Finance Portfolio Manager, Exceptional Educators
Job Description
About Overdeck Family Foundation
Overdeck Family Foundation (“the Foundation”) was founded in 2011 by John and Laura Overdeck with the goal of providing all children the opportunity to unlock their potential. The Foundation focuses exclusively on enhancing education, funding efforts both inside and outside of school in the areas of early childhood, informal STEM education, and K-9 programs that include supporting educators and student-centered learning environments. Our grantmaking and strategic support focus on unlocking innovation, evidence, and growth opportunities for organizations and researchers that are committed to accelerating key academic and socioemotional outcomes for all children. The Foundation funds both direct impact organizations and ecosystem efforts that clear the path to scale for our grantees and the work that they do.
The Portfolio Manager, Exceptional Educators Position
The Exceptional Educators portfolio within the Foundation focuses on increasing the retention of effective educators in K-9 so that more children have access to teachers who empower them to reach their full potential.
The Foundation is seeking a full-time Portfolio Manager to lead the Exceptional Educators portfolio. Reporting to the Associate Program Director, and managing an Associate Program Officer, the Portfolio Manager will work collaboratively to refine and clarify the investment strategy for the portfolio, build and nurture relationships across the K-9 ecosystem (with a primary focus on empowering educators), and use a scientific method approach to hypothesize and sharpen strategies to support early stage and growth stage ventures to scale, cost effectively and sustainably, to improve academic and socioemotional outcomes for kids. Given the nature of this work, the Portfolio Manager should expect 10-20 percent of this role to include travel for grantee site visits, conferences, and funder meetings.
Visit www.overdeck.org for more information. To learn more about our Exceptional Educators portfolio, visit the websites of some of our partner organizations: Teaching Lab, EdReports.org, Leading Educators, and Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture.
What You’ll Help Us Do:
- Design, monitor, and evolve a portfolio strategy:
- Lead the development of a coherent portfolio strategy, which evolves from setting ambitious portfolio goals that are grounded in the analysis of evolving market opportunities, trends, and gaps in the education and philanthropic landscapes
- Define a clear and differentiated position for Overdeck Family Foundation within the portfolio strategy issue area that is grounded in evidence, research, and efficiency of investment
- Measure, evaluate, and capture lessons from investments to inform strategy iteration and to build strong pattern recognition for how to best provide strategic support to portfolio investments to achieve stated goals
- Propose investments in early and growth stage organizations:
- Identify organizations aligned to the portfolio strategy and conduct rigorous diligence on prospective investments that are grounded in the foundation’s investment criteria
- Form a hypothesis and narrative for each investment to create actionable, written grant recommendations and present these to the Board of Trustees
- Build a balanced portfolio of investments grounded in the potential of each organization to spur innovation, build evidence, and grow to deliver impact while also ensuring that the overall portfolio realizes ecosystem-level impact with minimized risk
- Provide strategic support to grantees:
- Become a credible and valuable partner for grantee organizations, and strategically connect them with supports in four key focus areas: 1) revenue models, 2) cost analysis, 3) impact evaluation, and 4) growth channels
- Manage and prioritize allocation of strategic supports to grantees in service of grantee and portfolio goals, grounded in an understanding of the holistic needs of individual grantees and the portfolio, including direct supports, third-party supports, and portfolio-wide learning experiences
- Serve as a strategic advisor to grantees by developing a strong and trusting partnership—inclusive of providing support, coaching and/or taking on board roles when appropriate—to help grantees understand their organizational needs and achieve their vision for impact
- Influence the field:
- Build momentum for positive change related to the portfolio strategy by proactively developing relationships with influential stakeholders
- Develop and maintain an extensive and diverse network of partnerships across nonprofit, philanthropic, public, and private sectors to advance the mission and goals of the portfolio grantees
- Partner effectively with peer funders to build awareness of the Foundation’s strategy, identify ways to support each other, and elevate promising grantees to attract additional funding
- Create and implement a plan for public engagement and thought leadership that builds awareness of the portfolio strategy and learnings while elevating and amplifying high-performing grantees, including speaking at conferences, hosting and participating in key meetings, and engaging in thought leadership writing
- Manage and Coach Associate Program Officer:
- Build a relationship with the existing Associate Program Officer to establish yourself as a strong manager and mentor while honoring the tenure, knowledge, and expertise they bring to our work
- Support Associate Program Officer to identify a pipeline of prospective investment opportunities and conduct due diligence of those opportunities against Foundation investment criteria
- Collaborate with Associate Program Officer to create their professional development plan; regularly revisit progress on growth by taking an active and supportive coaching role to ensure Associate Program Officer has a clear path to recognize and expand their strengths, while also addressing opportunities to improve
- Support Associate Program Officer to navigate obstacles using effective problem solving, as well as discussing and identifying connections, networks and/or opportunities to advance portfolio or grantee goals
- Engage in joint decision-making around grantmaking, including measurement, reporting, and monitoring targets
Who You Are:
A strategist who is able to pursue the right research to arrive at an evidence-based approach to making investments and supporting grantees. You are analytically natured, curious, and learning oriented. You leverage the scientific method to produce data and evidence that drive strategic decisions around investments and portfolio support. You are also comfortable with ambiguity—confidently exploring your hypotheses without knowing the answer while seeing failure with learning as a path to success.
