VICE PRESIDENT – US PROGRAMS AND POLICY ADVOCACY

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.

The VP for US Programs and Policy is responsible for leading CARE’s growing anti-poverty programming and public policy advocacy in the U.S. as well as overseeing CARE’s advocacy with the US government (USG) on policy related U.S. foreign assistance and other foreign policy matters that impact poverty-fighting efforts in the global south.

Although CARE has fought extreme poverty and responded to humanitarian crises in other parts of the world for more than 75 years, we have only recently begun to address poverty in the U.S. Our decision to join anti-poverty efforts in the U.S. was driven by both the growing numbers of people living in deep and persistent poverty in the U.S., a disproportionate number of them Black, indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC) and/or women, as well as a growing realization that the kinds of rights denials and social injustices that create and sustain poverty elsewhere are also at work in the U.S. With that in mind our domestic programs are focused on testing and adapting programs and approaches that have worked in other parts of the world to the U.S. context. For programs that prove effective in the U.S. we will partner and advocate with others in the nonprofit, private and government sectors to see them replicated and scaled. Our work in the U.S. focuses on low-income BIPOC women and the organizations that serve them. As of the beginning of 2021, our domestic work includes the Global Innovation Hub based in Atlanta that brings together domestic and international rights and social justice organizations to learn and collaborate and test programs from other parts of the world; the Community Savings and Loans program based on our highly successful savings-led, group solidarity microfinance program born in West Africa, and the CARE Package Relief humanitarian response program which over the course of 2020 provided more than 3 million meals to people in need and enabled people to generate more than $500,000 in income.

Responsibilities:

• Provide stategic leadership to the US Progam & Policy Advocacy department, including the US Programs, Government Relations, Learning Tours and Engagement & Mobilization teams. Oversee and manage the daily operations of the department, including all HR requirements, and budget. Create and nurture a diverse, resourceful, values-driven and results-oriented team.
• Oversee the work of the US program team and support the VP for US Programs in coordinating with other program teams to bring lessons learned from other parts of the world to bear on poverty in the U.S. and mounting timely and effective responses to domestic humanitarian crises. Grow the young but already successful domestic program through providing strategic guidance, brokering relationships with key partners in academia, the private sector and government, and developing a sustainable funding base. Along with the CEO and Associate VP for US Programs, serve as a key spokesperson for CARE’s growing US presence
• Guide the overall work of the USG advocacy team and work closely with the advocacy senior management team to define a clearly articulated advocacy agenda and develop and implement strategies to achieve our policy goals
• Serve as CARE USA’s Washington DC based representative in high level meetings with Congress, the Administration, strategic partners, donors, and the media. Support the CEO’s engagement in strategic forums, and ensure that her time is used wisely to cultivate key external partners. Supervise the DC office manager and serve as the head of the DC office.
• Working closely with the fundraising team and the Contracts and Bids Unit, identify and secure restricted funding resources needed to carry out program and advocacy plans. Direct development of concept notes and proposals specific to US programs and advocacy
• Perform other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent work experience within the government and/or social sectors
• 15+ years of relevant experience addressing poverty and social injustice in the U.S. and/or other parts of the world through the creation and implementation of impactful programs or successfully making/influencing U.S. federal and/or state public policy