VP, Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships

Overview

Since 1972, Covenant House has served and advocated for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation. Our overarching goal is to end homelessness among youth and young families by helping them achieve housing stability, heal from trauma, tap into their innate resilience, and hone their interests and skills to forge new pathways to independence. This work is carried out across Covenant House sites in 34 cities in the US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

About the Role

Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships, the Vice President of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships serves as the strategic and operational leader responsible for translating vision into execution across the advocacy portfolio. The VP acts as the SVP's key thought partner and deputy, maintaining visibility across priorities, advancing enterprise alignment, identifying risks and opportunities, building and stewarding key relationships, and ensuring strategic initiatives move from concept to implementation along established timeframes.

This role sits at the intersection of strategy, advocacy, youth leadership, partnership development, and organizational change. The VP will oversee the International Youth Congress (IYC), coordinate implementation of Covenant House's advocacy priorities across the federation and help ensure that advocacy efforts remain aligned with the organization's Strategic Vision and the Strategy Office’s goals.

Successful candidates are equally comfortable advising senior leaders, facilitating cross-functional collaboration, authentically engaging and lifting up youth with lived experience, managing complex initiatives, and driving day-to-day execution. We’re looking for someone who can operate as a trusted advisor to senior leadership while also rolling up their sleeves to get work done, bringing exceptional project and portfolio management discipline.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership of International Youth Congress (50%)

• Serve as the organizational lead responsible for successful implementation, institutionalization, and long-term sustainability of the International Youth Congress

• Ensure IYC recommendations and insights are systematically integrated into organizational planning, policy development, program design, research initiatives, and continuous quality improvement processes

• Build organizational readiness for meaningful youth partnership across the enterprise

• Develop governance structures, feedback loops, accountability mechanisms, and decision-making pathways that elevate youth voice while ensuring organizational effectiveness

• Supervise the Youth Advocacy Program Manager, ensuring consistent, high-quality execution of key logistical and coordination tasks to deliver excellent programming for IYC members

• Manage the IYC budget and ensure accurate, timely reporting to SVP of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships

• Coordinate IYC Advisory Board, ensuring performance indicators for governance and engagement are met

• Oversee development of IYC curriculum to align with strategic vision implementation

• Manage vendors and consultants to build IYC capacity and enhance the leadership skills of members

• Forge partnerships and collaborations with organizations, experts, and stakeholders to expand resources and opportunities for International Youth Congress leadership development 

• Establish key relationships and serve as the point of contact for IYC site leads, fostering understanding of and strong buy-in for IYC across the federation, ensuring consistent understanding of IYC goals, vision, values, and timeline of implementation

• Partner with Research and Impact team to develop meaningful opportunities for IYC members to participate in research and evaluation studies to advance practice and policy learning related to youth homelessness and other relevant social determinants of health

• Collaborate across Covenant House teams and departments to ensure strong communication and ongoing institutional support and sustainability

Strategic Leadership & Enterprise Alignment (25%)

• Serve as primary operational partner and strategic advisor to SVP of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships

• Maintain enterprise-wide awareness of advocacy, youth engagement, partnership, prevention and restoration initiatives, proactively identifying opportunities, risks, dependencies, implementation challenges- and proposed solutions

• Coordinate implementation of advocacy-related priorities within the Advocacy Team workplan

• Develop and manage systems and processes that ensure accountability, follow-through, buy-in, and visibility on major initiatives

• Monitor progress toward strategic goals and key performance indicators and regularly provide recommendations to the SVP

• Lead cross-functional planning efforts and coordinate work across Advocacy, Research & Impact, Development, Communications, IT, Programs, and site leadership

• Ensure alignment between policy priorities, International Youth Congress initiatives, partnership development, and organizational strategy

• Support senior leadership decision making through briefings, recommendations, environmental scans, and strategic analyses

• Facilitate leadership meetings, planning sessions, and implementation reviews as needed

Management of Advocacy Agenda (25%)

• Support planning and implementation of the International Advocacy Framework, and support enterprise and sites in executing elements of the advocacy agenda as part of larger Prevention Pathway

• Coordinate advocacy activities across levels to ensure consistency and alignment

• Establish systems for monitoring policy opportunities, organizational responses, and advocacy outcomes

• Support federation-wide advocacy planning and implementation through structured communication, technical assistance, and cross-site collaboration as needed

