[Hiring] Vice President, Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships @Covenant House International

Role Description

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.

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.

Requirements

• 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.

Benefits

• Up to 25% travel required for annual in-person traditions, meetings, and policy leadership engagements.
• This position is 100% remote outside of required travel.

Company Description

Covenant House has served and advocated for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation since 1972. 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.