2026 Managing Director

Who we are:

United We Dream (UWD) is the largest immigrant youth-led community in the country. We create welcoming spaces for young people – regardless of immigration status – to support, engage, and empower them to make their voices heard and win!

 

With an online reach of over 5 million every month, more than 1,000,000 members as well as 4 statewide branches and local groups across 28 states. UWD is made up of fearless young people fighting to improve the lives of our members and their families. Our vision is a society which celebrates our diversity and believes in a multi-ethnic, intersectional path to getting there. Over 60% of our members are womxn and 30% identify as LGBTQ.

 

We are driven by the priorities and needs of our members; have trained thousands of individuals; and have supported countless local organizing groups. Our grassroots-driven approach has a proven record of success and we’re looking for talented folks to join our team!

 

Learn more about United We Dream by visiting www.unitedwedream.org.

 

Position Summary

United We Dream is seeking a new senior leader and organization-builder to serve in the role of Managing Director. In partnership with the Executive Director, the Managing Director will develop and drive an organizational strategy to maximize UWD’s assets including its people power, brand, as well as financial and operational resources, to build the power necessary to change the lives of our members, leaders and communities. 

We are looking for an experienced, strategic, insightful, and mission-driven leader who thrives on creating and managing systems and community in service to an organization’s mission. As the primary thought partner to the Executive Director (ED), the Managing Director translates the organization’s vision into seamless, cohesive execution across five core pillars: 1) long-term organizational strategic vision; 2) financial sustainability & growth strategy; 3) operations strategy responsive to the needs of a fast-paced community power building infrastructure; 4) organizational security and compliance strategy; and 5) organizational structure and culture that successfully drives organizational priorities. 

This position works with all members of the internal leadership, including leading the Executive Team and the Senior Leadership Team, and will coordinate internal processes across departments to cultivate and maintain an effective team, a commitment to excellence, and healthy organizational culture. 

A successful candidate will be passionate about UWD’s mission and be highly motivated to work in a fast-growing, front-line, history-making organization. They must be committed to leadership development, power building, and building collaborative structures which make the most of a highly talented staff team. 

 

This is a full-time exempt position. Much day-to-day work will be handled remotely, but travel (local, nation-wide, international) is expected for approximately 30-40% of the time. Applicants working in the eastern time zone are preferred but not required. Multilingual communication skills are a plus though not required.

Primary Responsibilities 

Long-Term Organizational Strategy & Leadership Alignment

• Strategic Thought Partner: Serves as thought partner to the Executive Director on all aspects of organizational strategy including programs, internal operations and team management, growth, and brand.
• Strategic Planning: Lead the development, rollout, and regular evaluation of the multi-year organizational strategic vision in partnership with the Executive Director, Senior Leadership Team, and Board of Directors.
• Execution & Accountability: Lead the Executive Team, the Senior Leadership Team, and the Staff through annual goal setting, translating the organization’s long-term vision into ambitious but realizable organizational goals that build year after year 
  • Works with the Senior Leadership Team to arrive at Department-Level goals that will implement the organizational goals
  • Leads periodic stepbacks with the SLT and the Staff to assess progress made on goals as well as any changes that need to be made
• Internal Leadership:

• Provides day-to-day management of the Executive Team and the Senior Leadership Team and ensures that the teams are high functioning, collaborative and effective leadership bodies.
  • Lead ET and SLT meetings and stepback spaces
• Oversees planning and execution of all-staff and all-leadership gatherings and retreats.
• Staffs the Executive Director in internal settings or speaks on their behalf in internal settings when required.
• Serves as the chief of internal communications, crafting and/or approving internal communications materials related to United We Dream’s organizational effectiveness.
• Supports the Executive Director to ensure the achievement of key internal culture and operations goals.

• Board Management: 
  • Work with the Executive Director and Co-Chairs of the Board to lead board meetings and relevant board committee meetings
  • Prepare high-level briefings and strategic board materials
  • Facilitate alignment at Executive Committee meetings.

