Vice President of Custom Strategies

By bringing people and organizations together to solve our region’s most pressing issues, United Way of Greater St. Louis is making our community a better place to live, work, and thrive. It’s more than a day job – it’s a mission! Come work with us!

The Vice President of Custom Strategies,  which reports to the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), is accountable for the development and execution of strategies focused on building new corporate partnerships, deepening existing corporate partnerships, and continuous improvement of strategies, products, and team responsible for customized products and services. This role establishes and refines approaches which position United Way (UW) as an expert, solutions-provider, consultant, and partner in assisting companies and family foundations in meeting their social responsibility and corporate sustainability objectives.

This position includes:

Strategy & Functional Leadership

• Organizational expert on CSR/ Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG), including trends, best practices, the competitive landscape and identification of strategic opportunities and threats.
• Accountable for UW’s strategy of designing and delivering suitable strategies and solutions to meet the specific needs of corporate partners. Maps out the environment, identifying potential partners who UW could partner with and the approach to reach them; leading efforts on how UW can help partners achieve CSR and corporate sustainability goals; what UW’s go-to-market plan should be, including pricing, marketing, contracting and implementation; and how to best serve the customer through the product and services life cycle. Ensures pitches to prospective partners are delivered effectively, with clarity on the product and service solution.
• Accountable for the creation of collateral and communications plan in coordination with Marketing & Communications.
• Oversee the pipeline of new custom strategies partnership opportunities designed to drive relevance, reach and revenue.
• In partnership with CAO and Chief Development Officer, expand relationships with existing corporate partners by uncovering expansion opportunities, developing and driving new partnership opportunities. Provide leadership in strategy to expand institutional knowledge of our partners, their priorities, and how United Way can make our products and services more attractive to them by partnering with resource development, community impact and marketing/communications.
• Identify and track relevant metrics of success and periodically report to the senior leadership team on status.
• Analyze results and leverage reporting tools and systems to aggregate data and implement effective changes within the appropriate operational teams.
• Accountable for revenue from new partnerships. Work with CAO to ensure revenue goals are reached as efficiently as possible, with minimal conflict and external market confusion.
• Work closely with Chief Development Officer to ensure that the Custom Strategies team and the Resource Development team are carefully integrated around relationship management and customer service. Encourage effective collaboration, cohesion and unity throughout the organization.
• Manage the process of preparing and responding to corporate proposals under consideration to determine organizational capacity and necessary resources to add new clients and client services, ensuring all appropriate internal leaders are consulted and an execution plan is in place. Responsible for making an informed bid/no-bid recommendation to CEO, CAO, and/or Senior Leadership team.
• Actively steward relationships with key volunteers and corporate and foundation partners.
• Establish positive relationships with related internal partners, corporate, charitable, civic, community and government organizations, providing accurate and quality customer service and information to external clients and stakeholders for all inquiries.

Department & Staff Leadership

• Member of organizational leadership team responsible for communicating and executing on organizational strategy and ensuring that day-to-day operations align with fulfilling strategic goals.
• Works in partnership with the CEO, CAO, and Senior Leadership team in promoting the long-term plans and goals of the organization to the community.
• Establish and oversee the implementation of the strategy for areas of responsibility, including developing overall projections for budget and staff needs and defined operating plans for each year.
• Ensure a discipline of relationship management and customer-centric focus within department and within areas providing critical support to family foundations and corporate clients.
• Provide goal-setting, visioning, leadership, and strategic direction for team.
• Direct and manage staff activities.  Ensure that team members are invested in team activities and decisions and that the team works together to achieve organizational goals.

Key Accountabilities:

All work contributes to the attainment of the following strategic plan initiatives:

• Clearly articulate and communicate UW’s value proposition.
• Partner with companies/organizations to achieve CSR, philanthropic and community engagement goals.
• Increase the value and visibility of the UW’s products and services for corporate and community clients.
• Contributes to the overall success of United Way by performing other essential duties and responsibilities as assigned.

KSA (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities):

• Minimum five years social impact/CSR -related client service experience
• Solid understanding of critical CSR/ESG subject matter, including issue/policy landscape, effective communications strategies, non-profit and corporate partnerships
• Minimum of two years demonstrated ability to supervise and motivate staff by creating an environment for team to innovate, take reasonable risks and grow their professional skills
• Bachelor’s degree in business, sales, communications, or nonprofit management; Masters degree preferred
• Significant agency, consulting and/or in-house corporate experience
• Broad experience in creating and executing social impact and/or CSR initiatives for companies
• Proven expertise in building and nurturing relationships with CSR/ESG leaders and influencers; ability to engage relationships for client benefit
• Demonstrated thought leadership based on a compelling point of view and influential connections within the CSR/ESG space
• Specific knowledge of best practices in philanthropic advising, family foundation management, corporate social responsibility and CSR-enabling technologies and experience working with corporate and foundation partners.
• Demonstrated decision-making ability based on excellent judgment applied within the context of operating policies and processes and organizational values
• Demonstrated ability to gather, analyze and summarize data for use in planning, service delivery and continuous quality improvement efforts
• Strong strategic, analytical and critical thinking skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to efficiently and accurately work under time and performance pressure
• Demonstrated commitment to meeting the both expressed and unmet needs of internal and external clients
• Demonstrated understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusionary practices
• High level of integrity with demonstrated ability to exercise tact and good judgment
• Ability to manage multiple projects and prioritize tasks in a matrixed organization structure

Due to the pandemic, United Way of Greater St. Louis supports employees working from home or remote offices until June 30th, 2021.

To apply, please submit your resume and/or cover letter to Careers@stl.unitedway.org

Employment is contingent upon passing a screening for illegal drug use

United Way of Greater St. Louis is an Equal Opportunity Employer