Director of Community Impact

The Chattanooga Area Food Bank (CAFB) is seeking a dynamic, collaborative Director of Community Impact who is dedicated to fulfilling our mission in leading a network of partners in eliminating hunger and promoting better nutrition in our region. We are looking for an innovative, strategic leader who
understands feeding our community, through a variety of stakeholders, is our top priority.

Position Description:

Reporting to the Chief Impact Officer, the Director of Community Impact provides strategic and operational leadership for the Community Impact team. This position oversees agency partnership, public benefits, community-based programs, neighbor engagement initiatives, and capacity-building efforts across the Chattanooga Area Food Bank’s 20-county service area.

The Director will help translate organizational and team strategies into measurable community outcomes by strengthening partnerships, elevating neighbor voice, leveraging data-informed decision-making, and ensuring equitable access to food and supportive resources. This position serves as a key leader in advancing the Food Bank’s mission, strategic plan, and commitment to neighbor-centered impact.

This position is responsible for helping to manage the day-to-day operations of the Community Impact Department while fostering strong relationships with agency partners, community stakeholders, neighbors, and internal teams. The Director must be a collaborative, innovative, and strategic leader who can effectively balance relationship-building, program oversight, operational excellence, and long-term planning.

Essential Responsibilities:

Community Partnerships & Capacity Building
– Lead strategies that strengthen the capacity, sustainability, and effectiveness of agency partners across the food bank network.
– Cultivate and maintain relationships with agency partners, schools, faith-based organizations, and other community stakeholders.
– Utilize service area data, partner feedback, and community needs assessments to guide resource allocation and partnership strategies.
– Develop and implement initiatives that improve partner experience, operational effectiveness, and equitable food access throughout the service area.

Programmatic Development, Implementation & Evaluation
– Provide leadership and oversight for community impact programs, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and community needs.
– Develop and monitor key performance indicators, outcome measures, and dashboards to evaluate effectiveness and impact.
– Ensure compliance with grant requirements, contracts, funding agreements, and applicable regulations.
– Lead continuous improvement efforts through program evaluation and performance management.
– Utilize quantitative and qualitative data to identify trends, emerging needs, service gaps, and opportunities for innovation.

– Lead implementation of findings from the Service Area Assessment and other community needs assessments.
– Facilitate collaboration between internal teams to inform and drive a more systemic approach to aligning funding, resources, and capacity to serve the community holistically and effectively.
– Collects, interprets, and reports accurate program data for grants, government contracts, and other external stakeholders as needed.
– Works closely with the senior management and staff to ensure that the fiscal requirements and outcomes for grants and contracts are identified, realized, and monitored.
– Proactively provides timely and accurate data and analysis on outcomes and impact and identifies trends to assist the staff, board, and leadership team to help inform their work.
– Creates, monitors, and enforces written policies and procedures systems for internal controls and compliance.

Leadership & Team Development:
– Demonstrates purpose-driven leadership by engaging and developing others to create trust and motivate high performance.
– Perform supervisory functions including hiring, training, coaching, accountability, and performance reviews.
– Builds strong relationships within the organization and with external stakeholders, values both relationships and results.
– Fosters a culture both internally and externally that is grounded in promoting dignity and an enhanced experience for all engaging in this work.
– Recognizes and is responsive to the needs of the organization, including the staff, the Board of Directors, and other key stakeholders.
– Demonstrates a strong business acumen that is complemented by integrity, courage, and professional ism.
– Grounds all strategies and aspects of the work through the lenses of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
– Communicates effectively in both written and verbal form, to include the collection and reporting of data.
– Ability to think strategically and execute new ideas in a demanding environment.
– Ability to cultivate relationships and effectively collaborate with diverse groups of partners.
– Ability to confidently provide constructive feedback to colleagues and partners from diverse professional and personal backgrounds.

Applicant Qualifications:
– Preferred minimum of a bachelor’s degree in public or business administration or Nonprofit Management or related degree.
– Five years of management experience; preferably in the non-profit or social service sector.
– Analytical skills with exceptional knowledge of project management, program design, data evaluation, budget management and forecasting methods.
– Excellent technology & computer skills; Microsoft programs and ability to quickly learn internal software programs.

Benefits:
This is a full-time exempt position with competitive salary and benefits, including PTO (vacation, holiday, sick pay) paid life insurance policy, & health (medical, vision, and dental) insurance & 401K.