DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

Since 2000, more than 5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 2 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. Projects range from art supplies to build the set for a school musical, to books and puzzles that affirm students’ identities, to bird seed for an at-home science project. We proudly serve all US public schools, public charter schools, and Head Start centers, and we combat systemic inequity by driving a majority of donations to schools that have been historically underfunded due to economic and racial inequity.

DonorsChoose has been recognized as a best place to work by GOOD Magazine and the Nonprofit Times, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Our dedicated team works from across the United States bring classroom dreams to life.

Team Overview

The Content & Volunteer Operations team has a front-row seat to the most compelling classroom-generated content on our site. We review all incoming project requests, and help deliver the final touch to funded projects to donors: the donor thank-you “package”. When donors give to a project on our site, they receive direct follow-up from the classroom, including a letter, photos of the project in-action, and handwritten student thank-yous.

Our goal is to guide, approve, and leverage this content to deliver a personal experience that inspires donor and partner loyalty.

Our team of staff members works in tandem with a community of 200+ mission-driven volunteers to review this digital and physical project content.

Last year, the team collectively reviewed over 500,000+ project requests and 210,000 thank-you photo submissions.

Primary Responsibilities

As Content Operations Manager, you’ll oversee operations for our most complex and innovative projects, including those tied to our funding partners.

The majority of project content is reviewed by our mighty team of volunteers to ensure that project requests are eligible to be posted to DonorsChoose.org. However, there is a smaller subset of more complex content that is reserved for staff attention, rather than volunteer review.

Specialized staff-reviewed content falls into 3 broad categories:

• Projects escalated by volunteers to our staff team for further review, based on increased complexity.
• Projects specifically designated for staff review due to specialized review criteria from a supporting partner.
• Requests for customized digital content (i.e: photos, quotes, videos) from a supporting partner.

You’ll lead a team of 2 full-time colleagues that review this specialized content, and ensure that the team is positioned to review content within 5 business days, our internal turnaround time goal.

You will play a pivotal role in ensuring that project content is successfully and efficiently reviewed by staff, which will ultimately help teachers’ projects get funded by eager donors and partners.

In this role, you will:

• Manage and develop a high-performing team.
  • Directly manage 2 full-time colleagues by providing guidance, coaching, and support to help them meet their goals.
  • Indirectly manage 2 staff members who are periodically tapped to support your team’s work on a part-time basis during high-volume periods.
  • Ensure that the team is appropriately trained to review projects based on our internal eligibility criteria.
  • Utilize data and knowledge of internal initiatives to forecast incoming project content volumes, and ensure that the team is appropriately staffed to handle fluctuations.
• Lead the charge on incoming requests from partners requiring specialized content review.
  • Oversee execution for partnerships and campaigns requiring customized screening review guidelines, like Dick’s Sporting Goods and the Infosys Foundation.
  • Oversee and execute incoming partner requests for specialized digital content – including photos, quotes, videos – for partners’ internal and external storytelling needs.
  • Be the main point of contact for internal DonorsChoose colleagues around specialized partner needs. Provide consultation and guidance with collaborators to align on deliverables that meet partner goals while ensuring operational feasibility.
  • Develop and improve processes to support this work, with an eye towards continuous improvement and scale.
• Own internal project review guidelines, which dictate what is (and is not) eligible to be requested on DonorsChoose.org.
  • Be the expert on our existing policies and processes. People will turn to your team to resolve our trickiest content review cases that require staff judgment.
  • Develop new policies and improve existing policies, as needed. Monitor trends in project submissions that do not fall clearly within our existing documented policies. Track trends and patterns to propose changes to minimize future confusion.
  • Work in collaboration with cross-team stakeholders on other teams (including: Trust and Safety, Customer Support, and Procurement) to identify and prioritize policy changes.
  • Maintain a policy roadmap to create transparency around potential policy improvements. Use data to inform decisions around relative prioritization and timelines for tackling open questions.
• Lead process improvements on behalf of your team.
  • Identify areas of improvement in our existing staff operations processes and execute changes to improve your stakeholders’ experience (including: your direct reports, colleagues, teachers, and partners).
  • Streamline materials, processes, and program policies to ensure that staff and volunteers have the necessary knowledge, tools, and training to be positioned for success.
  • Lead tech & data enhancement cases to improve staff experience around content review, as needed.

