ACT 2021 Leadership Opportunities

ACT volunteers highly value opportunities to have impact, learn new skills, and work with exciting clients. In order to offer GSB alumni these opportunities, we proactively develop relationships with targeted clients. The Head of Client Development is critical to ACT’s success in recruiting engaging projects by crafting responses to these and other questions:

• What criteria should we use for the targets we pursue? Are the targets different for local nonprofits vs those that focus on advancing racial equity anywhere in the US? 
• What’s the best way to nurture and sustain relationships with key organizations? 
• How can we best cultivate our volunteers to serve as spokespersons for ACT in support of client development? 

You will also be “in the field”, meeting with prospective targets, learning from those experiences and developing prospects for the next round of projects.

The Client Development Role may be ideal for you if:

• You are enthusiastic about the value ACT offers to both volunteers and clients, having participated in several projects yourself.
• You are committed to ACT’s goal of executing on 50 projects by the end of 2025 with organizations focused on advancing racial equity.
• You enjoy outreach. You like to meet people, to learn about their organizations and their challenges. You are skilled in thinking on your feet about how ACT might address those challenges.
• You also enjoy collaboration. You will be working closely with other Management Board members whose insights and procedures will inform your own thinking and actions.
• You are a go-getter who is comfortable taking action while still developing responses to strategic questions. You’ll have flexibility to set your own timetable and work plan and must be self-motivated to meet it. 
• The ideal Client Development Head will have knowledge of the Bay Area nonprofit community.

As Head of Client Development you will:

• Review existing data on volunteer experiences and criteria for highly valued clients and types of projects and update as necessary. 
• Initiate and maintain relationships with target clients and partners, taking initiative and proactively seeking out relationships.
• Work with the support of the Head of Racial Equity Initiatives and the Head of Project Screening to bring impact projects to ACT each round.

The fine print:

The commitment for this position is approximately 8-10 hours per month on average, which includes our monthly board meetings.

Calendar tie-in:

• You might need to spend more time with prospective clients in Nov-Dec and May-June, just before client applications are due.

We have learned that many ACT volunteers highly value the sense of community that they experience with fellow alumni, both in their project teams and in their interactions with other ACT volunteers. Often it is this sense of community that draws alumni again and again to ACT opportunities. The Head of Events and Volunteer Recognition has the enviable job of emphasizing the fun, the camaraderie and the appreciation that come with being an ACT volunteer.

This role may be right for you if:

• You enjoy meeting other ACT volunteers.
• You like to plan events, incorporating new ideas to make them better.
• You enjoy coming up with fun, new ways to do things.
• You like to help make people feel appreciated and recognized for their contributions.
• You’d like to help strengthen the ACT culture.

As Head of Events and Volunteer Recognition, you will:

• Plan and organize two project kick-offs and an annual volunteer appreciation event with the support of ACT staff and other Management Board members, events that build community, promote pride in belonging to ACT, and help volunteers feel excited about their ACT participation.
• Determine how to welcome new Management Board members and celebrate outgoing Management Board members.
• Consider and implement volunteer recognition strategies.
• Collaborate with other Management Board members such as the Heads of Marketing Content and Volunteer Development.

The fine print:

The commitment for this position is approximately 8-10 hours per month on average, which includes our monthly board meetings. You’ll have months when you devote much less time, and periods when you’ll be busier.

Calendar tie-in:

• Project Round Kick-Offs occur in March and September.
• Volunteer appreciation event takes place in June.
• Management Board welcomes new members in September and celebrates outgoing members in August.

ACT has traditionally served nonprofits in the Bay Area with the services of in-person volunteers. When the pandemic hit, ACT pivoted to all virtual teams, allowing non-Bay Area alumni to become project volunteers. ACT is now in its third round of virtual projects, with the last and current rounds including out-of-area nonprofits as well, ones that focus on advancing racial equity. Our remote teams and clients have given the same strong satisfaction scores to which ACT is accustomed.

ACT aims to continue to leverage remote project teams, anticipates including hybrid project teams that include in-person and remote volunteers, and is looking at accommodating remote members of the ACT Management Board.

The Head of Remote/Hybrid Teams is responsible for: 

• Creating, with great intentionality, the key underpinnings of effective remote teams as well as teams of mixed in-person and remote volunteers. 
• Developing procedures that promote a sense of community, camaraderie and fun no matter where volunteers are located.
• Ensuring that clients with remote and mixed project teams have had the top-notch experience that they would have had if their teams were not remote.
• Determining the feasibility and desirability of remote or hybrid events (project round kick-offs and volunteer recognition)

This role may be right for you if:

• You are passionate about finding new, flexible ways for people to participate in meaningful volunteer work
• You’d like to diversify ACT’s volunteer teams
• The ideal Head of Remote Teams will have experience working in and leading remote teams

As Head of Remote/Hybrid Teams, you will:

• Create a strategy for remote and hybrid project teams (including expectations, accountability, fairness, communication methods, team leader and volunteer support, etc)
• Develop recommendations on whether to continue to conduct ACT’s events (kick-offs and volunteer recognition) fully remotely post-COVID &/or determine factors that would make hybrid ACT events meaningful and a draw for both in person and remote participants 
• Establish ways to measure performance of remote and hybrid teams
• Collaborate with other Management Board members such as the Heads of Volunteer Development, Marketing, Screening and Racial Equity Initiatives in recruiting and supporting remote volunteers

The fine print:

The commitment for this position is approximately 8-10 hours per month on average, which includes our monthly board meetings. You’ll have months when you devote much less time, and periods when you’ll be busier. 

Calendar tie-in:

• Volunteer recruitment occurs in February and August
• Kick-offs are in March and September; our Volunteer Appreciation event is in June