Job Summary

The Northern California team is a dynamic, positive and friendly set of colleagues working to bring Enterpise’s mission and many tools to ensure that everyone has a place to call home in Northern California.  We are entrepreneurial in our approach to strengthening the capacities of the affordable housing field so that housing is more than just a person’s home.  Enterprise is also a place to innovate new finance, building and management practices; create building blocks for other critical aspects of making healthy and environmentally sustainable communities.

During the past two decades, Enterprise has advanced two important programs to increase opportunities for affordable housing residents and empower the industry to create more environmentally sustainable and healthier places –Transit Oriented Development and Green Communities.  These two bodies of work are complimentary and the fields have now matured in California to the point at which we will strive to provide our partners a more comprehensive suite of knowledge, tools and technical assistance to achieve sustainable, equitable, healthy and diverse mixed-income communities. This new position represents this convergence. The Program Director will focus on building Enterprise’s practice using existing resources –sophisticated frameworks (such as EcoDistricts and Equitable Transit Oriented Development), national teams, financial tools, innovation and knowledge– to advance existing partnerships and pursue new ones.

Equitable TOD (ETOD) prioritizes social equity as a key component of ETOD planning and implementation, and ensures that all people along a transit corridor, including those who are low income, have the opportunity to reap the benefits of living in walkable, connected communities.  While ETOD is a neighborhood scale concept, transit oriented regions successfully discourage driving and can play a major role in reducing auto-related greenhouse gas emissions. Enterprise has a national practice of working on the components of creating such places –from financing affordable homes near transit to co-hosting regional collaboratives to advancing favorable national policy.  Our ten local market offices across the country have all developed a unique set of ways to advance ETOD in each place, emphasizing different roles and tools as appropriate.

Enterprise’s Green Communities program helps developers, investors, builders and policymakers make the transition to a green future for affordable housing. We provide the funds and technical expertise to help build, rehabilitate and operate healthier, more efficient, yet still affordable homes.  We also work with state and local governments to ensure the development of policies and pilots that ensure the development of smart, economic and sustainable housing. The Program Director will continue our work in San Francisco around ‘greening’ public housing with solar financing, Sustainable Chinatown, work and studying the long-term effects of greening affordable homes on residents’ health.

Increasingly, the geographies and goals of the ETOD and Green Communities work are converging.  There are additional geographies and partnerships we could undertake.  The Program Director will work with the Director of Programs and the rest of the Northern California team to shape future endeavors and the rest of the team to raise funds to expand our capacity to step up.  As funds allow, s/he will manage consultants and staff to position the Northern California team to effectively meet the challenges and opportunities. 

Job Responsibilities

• Help conceptualize and define the programmatic convergence of the previously distinct programs –ETOD and Green Communities;

 • Manage the programmatic activities for Enterprise’s work with the Great Communities Collaborative in the Bay Area;

• Oversee the Northern California Sustainable Communities partnerships, such as our work in San Francisco’s Chinatown;

 • Manage grantmaking and technical assistance for the Sustainable and Connected Communities program;

 • Seek other opportunities to integrate Enterprise tools nad knowledge with promising partnerships in Northern California;

 • Provide technical assistance and training about various aspects of Sustainable and Connected Communities to internal and external partners, including regional collaboratives around the country;

 • Coordinate and develop knowledge sharing activities with local, regional and national partners;

• Partner with Enterprise’s policy program staff to identify opportunities to create or change policies that would benefit equitable TOD implementation;

 • Assist the Development Director and other staff in fundraising for the Sustainable and Connected Communities program; and

 • Present Enterprise’s vision of equitable TOD and Green Communities to external and internal partners.

Qualifications

•       A Bachelor’s degree is required; a Master’s degree in a related field is preferred. A minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience in shaping community development programs or lending/investing strategies is preferred. Must possess excellent verbal, presentation and written communication skills. Must be able to travel periodically.

• At least five (5) years of experience or deep exposure to community development, affordable housing, transportation and/or energy conservation.

 • Strong external relationship skills, and ability to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders. Must have strong written, speaking, and external relationship skills.

 • Substantive knowledge of transit oriented development and/or green energy or building practices essential.  A basic knowledge community develpment policy and practice is helpful.

• Strong research and presentation skills.

• Experience coordinating complex land use, transportation and/or energy issues with diverse stakeholder groups including developers, property owners, philanthropy, local, regional and state government, and other stakeholders.