• Special Projects: Direct priority high-stakes or rapid-response projects and incubates initiatives from concept to handoff or implementation.

Financial Sustainability & Growth Strategy

• Supervise the Senior Director of Finance and Development
• Revenue Strategy Collaboration: Partner with the Senior Director of Finance and Development to strategize around and execute long-term revenue diversification strategies, including major gifts, institutional funding, earn-income models, and rapid-response campaign fundraising.
• Resource Allocation: Partner with the Senior Director of Finance and Development to ensure strategic priorities are directly linked to annual budgeting and financial forecasting analysis, optimizing resource allocation for maximum programmatic impact.
• Capital & Reserve Management: Partner with the Senior Director of Finance and Development to oversee financial sustainability and growth metrics, long-term reserve and investments planning, and fiscal decision-making models to weather potential political or economic shifts.

Operational Strategy & Organizational Effectiveness

• Supervise the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems. 
• Oversee the contract relationship with our operations partner Seed the Dream, and create staff and consultant support systems as needed.
• Change Management: 
  • Lead major organizational change initiatives or organizational redesigns 
  • Partner with the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems to lead culture-building endeavors that promote courage, rigor, community, resilience, and high performance.
• Inter-Departmental Collaboration: 
  • Serve as the central, high-level oversight ensuring effective coordination between all parts of the organization – the Membership and Campaigns Department, Narrative Department, Development Department, Finance Department, and the Data and Operations Department.
• Movement-Values Aligned & Effective Operations:
  • Oversees the Operations partner to ensure the complete, seamless, and values-aligned operational apparatus and set-up for programs, activities, tactics, etc. 
  • Oversees the Operations partner to ensure the complete, seamless, and values-aligned planning and execution of in-person events or actions, including large scale ones with multiple external participants and partners.

Security, Risk Mitigation & Compliance

• Holistic Organizational Strategy:
  • Anticipate and monitor changes in legal, regulatory and administrative environments
    • Partner with the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems to devise plans to implement changes in organizational policies/procedures as needed to maintain compliance.
    • Partner with the Adviser on Special Projects and the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems to strategize about legal risks to the organization and bring in necessary counsel
    • Partner with the Narrative Director to assess any additions to external communications strategy 
  • Anticipate and monitor our organizational security needs across all aspects (physical, digital, data, reputational, etc.) and and partner with the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems to devise plans for improvements necessary to support the growth of specific programs and UWD overall; 
• Legal Compliance: Ensure complete compliance across nonprofit regulatory frameworks (including 501(c)(3) / 501(c)(4) advocacy and lobbying rules, charitable registrations, etc.), maintaining proactive legal and reputational risk management policies and systems.
• Crisis Management: Develop and maintain rapid-response crisis plans, leading incident response teams during political retaliation, legal challenges, security breaches, or public relations crises.

Organizational Leadership

• Strengthen the culture: Partner with the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems to ensure a safe, welcoming, and inspiring organizational culture for staff to excel in. Role model and uphold UWD’s values of creating a courageous, rigorous, and community-oriented working environment. 
  • Partner with the Director of Organizational Culture and Systems and with the Operations partner to develop, revise, and uphold organization policies and standards, ensuring that organizational policies are in line with the organization’s guiding principles as well as relevant compliance regulations and concerns.  
• Support fundraising: Collaborate with the Executive Director and Development Department team in developing and executing a forward-thinking fundraising strategy for organizational priorities.
• Demonstrate embodied leadership: Prioritize taking care of your physical and emotional health as a key component of thriving in your role. Practice self-care behaviors in ways that work best for you and proactively encourage your staff to prioritize self-care as well. Project trust & confidence in your abilities and skills and recognize the achievements and abilities of others
• Manage organizational change: As the organization undergoes continued growth and innovation, the Managing Director will manage organizational change in a way that inspires and activates the Board, staff, members and community. 

