Chief of Staff

About the Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP)
Our mission

We partner with low-income and working people to build economic and racial equity. We do this by confronting economic abuse and investing in community wealth. We use an ever-evolving set of legal, economic and advocacy tools to challenge and dismantle unjust systems, building quickly towards a world where all people have what they need to live and thrive.

Our Organization

The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) is a Colorado-based nonprofit. Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, our organization was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built a “one-stop-shop” approach to eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed.

Our team now serves more than 1,000 people per month, bringing together housing lawyers, economists, data analysts, policy-experts, organizers, and technologists to serve our clients. In the previous two years, we have distributed more than $160 million in aid and served more than 40,000 Coloradans. We have also contributed to the passage of major legislation to prevent eviction, stop economic abuse, and make credit and life-saving medication cheaper. CEDP’s model has been cited as a best practice by White House, HUD, the Urban Institute, and in the media.

Building on our work to stop evictions, CEDP has further expanded its integrated services model to include disaster response, predatory towing, debt collection, benefit access & navigation, long-term rental assistance, and homelessness response. Similar to CEDP’s work on rental housing, these efforts offer a continuum of care that includes navigation and advisory services, targeted payments, legal support, and the ability to participate in advocacy.

More about the Role:

We are excited to be seeking a Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staff will be a trusted member of and support to CEDP’s executive team. The position’s primary role is to help accomplish CEDP’s mission and shape the strategy to achieve it. Specifically, CEDP is in the process of diversifying and integrating its service offerings to ensure that its clients have all the services they need under one roof. The Chief of Staff would play a primary role in cross-functional program strategy, design, implementation, and fundraising.

You will report directly to Sam Gilman, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of CEDP. Additionally, you will work closely with our Chief Programs Officer and our Head of Integrated Care & Strategy. Your role will also involve active collaboration with Zach Neumann, our Co-Founder & Co-CEO, and other key members of the executive team, including the Head of CED Law, Chief Financial Officer, Head of State & Local Policy, and Head of People.

In the Chief of Staff role you will:

• Advance long-term strategic investments for CEDP in social services to ensure that renters facing displacement have support enrolling in public benefits and housing assistance programs.
• Help the organization plan and launch a financial services program and community development financial institution that proposes to offer faster payments (as a continuation of CEDP’s nationally recognized model), integrated services, and more choice for our clients – many often are unbanked or bank with institutions that provide predatory financial services.
• Support the organization’s strategic and financial planning, as it moves from an organization that focused primarily on eviction defense, to one that offers a variety of programs, including eviction defense, foreclosure defense, rental assistance management, disaster relief, predatory towing defense, and more.
• Provide cross-functional support for the executive team, facilitating executive meetings and project managing action items and commitments.
• Develop analyses and materials to support policy, advocacy, and programmatic goals (e.g., capacity modeling and budgeting, presentations for state legislators).
• Coordinate the expansion and development of CEDP services for use by other non-profits or in other states, including rapid-review and payments technology. Support the long-term sustainability of CEDP through development of pitches, bids, and procurement opportunities for new funding and participate in those fundraising efforts.
• Conduct actionable policy research to support CEDP’s advocacy efforts as it works on laws to protect people from economic abuse and increase their economic choice. In past years, CEDP has worked in coalition to pass legislation to prevent eviction, stop predatory towing, cap the cost of epi-pens, and fund emergency financial assistance.
• You may also have other short-term, high-impact strategy and operations projects that leverage analytical and technology skills, as well as interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Advance new priorities as they emerge.

Position Requirements:

• 4+ years of professional experience in strategic or analytics roles.
• Experience with analytical modeling – building Excel and other analytical models to conceptualize amorphous problems with unclear data inputs.
• History of performing due diligence on social enterprise business models and designing new service offerings from scratch. Evidence of such experience might include performing roles across strategy, operations design, social finance, and others required for new programs.
• Experience supporting and managing up with executive leadership in government, non-profits, or the private sector. Demonstrated ability to effectively manage relationships with government stakeholders at various levels is a plus.
• Excellent communications skills and the ability to influence leaders through data and presentation, including demonstrated ability to deliver concise leadership level policy and strategy briefs (written and oral) to generate decisions.
• Ability to quickly convert disparate streams of information into coherent, unifying documents (e.g., successful grant applications, policy briefs).
• Interest in fundraising and supporting an executive team of a large non-profit in all aspects of resourcing the organization, with experience a significant plus.
• Proven experience in developing and managing strategic partnerships that drive progress.
• Demonstrated commitment to challenging systems of racial and economic inequity.
  
• Strong leadership skills with a track record of building and leading high-performing teams. Ability to mentor and develop team members to reach their full potential.
• Background in consumer financial services and CDFIs is a plus.
• Product experience for a government or technology company is also a plus
• Comfort with ambiguity in a fast-paced, all hands-on-deck environment.

Additional Details:

• The position includes competitive pay, flexible time off, benefits package (including medical, dental, vision), and 401k.
• A competitive salary range of $85,000-$110,000 per year, based on experience and along CEDP’s compensation framework.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis but must be received by May 3, 2024
• The estimated time to complete the recruitment process will be by May 31, 2024
• As in-person work is sometimes required, all employees at CEDP & CED Law are expected to maintain current vaccination status in keeping with CDC recommendations.
• CEDP is an equal opportunity employer, committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Employment decisions are made without regard of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.