elsewhere and partner with the community to invite in and launch the program with the best local fit. GreenLight makes multi-year, catalytic investments in our portfolio organizations, galvanizes a community of support, and facilitates ongoing collaboration to ensure impact. Our impact increases exponentially as we build a growing portfolio of best-in-class organizations making measurable progress each year across the GreenLight network.
Since its founding in 2004, GreenLight has become a national network of 14 sites and growing, successfully running the selection process and investing in and launching 60+ proven programs that reached close to 750,000 children and families last year. GreenLight sites include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Greater Newark, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and the Twin Cities.
GreenLight Fund is poised for continued growth, with a focus on deepening community impact, growing to new cities, building our learning capacity, building strategic partnerships, and centering equity in all that we do. GreenLight operates with deep commitment to organizational values: Rooted in community; collaborative; committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; dedicated to impact; innovative and continuous learners; and people centered.
To learn more about the GreenLight Fund, please visit www.greenlightfund.org.
The Opportunity
The GreenLight Fund is at a pivotal moment in its evolution. As we expand to 18 cities by 2028, we are activating new pathways to national impact. This includes strengthening our network of sites, cultivating strategic partnerships that align local investments with national movements to alleviate poverty, and advancing organizational learning to deepen site-level outcomes and contribute to the broader field—all in service of scaling what works.
The Vice President of National Impact (VPNI) will serve as a senior leader guiding this area of work. In close partnership with the CEO, Management Team, and Board, the VPNI will help chart and execute GreenLight’s approach to influence and grow its impact across the country.
Position Overview
Reporting directly to the CEO, the Vice President of National Impact will lead GreenLight’s National Impact Team—one of the organization's Centers of Excellence—to drive innovation, learning, and connection across our national network. This role is responsible for advancing the design and effectiveness of GreenLight’s model (our "Method"), fostering network-wide learning and sharing of best practices, and strengthening national partnerships that elevate our collective work.
The VPNI will collaborate closely across GreenLight’s national and site teams, ensuring that the organization's local roots inform—and are informed by—our national strategy and are rooted in our commitment to racial equity. As a senior leader and part of the Management Team, the VPNI is responsible for shaping strategy, ensuring execution, fostering effective cross-center collaboration, delivering high-quality site and functional support, and driving overall organizational health and accountability for results.
Key Responsibilities
Innovation & Learning
- Lead organizational efforts to assess GreenLight’s impact in communities, facilitate knowledge-sharing, and identify network-wide learnings.
- Synthesize and elevate learnings externally to position GreenLight as a thought leader in the national racial equity and poverty alleviation conversation.
- Cultivate opportunities to expand GreenLight’s learning to drive ongoing innovation and strengthen the network.
- Steward GreenLight’s Theory of Change as a “living and breathing” framework to ensure it reflects and remains aligned with organizational strategy.
- Design and steward infrastructure for learning, collaboration, and community across sites including building communities of practice and facilitating information flows & emergent insights.
- Oversee annual data collection and analysis to generate insights that inform internal learning and portfolio management, as well as the co-creation of the external Impact Report with the Development & Expansion and Marketing & Communications teams.
Methodology & Pipeline Development
- Lead the development and execution of a national pipeline strategy that meets GreenLight’s current needs and evolves alongside our network’s growth—ensuring a steady, diverse pipeline of high-impact, community-centered solutions.
- Oversee the design, codification, and improvement of the GreenLight Method to enhance effectiveness.
Strategic Partnerships
- Design and implement a strategic partnerships strategy that advances three goals: supporting the success of GreenLight’s portfolio organizations, strengthening the pipeline of GreenLight-ready organizations, and contributing to a stronger, more connected nonprofit and philanthropic ecosystem.
- Build and manage national strategic partnerships that align with GreenLight’s mission and drive impact across communities.
- Engage diverse stakeholders—including nonprofit leaders, funders, and policymakers—to support GreenLight’s national objectives.
- Ensure national partnerships generate value across the GreenLight network—enhancing visibility, unlocking resources, and informing both local and national impact.
