Over the past 10 years, our work has expanded beyond traditional service and product design in the social sector, and we are now regularly working hand-in-hand with communities and local organizations to design interventions in service of more equitable outcomes. Some examples include launching an incubator in Kenya for girl-led solutions to reproductive health, working with communities in Southern Dallas to improve access to social benefits, and building a collective of leaders to advance health equity in the U.S.. We’re currently looking for an Executive Design Director to join our team who can grow, lead, and mentor our design teams. You will report directly to the CEO and serve on IDEO.org’s executive leadership team.

This role would be a fit for you if you are passionate about growing and nurturing creative talent and teams and have the ability to advance our practice of design, through a lens of equity, systems change, and co-design methodologies. You're excited to demonstrate, inspire, and model creativity, inclusivity, and rigor in order to build impactful solutions. Your love and experience of mentoring designers, building community, and identifying opportunities to support people's growth and development, are all in service of your ability to build an inclusive culture that fosters a strong sense of belonging for all.

Your role will focus on defining creative excellence in the work IDEO.org does out of its New York and San Francisco studios and you will work with the Executive Design Director in Nairobi and the Chief Marketing Officer to define and communicate creative excellence across IDEO.org. You will do this by leading a team of Design Directors, building the design community in the U.S., and rolling up your sleeves to work alongside designers on projects.

IDEO.org is a nonprofit design studio on a mission to design a more just and equitable world. We partner with nonprofit organizations, foundations, and governments to design programs, products, and services focused on improving health, economic mobility, and wellbeing. We’re a tight-knit group of designers, strategists, builders, writers, and connectors fueled by curiosity, optimism, and a passion for social change.

About the Program: Care Cornerstones

This contracted role will support Care Cornerstones, a program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and launching this summer, focused on bringing together radical thinkers and doers in the American childcare system to create the beginnings of a more holistic childcare system. This one-year program will focus entirely on consortium and movement building, aligning and executing collective action, and supporting the work of emergent and existing largely-BIPOC care leaders from all walks of life including caregivers, scholars , activists, organizers, artists, and others across the country.

Position Summary

We’re looking for a proactive, detail-oriented individual to join this program as a Senior Program Coordinator! While our studio is based in the San Francisco office, we are intentionally opening our search to anyone based in the United States. You’ll be part of a Core team of three individuals full-time on this program, and a larger multi-disciplinary IDEO.org team working over the course of the year to bring different skills to Care Cornerstones. In this role, you’ll work hand-in-hand with a number of public, private, and philanthropic stakeholders within the American child care system. You may also have an opportunity to travel during the year for events, convenings, and/or working sessions, which will be scheduled and planned for well in advance as a team.

Who you are

• You love working with people, you’re a quick learner, and you pay attention to the details. You consider yourself:
• A time and project management guru, capable of balancing multiple priorities at once
• A solid writer, comfortable producing clear and engaging communications for a variety of audiences
• Comfortable with managing multiple calendars across time-zones and facilitating payment processes
• Interested in learning more about design practice (no need to come knowledgeable!) and with an interest in the American child care system
• matter or skill that you bring as a lens to your coordination work (knowledge and experience in health, healing, or activism contexts is a plus)
• Everything else that you are (and bring!) is a bonus!

What you’ll do

Project and Program Coordination

• Provide support to the team with project-related tasks, such as scheduling expert interviews, hiring contractors, and preparing for client meetings
• Oversee participant logistic operations (i.e. scheduling internal & external workshops and meetings, onboarding design research participants and community members, managing compensation processes etc.)
• Create and maintain thoughtful communications with program participants and the program’s funder, and
• Engage external partners by providing timely and informative communications
• Ensure timely submission of any required narrative and financial reports in collaboration with IDEO.org’s finance, partnerships, and operations teams.
• Serve as backbone support for core team members, keeping the team on track on a weekly basis
• Support with scheduling, material preparation, and coordination for weekly workstream working meetings and events

Managing a Dignified Participant Experience

• Create contracts and manage contractors & vendors’ onboarding, experience, and payments
• Manage a seamless tech and digital experience in workshops
• Serve as a primary point of contact for tactical needs and questions for program participants
• Support project leads with administrative tasks and overall project management

What you’ll get to learn

Program Design

• Co-design thoughtful (and joyful!) virtual and in-person experiences for each participant stakeholders
• Help inform the scope and direction of subsequent phases of the program
• Hold institutional knowledge of the program: current, future, and past two years of IDEO.org work in the childcare and foster care space that inform Care Cornerstones

Community Engagement & Management

• Help cultivate relationships with new programmatic partners (i.e. government, foundations, fellow non-profits, thought leaders etc.) alongside the Program Lead

Commitment to Diversity

At IDEO.org, we are committed to the work of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within our organization and in the world. Our purpose of having disproportionate, world-changing impact through design is directly connected to our ability to bring many different perspectives to the table. This applies to our candidates, the people we hire, the clients and customers we serve, and the communities we co-create with.

As a human-centered organization, we are committed to working with and designing for people of every race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, physical ability or attribute, religion, national origin, or political belief. We recognize that this commitment requires ongoing work and sustained attention, as well as adaptation to new insights and best practices.