 

Desired Qualifications and Skills

• 8+ years of experience in the progressive, non-profit or movement space with a well rounded background across organizational departments.
• Well developed emotional intelligence and communication skills, is able to build trusting relationships with a wide array of individuals
• A critical thinker and a capable, flexible, curious generalist. 
• Demonstrated experience in successfully developing and executing major, large-scale project plans involving many moving pieces and collaborators.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with an ability to understand a wide range of  audiences and interests.
• Demonstrated experience in building staff teams, management, coaching and leadership development. 
• The ability to build strong relationships internal to the organization and external for the organization
• Experience with seeing the long vision of an organization while understanding the importance of accomplishing short and medium term objectives. 
• Experience with being able to conceptualize and approach problems and solutions in a proactive, constructive, and innovative manner that will result in improved performance across the organization.
• Strong follow through with principals and with organizers.
• A passion for the mission: We believe that those closest to the pain are the closest to the solutions, therefore a successful candidate must be “all in” on UWD being an immigrant youth-led organization 

 

Interpersonal Skills

• An exceptional team player; exemplifies a work style that is committed to the excellence that our members and team deserve while being flexible, respectful, collaborative and nimble;
• Can build trust, confidence, and leadership among a diverse range of staff, fellow, partner organizations - across race, gender, and other identities
   

 

Cultural Competency

• Strong understanding of the immigrant experience, preferably with lived experience as an undocumented person, immigrant, or immigrant family 
• Understanding of race, gender, sexuality and other aspects of identity, and their intersections, and how that plays out in the work.  Experience building strong relationships and trust across race, gender, class, and other group identities, both internally and externally
• Brings an anti-racist lens to their work and understands the role that white-supremacy and anti-Blackness play in the environments in which we operate
• Demonstrates self-awareness of their own multiple group identities and their attendant dynamics, and can adapt the approach as needed
• Experience working in communities of color and/or building multiracial organizing efforts
• Knowledge of immigrants rights’ policy and organizing landscape is preferred 

Compensation

Salary Range: $160,000.00- $180,000.00

 

Benefits:

 

• Employees who have completed less than 1 year of service with United We Dream: 
  • 10 Vacation days per year
• Employees who have completed more than 1 year of service but less than 3 with United We Dream: 
  • 12 Vacation days per year
• Employees who have completed more than 3 years of service but less than 5 with United We Dream: 
  • 17 Vacation days per year
• Employees who have completed more than 5 years of service with United We Dream: 
  • 22 Vacation days per year
• Paid two weeks Off Holiday between December and January.
• 12 Paid holidays
• 4% 403(B) employer discretionary contribution 
• 12 weeks of paid family leave (after 1 and 1 day of service) 
• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life coverage 
• $120 Reimbursement included cell service/data and utilities monthly
• $500 Reimbursement for office supplies working from home annually
• $2000 Stipend towards professional development

 

To Apply

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Please submit a cover letter, resume, at least one writing example, and salary requirement via email to humanresources@unitedwedream.org and include Managing Director (LAST NAME, FIRST NAME) in the subject line. Please do not send duplicate materials and incomplete applications will not be considered. No phone calls, please.

 

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UWD is an equal opportunity employer; people of color and individuals from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. UWD does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ethnic background, citizenship status, religion, political orientation, genetic information, sexual orientation, age or disability.

 

8+ years progressive non-profit or movement experience; strong emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking; demonstrated experience in large-scale project planning, team building, and leadership development; passion for immigrant youth-led mission.

Key Responsibilities

• developing organizational strategy
• leading executive team
• overseeing operations

Job Details

• Category: Business Operations
• Seniority: Senior Level
• Commitment: Full Time
• Workplace: Remote — Washington, District of Columbia, United States
• Salary: USD 160,000 – 180,000 / year
• Languages: English

Benefits

• 401k matching
• Generous paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Generous parental leave

About United We Dream Network, Inc.

The largest immigrant youth-led network in the country, fighting for justice and dignity for all immigrants. — Industry: Non-Profit Organizations and NGOs