Program Manager, Uplift Harris County

Reports to: Senior Manager

Level: Manager

Location:  Harris County, TX. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visas in the U.S. or U.K. at this time.

Travel Requirement: This position requires local travel within Harris County, and may require limited domestic travel

Compensation: $81,400  annually and the potential for bonus. This is a project-based position, with a minimum fixed term of 12 months. This position has the possibility of extending that is contingent on additional funding. 

Priority Application Deadline: October 15th 

About the Role:

Since launching US operations in 2017,  GiveDirectly US Programs has led three record-setting hurricane responses, the world’s largest privately funded COVID relief program, and three of the U.S.’s largest guaranteed income programs – committing more than $280M in direct cash to low-income Americans.

GiveDirectly has been selected as the program administrator for the Uplift Harris County Guaranteed Income Pilot. The pilot is the county’s first publicly funded guaranteed income initiative at $20 million. The Harris County Uplift Guaranteed Income Pilot will send monthly payments of $500 to around 1,900 residents for 18 months. Applications to participate in the pilot will open this winter.

The Uplift Harris County Program Manager will play a key role in driving and executing operations across the Uplift Harris County Pilot. Primary responsibilities will include leading end-to-end project management, coordinating with internal and external stakeholders, recruiting and managing field team, and driving operational excellence and improvement. Managers may be asked to support partnerships and positioning through research, contributing to proposals, and occasionally will own relationships with funders and partners. 

Program Managers should be able to:

• Manage steady state programs with little supervision, escalating and seeking support particularly during launch and close, or in the instance of adverse events or partnership challenges 
• Build and manage workplans, basic budgets, and report out (internally and externally) on program progress
• Help define “good” in a program and oversee operational metrics to ensure program quality and drive improvement 
• Communicate clearly and effectively, internally and externally, about project goals and how they connect to team and org-wide strategy and impact

What you'll do:

Program Management

• Play a core operations role for Uplift Harris County, leading end-to-end project management as well as supporting Senior Program Managers and the Country Director on other tasks as required
• Support with designing the operational model for Uplift Harris County, including assessing trade-offs of different design decisions (e.g. targeting, payments, customer service)
• Support with dynamically identifying operational vulnerabilities (e.g. fraud, brand risk, etc.) and creating solutions to de-risk
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders to ensure successful and timely operational execution
• Define and review operational and efficiency metrics, with an eye to managing to improvement
• Manage dedicated project staff, including Community Engagement Associate
• Lead community outreach and mobilization plan, including identifying and recruiting community based organization outreach partners and managing project-level outreach staff.
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with key community members, local service organizations, government agency officials, and elected officials
• Define project-level field staffing needs, oversee/drive recruitment, and directly manage field teams (e.g. call center/help desk, enrollment teams) to deliver high-quality operations and programming

Partnership Management

• Support routine reporting (financial, narrative) to funders and other partners, with oversight from Senior Managers/Country Director
• Lead vendor and partner scoping, evaluation, and management to enable effective program delivery
• Establish and maintain high quality relationships with operational partners including funders (e.g. local government partner) when they are engaged in operations and delivery
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with key community members, local service organizations, government agency officials, and elected officials

What you'll bring:

• Alignment with GiveDirectly Values and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.
• Language Requirement:  English Proficiency 
• Language Preferences: We encourage candidates who are bilingual in any of Harris County’s commonly used languages (including Spanish and Vietnamese) to apply
• Proficiency in Excel
• Residency in Harris County, TX for the duration of the contract (relocation reimbursement is not available)
• 3+ years of work experience in a role that required problem solving, project management, stakeholder management, and people management / coordination
• Experience working in or with government agencies.
• Exceptional communication, organizational, and analytical skills
• Ability to manage day-to-day operations and propose and implement process improvements
• Demonstrated ability to work in a highly independent and self-directed manner, while effectively communicating upwardly about gaps and risks
• Enthusiasm for fast-paced environments, which may lack a pre-defined playbook for success and involve significant “learning by doing”
• Ability to work as a team member with personal enthusiasm, optimism, humility, and a sense of humor.
• Ability to travel locally throughout the Pilot period and ~1-2 times per year to one of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits

Why work at GiveDirectly?

At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including:

• A positive and supportive team with opportunities for advancement 
• A demonstrated commitment to helping all staff develop and grow
• A competitive salary, including bonus
• A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)
• Unlimited PTO (that we encourage staff to take!)
• Desk allowance and flexible work location

About GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly (GD) provides cash grants directly to people living in extreme poverty. GD has raised over $800M since launching in 2011, delivered cash to more than 1.2 million recipients, and launched offices in 11 countries. We’re continuing expansion across the Global South. Over the past decade, GD has also supported large-scale, experimental research, expanding the evidence that cash has a positive short and long-term impact on  recipients. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies byFast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) has been featured in theNew York Times Magazine,This American Life,Foreign Affairs, andThe Economist.

Across our global offices, our culture is candid, analytical, non-hierarchical, and agile. We work alongside 750+ individuals who come from 21 different countries and speak 69 different languages. Team members at GiveDirectly attest that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not just buzzwords, but a fundamental part of our culture and values. We actively seek to recruit individuals from the communities we serve, and use DEI as a lens in our hiring practices, programs, and initiatives. Our goal is to maintain a workplace where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work, and feel valued and respected for who they are. We continue to grapple with balancing inclusivity of all cultures and experiences while maintaining cohesion in our values. While there is much that we are still learning, we take care of one another, have fun, as well as provide flexible working hours wherever possible. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other status protected by law.