Program Officer, Medicine - New York, United States - The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation

Description

PROGRAM OFFICER, MEDICINE

Organization

The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck (PCLB) Foundation is a private family foundation that seeks to help people solve problems in their communities. Our program areas are Education, Outdoors, Medicine, Science, and Family Projects. In those areas, we identify and support dynamic leaders and effective organizations who work unselfishly to improve and empower those around them. We provide problem-solvers with connections, information, experience, and money that they need to provide their communities with critical skills and resources – ultimately, to do something remarkable.

Position Summary

We seek to hire a part-time Program Officer to lead our emerging Medicine grant-making. As part of adopting a new 10-year strategic plan, the PCLB Foundation committed to exploring expanded giving in Medicine. We decided to begin that exploration by looking for challenges and pportunities in healthcare in Maine, particularly in its most rural areas. Through initial work done in consultation with incredible partners in Maine, we have come to an early focus on workforce issues, including training and new models of care, making initial grants to St. Joseph Hospital, MCD Global Health, MERGE Collaborative, Building-ME Network, and Mainely Teeth.

In the fiscal year ahead, PCLB is committing additional funds to this portfolio. We believe that, to deploy these grant funds well, we need a part-time Program Officer based in Maine to further develop and manage this portfolio over the next 12 months. Depending on how the portfolio evolves, and with PCLB's anticipated additional growth, this position could evolve into a permanent part-time or permanent full-time role.

As a member of PCLB's Program Team, this individual will lead our Medicine program area, supporting the Foundation with the development, prioritization, and execution of grant strategies. Broadly, this work will include seeking rigorous evidence about strategy effectiveness and impact, to inform grant-making approaches; identifying and vetting potential grantee organizations; recommending grants to the PCLB Board; monitoring existing and future grant awards; and building relationships with grantees and relevant field experts.

The ideal candidate for this position can think strategically about PCLB's broad goals while remaining focused on the detail-oriented work and follow-through required of our grant-making process. You are an avid learner and can expertly apply pre-existing and new knowledge to further PCLB's grant-making, ultimately to make the world a better place. You thrive on building relationships and strategic partnerships – to go further and faster together on shared goals – while holding everyone accountable for results and progress.

Responsibilities: More specific responsibilities of this role include:

Grant Strategy Development

• Participate in the ongoing development and execution of grant strategies. In the Medicine program area, PCLB has established broad goals – and our next step is to build more specific grant-making strategies and portfolios to advance those.
• Stay up-to-date on and synthesize relevant academic and popular research, activities, insights, and trends in the field to shape/evolve strategies and tactics in the Medicine program area.
• Establish rigorous evaluation processes and measures to assess impact and progress toward PCLB's goals and use evaluation results to improve/inform next steps
• For this year, in particular, work with Executive Director to design a two-day, in-person (in Maine) experience to introduce PCLB Board and leadership staff more deeply to Medicine topics and opportunities in Maine.

Grant-making

• Manage a portfolio of grants aligned to PCLB's strategic priorities.
• Identify potential grantees through research and conversations with practitioners/field experts.
• Become familiar with potential grantees' work through research, site visits, calls, and other communications. Actively engage with existing grantees to support PCLB's grant-making and the organizations' success throughout the grant period.
• Execute grant-making processes within deadlines, including review of applications/reports and creation of internal-facing assessment documents.
• Make internal presentations to explain overall portfolio strategy and rationale for the recommended docket of grants.
• Establish the appropriate indicators or methods to assess the success and progress of grantees' work, adjusting grant-making activities as needed based on assessment.

Grantee Relationship Building

• Actively engage with grantees through site visits, meetings, phone calls and other channels to understand organizations' work; to review opportunities, challenges, and progress; encourage collaboration and exchange learnings; and celebrate/champion grantees' successes.
• Partner with grantees to address emerging challenges, offering experience-informed assessments and supports (technical assistance, referrals to resources, etc.) for moving forward.
• Preserve institutional knowledge and share learnings internally by documenting critical information about grantee work and relationships.

On-going Learning and Development

• Internally, promote and participate in a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
• Externally, identify and pursue opportunities to learn from, collaborate, and build external relationships with peer funders and leaders in the fields related to the Medicine program area.

Qualifications

A qualified candidate possesses:

• Commitment to PCLB's core values of Excellence, Fairness, Humility, Self-Reliance, and Trustworthiness.
• Commitment to and belief in PCLB's core program areas and portfolios.
• Subject matter expertise, experience, and interest in the topics of the Medicine program area.
• Excellent quantitative, qualitative, and analysis skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a wide range of individuals.
• Superb project management skills to manage multiple projects simultaneously and complete high-quality work on-time.
• Discretion and commitment to organizational confidentiality.
• A Bachelor's degree; master's degree preferred.
• Must have a minimum of 7-10 years of related experience.

Location & Time

This position will be based in Maine, with the expectation that the Program Officer spends meaningful time meeting with current and potential grantees, learning about and seeing their work in action. The role may require periodic travel to PCLB's NYC office (not more than 3 times in the next 12 months).

We expect this position to average 16 hours/week (2 days/week), with some weeks requiring more hours and some less, depending on workload, grantee schedules, etc. Additionally, we expect this team member to attend certain standing meetings; otherwise, work time can be flexibly managed.

Compensation

The starting annual salary range for this role is $40,000 to $47,000 (which is a $100,000 to $117,500 annual salary, pro-rated for a two-day-a-week role). The salary is commensurate with the candidate's skills and experience.

Application Process

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter and resume to In the subject line, name the title of the position for which you are applying and, in your cover letter, indicate where you saw the announcement. We will review applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

The Peter and

Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation is an equal opportunity employer.