Executive Director GiGis Playhouse Houston

Founded in 2003 GiGis Playhouse Inc.s purpose is to change the way the world views Down syndrome and to send a global message of acceptance for all. We profoundly change lives through national campaigns educational programs and by empowering individuals with Down syndrome their families and the community. All programs are free and are therapeutic or educational in nature. Each one of our programs is designed to work on specific skill development including speech and language literacy socialization and fine and gross motor skills. GiGis Playhouse has opened over 60 locations across North America and is growing by several locations annually.

Job Description

The Executive Director is a businessminded leader who ensures longterm sustainability prominence and operational excellence of a GiGis Playhouse location or multiple locations in one community. This includes helping to ensure the operation has the right team is fully funded and that the community is aware of the scope and impact of programs offered. The Executive Director will be actively involved in fundraising activities driving community members to the Playhouse and building a strong community presence and local donations through donor outreach developing media contacts grant writing budget development and control overseeing financial operations and other related activities. In addition the Executive Director is responsible for managing the playhouse staff and partnering closely with the local Board. The role is estimated to be roughly 50 development/outreach and 50 playhouse management & marketing. Primary goals for this role include:

• Increase funding through individual donors grants sponsorships inkind and corporate support.
• Maximize awareness of GiGis Playhouse and Down syndrome across the local community.
• Lead the team to ensure delivery of the highest quality operational and outstanding customer experience to deepen family engagement and connection with the Playhouse.

Essential Job Functions:

• Strategic Leadership and Board Relations
  • Drive the development of the Playhouses strategic plan in collaboration with the Board; implement the plan ensuring alignment with mission values and growth objectives.
  • Serve as the primary liaison between the Board and the Playhouse providing regular updates and seeking guidance.
  • Recruit and evaluate potential Board Members through community connections and present viable candidates to the Board selection committee.
• Fundraising and Financial Management
  • Oversee financial operations including fundraising and ensuring financial sustainability; draft the organizations budget to align with the strategic plan.
  • Develop and implement a fundraising plan to achieve revenue targets in partnership with the local board and fundraising committee.
  • Manage and implement a donor portfolio and stewardship strategy for donors and volunteers.
  • Achieve hard dollar fundraising objectives continually seeking revenue generation opportunities through grants individual donors family foundations corporations and events.
  • In close partnership with the event chair for each fundraising event support and heavily engage with all events particularly revenuegeneration marketing securing inkind donations volunteer recruitment and management and overall community engagement.
• Staff Leadership and Operations
  • Ensure all playhouse hours programs events and activities are staffed to support the needs of the Playhouse (GiGis programs are 99 volunteerrun).
    • Hire train manage and evaluate all Playhouse employees fostering a positive and productive work environment.
    • In collaboration with the staff that is managing programs and volunteers support recruitment training and management of volunteers leveraging their skills and time to support the organizations mission.
  • Drive the Playhouses achievement of theGiGisStandards of continually striving to increased levels of achievement to ensure a highquality experience for families volunteers donors and community members.
• Marketing & Community Engagement
  • Represent the organization to the public media donors schools community organizations and other stakeholders with impact stories building strong relationships and promoting the organizations mission.
  • Grow community awareness by proactively bringing groups organizations and individuals to the playhouse to engage in the mission.
  • Leverage newsletters social media platforms website and other channels to provide inspirational and relevant content to promote local Playhouse programs events and activities.
  • Engage in and proactively initiate acceptance initiatives throughout the community to help build a more accepting environment for our participants and families.
• Program Implementation (with Playhouse staff)
  • Oversee and ensure the program lineup and quality serves the needs of the community while executing the full fidelity expected of GiGis Signature programs.
  • Passionately serve the needs of the local families and build relationships with them such that they understand that GiGis makes a lifetime commitment to them.
  • Build and engage with a Family Committee that is involved in program input volunteerism community outreach fundraising and event support.
• Connection with GiGis Playhouse national office and peers across the GiGis network
  • Proactively engage with peers to share ideas solve problems and collectively raise the bar of performance of GiGis Playhouses nationwide; attend GiGis Annual Leadership Conference.
  • Follow all national standards and policies; collaborate with the national teams to leverage centrally developed tools and resources in lieu of building new processes programs and tools from scratch.