Qualifications

This job might be for you if:

• You are a seasoned people manager, and are motivated by bringing out the best in others. You have at least 1-2 years of direct management experience (interns, part-time, or full-time staff). You find joy in empowering your team with the necessary knowledge, skills, and guidance to succeed.
• You’re a natural relationship-builder and collaborator. You love forging authentic connections with others, and have a passion for mobilizing people around common goals.
• You are a visionary thinker and stellar project manager. You get fired up by crafting and leading new strategies. When the rubber hits the road, you can translate big-picture ideas into action, and develop tactical plans to achieve ambitious outcomes. You execute work with a high degree of excellence (no dropped balls here!), can easily balance the needs of various stakeholders, and can proactively make tough prioritization decisions if time or resources are limited.
• You are fueled by a desire to continuously improve. You love coming up with solutions to challenges, and identifying opportunities to grow and improve. If you notice that something isn’t working, you don’t wait for permission to proactively explore (and advocate for) alternative solutions. You thrive in situations when you are charged to build systems to impose order, and always strive to ensure that your second time doing something takes less time and effort than your first.
• You adapt quickly to change. You are cool and collected under pressure, and are adept at adjusting your (and your team’s) priorities when needed – including what to prioritize and deprioritize.
• You are mission-motivated, and passionate about educational equity. You care about helping teachers, and believe that all students should have equal access to educational opportunities.
• You have 3-4 years of full-time work experience in a relationship building, operational, or data-centric role.

Compensation and Benefits

Our compensation philosophy ensures that we are both externally competitive with tech-forward nonprofits of a similar size and internally fair in our pay practices. The following ranges represent the target offer range given the scope and experience expectations for this role.

• The hiring salary range for this role is $66,000 - $77,000
• We have a hiring salary range of $73,000 - $85,000 for specific higher cost of labor locations, which include New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

Once employees are hired, the salary range for their role increases to ensure that employees are able to receive performance-based raises and grow in their role.

We are open to a variety of experiences, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced or more senior than this job description as posted. If that’s the case, an updated salary range will be shared with candidates if they move forward in our hiring process.

In addition, we offer full-time staff 25 paid vacation days per year and 11 paid holidays, a rich employer-paid individual and family health plan, a matching 401(k) plan (up to 5% of base salary), annual professional development stipend, and casual and flexible work environment. To learn more about what it is like to work for DonorsChoose, visit our careers page.

Hybrid Workplace and Other Details

In this role, you’ll have the option to work a flexible hybrid schedule in our NYC office, or to work fully remotely from CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TX, or WI.

Candidates who are not in the NYC area should expect to travel to our NYC office on as-needed basis, about 4-6 times per year. All work-related travel expenses will be covered by the organization and proper safety precautions will be taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

DonorsChoose is a fully vaccinated workplace and all new employees, regardless of their work location, will be asked to share proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 within two weeks of their hire date or request an exemption from this policy due to a disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice.

To Apply

Please submit your resume online and answer the application questions. A cover letter is optional and may be addressed to, Jen Mao, Director of Content & Volunteer Operations.

A Final Note

The DonorsChoose team works toward a nation where students in every community have the resources needed for an excellent education. To do this we hire and support a diverse team of the best and the brightest talent available.

We are an organization increasingly representative of the varied races and ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, religious and political beliefs, and abilities that comprise our nation. DonorsChoose focuses on attracting, retaining, and advancing diverse talent because it makes us more effective, high-performing, creative, and resilient.

If you are passionate about our mission, highly skilled in your field, and looking for a place where you can bring all of yourself to work, we want you.