• Develop briefings and recommendations for leadership on emerging policy issues, risks and opportunities

• Provide legislative and regulatory analysis and advisement for federal initiatives (E.g., congressional bills, appropriations, and earmarks; executive orders and presidential memorandums; HUD YHDP, YHSI, FYI; ACF RHYTPA; State JTIP; DOJ VOCA; etc.) as well as international and regional opportunities

• Liaise with policy and advocacy leaders related to ending youth homelessness and child trafficking

• Collaborate on thought leadership through the (co)authorship of blogs, white papers, policy briefs, and other media to advance Covenant House’s advocacy agenda

• Cultivate strong relationships with key leaders and decision-makers from partner organizations; this involves regular communication and fostering a collaborative and mutually beneficial partnership 

• Create strong pathways for youth advocacy including participation in policy analysis and development, advocacy skills building and training, and participation in advocacy opportunities, including the annual Covenant House Advocacy Week

• Support training and technical assistance to Covenant House sites to advance site specific youth advocacy and lived experience initiatives and programs 

• Coordinate with Research and Impact team and Covenant House sites to solicit and receive key performance metrics for advocacy

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Project management excellence — ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously and consistently deliver high-quality outputs on deadlines

• Political judgment — discernment of how to effectively assess risk, timing, and stakeholder interests to provide effective recommendations to SVP of advocacy and strategic partnerships

• Change management — experience helping organizations, teams, and individual contributors adopt and sustain new practices and approaches

• Relationship management across levels — comfortable engaging CEOs, frontline staff, youth leaders, government officials, and community partners

• Facilitation and convening expertise — capable of leading workshops, strategy sessions, peer-learning cohorts, and planning processes

• Data literacy — ability to interpret and communicate data for advocacy, policy analysis, and decision-making

• Resource development and grant knowledge — familiarity with public funding systems and how policy influences nonprofit financing

• Cultural humility and intergenerational leadership — experience working effectively with youth, emerging leaders, and senior executives alike

• Comfort with ambiguity and entrepreneurial environments — able to build systems, iterate for improvement, rapidly apply learning, pivot rapidly, and effectively prioritize

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite, Teams, Zoom, and project management tools

Required Qualifications

• Seven plus years’ experience of progressive leadership experience in advocacy, public policy, coalition building, youth development, systems change, nonprofit leadership, or related fields.

• Demonstrated experience in youth work, including professional evolution from individual/ case-level work to program management and leadership

• Demonstrated success leading complex, cross-functional initiatives from strategy through implementation.

• Proven experience influencing senior leaders and stakeholders without direct authority

• Experience developing and executing operational/ implementation plans and performance measures

• Prior experience managing direct reports

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Qualifications

• Spanish fluency (oral and written) with strong cross-cultural communication skills strongly preferred

• Graduate degree in public policy, social work, psychology, sociology or related field. Or equivalent combination of lived, professional, and academic experience.

• Demonstrated experience supporting policy implementation and/or advocacy initiatives at international and/or federal and national levels

• Significant knowledge of at least one major social determinant of health policy domain, such as housing and homelessness, behavioral health, workforce development, education, child welfare, poverty reduction, public benefits, violence prevention, or juvenile justice

• Familiarity with federal legislative and regulatory processes and the mechanics of implementation

• Experience working with nonprofits, public agencies, coalitions, or cross-sector partnerships

• Experience navigating politically diverse environments and building bipartisan relationships

Travel Requirements

• Up to 25%. Ability to travel to New York City for our annual in-person traditions; Strategy Office/ Advocacy Team meetings; Washington D.C., for policy leadership engagements; and throughout our federation as required

• Outside of above travel, this position is 100% remote

Our Community

Our critical mission demands that we have all voices at the table. A team of diverse people, perspectives, and experiences is smarter, stronger, and more effective for our young people. At Covenant House, every team member is valued, respected, heard, and supported, and we welcome honest and courageous self-reflection on any aspects of our work that are based on biased or outdated viewpoints. We deliberately create opportunities for our staff to grow and thrive.

Covenant House International is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind: CHI is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at CHI are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, family or parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. CHI will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics and encourages all qualified applicants to apply.

If you have a disability or medical condition and need a reasonable accommodation, such as an ASL interpreter or a different interview format, or if you have physical accessibility needs, let us know. Contact us at 1-929-502-2521, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Eastern Time or email us at [email protected].