Organizational Leadership
- Lead the National Impact team to ensure work is in alignment with organizational goals, integrated into operations that lead to high organizational effectiveness, and leverages the individual and collective talent of the team.
- Serve as a member of the Management Team to help make and execute key organizational decisions that ensure the fiscal, cultural, and strategic health of the organization, embody GreenLight Fund’s commitment to racial equity, and advance the mission and vision of the organization.
- Actively participate in Leadership Team spaces to ensure organizational decisions incorporate multiple levels of organizational feedback and are executed in ways that align with organizational values.
Candidate Profile
While no one candidate will possess every quality outlined for this position, the successful candidate will bring many of the following professional qualifications and leadership attributes:
Leadership Characteristics
- A collaborative leader with the ability to build consensus while maintaining momentum on strategic priorities.
- High emotional intelligence (EQ) with the ability to balance hierarchical structures and bottom-up innovation.
- Proven commitment to racial equity and deep understanding of how systems of oppression have affected communities experiencing poverty.
- A learner and a doer—able to navigate complexity while fostering fresh perspectives.
- Comfort with naming and sharing nuanced lessons, including "failures" or imperfect outcomes.
Key Skills
- Strategic external relationship management—adept at engaging and leveraging partnerships to advance GreenLight’s mission.
- Systems thinking to connect tools, data, learning, strategy, and implementation.
- Strong facilitator—skilled in guiding small and large groups toward meaningful dialogue and actionable insights.
- Fluency not only in measurement and evaluation but also in sensemaking, storytelling, and surfacing qualitative insights from across the network.
- A strong grasp of how qualitative and quantitative insights intersect and inform national strategy.
Professional Experience
- Significant senior or executive leadership experience (10+ years) in national nonprofit, philanthropic, or government organizations.
- Proven track record in leading initiatives to address complex social issues aligned with GreenLight Fund’s mission.
- Deep experience in program replication and model adaptation.
- Experience working with scaling organizations.
- Experience in multi-site organizations is a plus.
Compensation & Benefit
The salary for this position is $190,000. The compensation package includes:
- Health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield (80% paid by GreenLight)
- Dental and Vision insurance through Guardian (80% paid by GreenLight)
- Full coverage of all mental health visits through Blue Cross Blue Shield
- Safe Harbor 401k: GreenLight will match 100% of the first 3% of salary and 50% of the next 2%
- Short and long-term disability and life insurance fully paid by GreenLight
- 11 company-wide holiday closings and 3 floating holidays
- Generous PTO and parental leave
- Up to $75 per month of cell phone reimbursement
- Up to $100 per month of WiFi reimbursement
- Up to $1,500 per year for professional development
- Access to Holisticly (40 Holisticly credits per month)
This position will be based in a current GreenLight Fund city (Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Greater Newark, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and the Twin Cities) and offers the flexibility to work from home or hybrid with the expectation of in-person engagements, including meetings, events, and travel.
GreenLight Fund is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants.
Contact
DSG | Koya has been exclusively retained for this engagement, which is being led by Cassie Scarano and Ariella Pasackow. To apply, please submit a compelling cover letter and resume by filling out our Talent Profile no later than July 7, 2025. We will begin screening applications as soon as materials are received. All inquiries are strictly confidential.
DSG | Koya is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email [email protected]. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.
About DSG | Koya
DSG | Koya, a DSG Global company, is the nation’s premier search firm dedicated to mission-driven leadership. Since its founding in 2004, DSG | Koya has had an exclusive focus on mission-driven clients and was founded on the belief that the right leader can transform an organization and have a deep and measurable impact on our world. DSG | Koya works with nonprofits & NGOs, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.
DSG Global is consistently recognized by Forbes on its top 10 list of “America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms” and is an industry leader in recruiting transformational leaders for a changing world. The firm is deliberately different in its approach, with best-in-class teams who have decades of experience in cultivating inclusive leaders, understanding the dimensions of diversity, and building equitable teams. Learn more about DSG | Koya via the firm's website.