Competencies:

• Visionary Leadership; displays passion and optimism; inspires respect and trust; mobilizes others to fulfill the vision; provides vision and inspiration to peers and subordinates.
• Achievement Oriented: Focuses on results and desired outcomes and how to best achieve them. Sets high goals and works doggedly to achieve them. Pushes self and others to achieve milestones and measurable metrics. Goes the extra mile to ensure goal is met.
• Communication: A people person with a friendly demeanor and the ability to build relationships amongst staff donors families volunteers and community members. Exceptionally strong written and oral communication skills with ability to express ideas and thoughts verbally; writes clearly and inspirationally; edits work for spelling and grammar; varies writing style to meet needs; keeps others adequately informed; selects and uses appropriate communication methods.
• RelationshipBased Approach: Naturally demonstrates gratitude and stewardship within relationships continually finding ways to connect with individuals express thanks and share the impact of a donors investment in the organization. Strong social skills with the ability to and affinity toward networking and building connections with people of all personal and professional backgrounds.
• People Management: Includes staff in planning decisionmaking facilitating and process improvement; takes responsibility for subordinates activities; makes selfavailable to staff; provides regular performance feedback; develops subordinates skills and encourages growth; solicits and applies customer feedback (internal and external); fosters quality focus in others; Improves processes products and services; continually works to improve supervisory skills.
• Collaboration & Teamwork: Team player with a strong work ethic positive attitude and collaborative spirit; ability to work collaboratively and professionally with staff board members committee members volunteers families and donors. Exhibits good listening and comprehension; ability to gain buyin and to get along with diverse personalities at all times displaying tact maturity and flexibility.
• Problem Solving and Judgment: Identifies and resolves problems in a timely manner; resourceful; exhibits sound and accurate judgment; includes appropriate people in decisionmaking process and develops alternative solutions; open minded and flexible; works well in group problem solving situations.
• Planning/Organizing: Prioritizes and plans work activities; Uses time efficiently; Sets goals and objectives; Organizes or schedules other people and their tasks; Develops realistic action plans.
• Adaptability and Calm Under Pressure: Adapts to changes in the work environment; manages competing demands; changes approach or method to best fit the situation; demonstrates flexibility and poise under changing priorities. Thrives and maintains stable performance in fastpaced settings with shifting demands.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Education and/or Experience: 7 years management and related experience and/or training in organizational leadership nonprofit and/or related field. Extensive demonstrated community connections and board experience. Marketing experience a plus.
• Computer Skills: Adapts to new technologies and uses technology to increase productivity.Has the selfdiscipline to continually learn and use the tools. Must have knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word Excel PowerPoint and Outlook) proficiency in social media platforms such as Instagram LinkedIn and Facebook. Ability to work proficiently in a database program (Salesforce) to manage interactions with all individuals who interface with this location.
• Work Environment: This role requires extensive engagement with the Playhouse team families and volunteers. In addition roughly 50 of the time is expected to be in the community building relationships with donors community organizations etc. As such this is an inperson role not a remote role.

GiGis Playhouse Core Values: GiGis challenges all staff and volunteers to embody the following core values:

• Enthusiastic:Bringing positive high energy to your work.
• Best of All:We are always looking to improve every day with all that we yourself every day to embrace a Generation G life.
• Get It Done:Making things happen and blasting through barriers when needed. Figure it out together.
• Believe: Believe in ourselves believe in our mission believe in each other and believe in the history that brought us here.
• Locally Concerned Enterprise Minded:We collaborate share best practices and leverage the collective learnings from across the GiGis network.