Vice President of Collective Action, K12 & Youth Development

About this role

Position Overview

The Vice President of Collective Action, K12 & Youth Development (VPCA) is responsible for leading all aspects of APA’s work in its ‘Aligning K12 Education and Youth Development’ issue area. This includes both ensuring membership in the Alliance Community leads to significant organizational improvement for participating organizations and uniting them in powerful collective action. The VPCA is responsible for (1) the identification and execution of collective action initiatives, (2) management of the 75+ member organizations working in this issue area, and (3) the growth of members and programming in this issue area over time. This position reports to APA’s CEO and works directly with the CEOs and executive teams of the leading national education and youth development nonprofits in the country.

About Our Alliance Community

APA runs a community for the CEOs and executive teams of the leading nonprofits in the US (see members). APA’s work focuses on three interconnected issue areas that shape opportunity and mobility for the next generation: aligning K12 education and youth development, reimagining postsecondary to workforce pathways, and increasing civic and democratic engagement. Our community currently includes 150 member organizations and 750 executive leaders. These organizations serve 32M young people annually and control $2B in annual spending. The average member organization is spending 80-100 hours in Alliance programming each year. APA provides the infrastructure and stewardship necessary for our member organizations to increase their impact and grow their reach, to effectively navigate new dynamics that arise in the field, and to launch collective action initiatives that address field-wide challenges too complex for any single organization to take on alone. For a complete overview of our work, see here.

About This Issue Area: Aligning K12 Education and Youth Development

The challenges in K12 education are complex and interconnected, including the decline in academic achievement, changes in federal policy and funding, the emergence of AI, teacher shortages, debates over content and curricula, and the need for schools to support rising youth mental health challenges and other non-academic issues impacting students’ lives. These academic and social-emotional challenges have become the norm for a generation of students. Without larger attempts to build better…