Chief Operating Officer

F

Families in Action for Quality Education

Chief Operating Officer

Oakland, CA
Full Time
Paid
  • Responsibilities

    Chief Operating Officer

    Oakland, CA · Full-Time · Senior Leadership

    Reports To:

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    Chief Executive Officer

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    Location:

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    Oakland, CA (Hybrid)

    Employment:

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    Full-Time, Exempt

    Start Date:

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    Summer 2026 (flexible)

    Compensation:

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    $140,000 - $170,000 commensurate with experience; full benefits, employer matched 401K and generous PTO

    About Families in Action for Quality Education

    Founded in 2019, Families in Action for Quality Education (FIA) is a regional power-building organization rooted in the belief that Black and Brown families are the irreplaceable center of educational change. Over six years, FIA has grown from a local coalition into a Bay Area political force — cultivating family leadership that produces measurable academic outcomes, wins policy change, and is now sought by peer organizations and school districts across the region.

    FIA’s three-part model — Grassroots Leadership, Impactful Campaigns, and Grasstops Partnership — has delivered a 221% increase in students’ A-G eligibility knowledge after a single workshop, an 88% family reading-gains rate across Lit for Literacy schools, and a unanimous OUSD resolution to double reading and math proficiency for Black and Brown students by 2034.

    FIA now stands at an inflection point. With a board-approved 2030 growth strategy, new district partnerships, and a field increasingly looking to FIA for replication guidance, the organization is ready to grow with discipline — from a ~$1.8M operation today to ~$3.4M by FY29-30. The Chief Operating Officer is the organizational architecture that makes that growth possible.

    The Role

    The Chief Operating Officer is a new and critical role at FIA. It is a strategic partner to the CEO — someone who holds the connective tissue of a growing organization: keeping strategy and execution aligned, translating vision into structured plans, managing the CEO’s highest-leverage priorities, and building the internal systems that allow FIA to grow without sacrificing quality or staff wellbeing.

    The ideal candidate is someone who has worked in — or worked closely with — both the programmatic and operational sides of a mission-driven organization, understands the rhythms of philanthropic fundraising, and brings both analytical rigor and relational depth to the work of organizational leadership.

    This role will be a thought partner on the 2030 growth strategy, own internal organizational design, lead cross-functional coordination, and support the CEO in FIA’s fundraising and external partnership efforts during a period of significant expansion.

    Key Responsibilities

    1. Strategic Leadership & CEO Partnership

    • Serve as the CEO’s primary thought partner on strategy, organizational priorities, and stakeholder relationships
    • Manage the CEO’s time and attention — ensuring capacity is directed to the highest-impact work, and that commitments are followed through reliably
    • Prepare the CEO for board meetings, major donor conversations, district partnerships, and field-facing engagements
    • Track the organization’s annual and multi-year goals; provide regular synthesis of progress, risks, and decisions needed
    • Supervise, mentor, and coach the leadership team to ensure alignment with organizational goals, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous development while building a strong, cohesive team environment where collaboration, professional growth, and effective decision-making thrive across all functions.
    • Oversee leadership team step backs, and cross-team planning processes

    2. The 2030 Growth Campaign (Expansion Execution)

    • Own the operational backbone of FIA’s four-year Power to Lead campaign including the expansion of Oakland Enrolls, coordinating across program, development, finance, and communications
    • Manage the launch of Lit for Literacy expansion with partner districts
    • Develop and maintain work plans, milestones, and accountability structures for each phase of the growth strategy
    • Identify risks to expansion timelines and proactively surface them to the CEO with proposed mitigations
    • Support the development of district-level partnership frameworks

    3. Fundraising & Development Support

    • Serve as a core member of FIA’s development capacity in conjunction with development consultant and CEO during the Power to Lead campaign, which seeks multi-year philanthropic support through FY30
    • Manage the development calendar and pipeline in coordination with the development consultant and CEO: tracking prospects, deadlines, reporting requirements, and relationship-cultivation touchpoints
    • Manage development consultant who drafts and edits grant proposals, donor reports, and funder communications — ensuring FIA’s story is told with precision and power
    • Coordinate the preparation of financial narratives, program data packages, and impact documentation for major funders
    • Support field partnership development — consulting and train-the-trainer arrangements that represent FIA’s emerging earned-revenue strategy

    4. Internal Reorganization & Organizational Design

    • Lead the design and implementation at FIA as the organization scales from ~$2.4M to ~$3.4M
    • Staff sustainability: Address documented overallocation of program leadership (currently operating at 113–123% FTE on core programs alone) through role redesign, workload redistribution, and operational support structures
    • Hiring: Develop and refine job descriptions, hiring and onboarding processes, and performance management systems for new roles added in each year of the growth plan
    • Systems: Build or optimize internal infrastructure — project management, knowledge management, staff communication, data collection, analysis and reporting processes — commensurate with the organization’s growing complexity
    • Partner with the CEO and board on compensation philosophy, staff performance systems, and organizational culture as FIA grows
    • Ensure that overhead investments are deployed strategically: protecting program staff from administrative burden while maintaining the financial discipline of FIA’s true-cost accounting model

    5. Board Relations & Governance

    • Manage board relationships in partnership with the CEO
    • Work with the Operations Team to prepare materials for the board

    Qualifications

    Required

    • Deep alignment with FIA’s theory of change: that Black and Brown families, when properly equipped and organized, are the most powerful force for educational equity
    • 7+ years of experience in the nonprofit, education, or public sector, with demonstrated leadership responsibility
    • Proven ability to manage complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives with clarity and follow-through
    • Experience working directly with or for executive leadership in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment
    • Strong written communication skills — you write with clarity, intentionality, and FIA’s voice in mind
    • Analytical ability to synthesize financial data, program metrics, and strategic information for diverse audiences (funders, board, staff, district partners)

    Strongly Preferred

    • Experience in K-12 education reform, family engagement, or community organizing
    • Experience in development or fundraising — particularly with institutional philanthropic funders
    • Familiarity with district-school partnership models and/or the Bay Area education landscape
    • Experience managing organizational growth, restructuring, or multi-year strategic planning
    • Bilingual (English/Spanish) a plus

    What We Offer

    • The opportunity to shape the internal architecture of a proven, growing organization at a pivotal moment in its evolution
    • A CEO who is deeply invested in the Chief Operating Officer’s development and will prioritize this as a senior leadership relationship
    • A healthy, mission-driven staff culture rooted in joy, purpose, and a shared commitment to growth and impact
    • Competitive nonprofit compensation, commensurate with experience, including full medical/dental/vision benefits, retirement, up to 5% performance bonus and generous PTO
    • Flexible hybrid work environment based in Oakland, CA, with some travel to Peninsula partner districts and funder meetings

    How to Apply

    FIA is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Lived experience of the communities we serve is considered an asset.

    To apply, please submit a resume and a cover letter that speaks to: (1) your experience managing organizational complexity; (2) your relationship to the work of family and community power-building; and (3) why this role, at this moment, for FIA.

    Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage early submissions.