A strong leader and operator who is able to efficiently make grants and deliver non-monetary support to ventures. You have experience with early stage and growth stage organizations and understand the challenges they face as they clarify and scale their models. You can build deep relationships across grantees, surface their challenges, observe patterns of need, and build and nurture meaningful and efficient supports to help them succeed.
An authentic professional who builds deep and candid relationships with ease. You possess a strong presence and gravitas, knowing how to build a clear narrative when communicating a concept or approach with the right level of specificity to meet the audience. You build trusting relationships internally and externally because you are authentically you and you value candor and kindness in your interactions.
Someone who understands the K-9 education space and policy trends. You understand the K-9 school ecosystem and have developed relationships within that ecosystem. You are familiar with current trends, emerging issues, policy interventions, and innovations focused on maximizing the potential of educators and leaders, as well as understanding product market fit, business/revenue models, and scale and distribution channels. You are able to evaluate an education intervention to understand if it is cost-effective, scalable, impactful, sustainable, and grounded in teacher and student needs (user-centered).
A team leader who enjoys managing, coaching, and developing direct reports. A colleague who seeks reciprocal learning and growth from colleagues at every level. You deeply believe in the potential of all professionals to learn and grow. You look forward to building and sustaining an effective, growth-oriented, and inclusive team. You are able to collaboratively set a clear vision for the Exceptional Educators investment portfolio and you can map individual roles and responsibilities in service of this vision across your team.
A values-driven and empathetic leader who will find success in our context. You operate with a high level of self-awareness, humility, and emotional intelligence and you value the same in your colleagues. You engage in conflict confidently and with kindness. You are excited about working in an environment where complex problems are being considered. You are able to articulate and navigate tensions with an orientation towards understanding and valuing multiple perspectives. You don’t shy away from holding two opposing ideas at once and you are comfortable with not knowing or not agreeing and committing.
What You’ve Done:
Required experience:
- Bachelor’s degree
- Minimum of 10 years of work experience including time spent leading teams to deliver results in or adjacent to early and/or growth stage organizations
- Direct experience and content expertise in innovation, school design, education, nonprofit management, adult teaching & learning, philanthropy, or policy
- Demonstrated experience formulating and executing strategy, identifying challenges, and implementing solutions
- Demonstrated management experience, focused on staff development and growth
Preferred experience:
- Master’s degree in relevant field of education, policy, business, law, statistics, math, science, nonprofit management, or engineering
- Venture philanthropy experience supporting organizational growth and development through informal and formal support (i.e. grants, board experience, consulting, providing non-monetary support)
- Experience conducting cost benefit analysis and/or cost effectiveness analysis
Working at Overdeck Family Foundation
Overdeck Family Foundation is committed to providing a total rewards package (both base salary and benefits) that is competitive within the philanthropic sector. The base pay for this role is anticipated to be between $112,500 and $165,000. The anticipated base pay range is based on information as of the time this post was generated. Actual compensation for successful candidates will be carefully determined based on a number of factors, including their skills, qualifications, and relevant work experience. Additionally, employees are eligible for a discretionary annual performance bonus.
We offer competitive core benefits, including fully paid medical and dental insurance premiums for employees and dependents, competitive 401(k) match, $3,000 annual professional development funds, tuition reimbursement, generous vacation time, unlimited sick days, and employer-paid life and disability insurance. Overdeck Family Foundation requires all employees to live within a commutable distance from the office in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Each week, employees must work in the office on Tuesdays and additional “team days” for collaboration, with the option to work remotely on all other days. Perks of being in the office include on-site gyms with laundry service, wellness classes, snacks, and a casual dress code in our beautiful office in SoHo.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Overdeck Family Foundation is dedicated to the work of unlocking every child’s potential. We are committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the children in the education system we aim to support—in race, gender, age, culture, and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all of our employment practices.
All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genertic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity
