Director, Resilience Fund

Job Type

Full-time

Description

Position: Director, Resilience Fund

Department: Programs

FLSA Status: Full-time, Exempt

Reports to: Chief Strategy and Impact Officer

Direct Reports: None

Date Issued: September 1, 2022

Date Revised: N/A

Location: Washington, DC

The Mission

Polaris is leading a data-driven social justice movement to fight sex and labor trafficking at the massive scale of the problem - 25 million people worldwide deprived of the freedom to choose how they live and work.

For more than a decade, Polaris has assisted thousands of victims and survivors through the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, helped ensure countless traffickers were held accountable and built the largest known U.S. data set on actual trafficking experiences. With the guidance of survivors, we use that data to improve the way trafficking is identified, how victims and survivors are assisted, and how communities, businesses and governments can prevent human trafficking by transforming the underlying inequities and oppressions that make it possible.

About Opportunity

Polaris is developing a new direct cash assistance program for low-income survivors of sex and labor trafficking in the United States. The director will work in partnership with Polaris's executive team and program teams to develop the Resilience Fund structure, pilot ongoing payments to the first cohort of individuals, and share learnings of outcomes to inform future policy change and programs.

Specifically, we aim to achieve the following outcomes over the next three years:

• Build, test, and refine the method of selection for the Resilience Fund.
• Stand up a program model for the Resilience Fund including partnership structure, payment processors, community partners, and survivor advisory council roles.
• Develop a national steering committee of survivor leaders to guide the Fund's design and implementation.
• Work with survivors to gauge the efficacy of the Fund model.
• Determine policy recommendations based on findings.

Responsibilities

Reporting to the Chief Strategy and Impact Officer, the Fund Director will direct all aspects of the Polaris Resilience Fund including:

• Convene internal Polaris leaders including CEO and executive team; leadership of National Human Trafficking Hotline; sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and financial systems directors; Mission Engineering; Finance; Learning, Innovation and Data Systems; Communications; Policy; Development; and Human Resources teams to develop a shared vision for the Fund.
• Recruit and guide a steering committee of individuals with lived experience who will co-design the features of the Fund, define success, and hold us accountable for the transparent and fair distribution of resources through a multi-day workshop and periodic committee meetings.
• Co-create with the Mission Engineering team and Finance team an innovative technology platform and payment methodology that will be used to power the Fund, ensuring that survivors who may not have bank accounts can access payments.
• Support the CEO and Chief Development Officer with public outreach and fundraising including building widespread support for the Fund by engaging the media, donors, government officials, survivor leaders, community partners, and more.
• Ensure the successful distribution of full payments to the first 200 individuals.
• Safeguard against fraud by building in risk assessments and planning into the design of the Fund.
• Oversee a third-party evaluation of the program.
• Commitment to the National Human Trafficking Hotline mission and Polaris values ;
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor.

This job description provides a summary of the major duties and responsibilities performed by individuals in this position. Incumbents may be asked to perform other tasks not specifically written in this job.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Deep passion! Mad skills! Low ego!
• At least 10 years of progressively increasing professional experience in victim services and/or social services for survivors of trauma, interpersonal violence, worker rights or individuals facing economic hardship. At least three years of direct client experience;
• Expertise navigating the U.S. social safety net systems at the state and federal level;
• Previous experience designing and/or administering cash assistance, universal/guaranteed basic income, or direct in-kind assistance programs in the U.S. or internationally strongly preferred;
• Proficient subject matter understanding of human trafficking, lived experience with human trafficking preferred;
• Experience building and directly supervising a high-performing and resilient team to deliver direct services or assistance; and
• Bilingual fluency in Spanish and English preferred.

Communication

• Internal - ability to communicate effectively with peers and supervisors

• External - proven ability to communicate in a trauma-informed, survivor centered manner with Fund candidates. Frequent communication with survivors, service providers and donors.

Working Conditions

• Typical office setting

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged sitting, chiefly at a computer terminal;

• Occasional bending, stooping and stretching;

• Requires eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity sufficient to operate a computer, telephone, calculator, and other office equipment;

• Requires normal range of hearing and eyesight to record, prepare, and communicate in writing, in person and by phone;

Organization Background

VALUES: Polaris is grounded in a set of values and organizational beliefs and strives to model and embody these values in all that it does.

We work with humility and a spirit of service. We serve a mission that is bigger than ourselves, and we recognize that we cannot do this work alone. We foster a caring community of mutual support, and we actively pursue collaborations and partnerships to expand our reach.

Victims' and survivors' experiences ground our efforts. We honor the dignity, agency, and resilience of victims and survivors of slavery, both past and present. We serve, work alongside, and stand in solidarity with those who have been most affected by modern slavery.

We strive for inclusion and equity. We engage different perspectives to inform our decisions, actions, and positions. We create opportunities that empower individuals of diverse backgrounds and circumstances. We acknowledge the structural inequities that lead to human trafficking and modern slavery, which drives us to create just and equitable solutions.

We approach our work with courage. We promote a culture of inquiry, innovation, risk-taking, and continuous learning. We are resilient and evolve when faced with obstacles or failure. We recognize that what is typical or traditional is not always optimal.

We create positive impact and achieve results. We leverage and cultivate the strengths of our staff, and we work with discipline, integrity, and a commitment to excellence. We embrace a measurement culture to track our progress. We view impact holistically, considering multiple sectors and the effects on individuals' lives, as we pursue systemic and social change to eradicate modern slavery

DIVERSITY STATEMENT:

Polaris designs and implements data-driven strategies to prevent and disrupt human trafficking, and restore freedom to survivors. Achieving this ambitious goal requires both trafficking-specific systemic interventions and broader cultural and structural shifts that reduce the inequities that lead to human trafficking. While Polaris alone cannot build a more diverse, just, equitable, and inclusive society, both the success of our work and our organizational values require modeling in the workplace the change we want to see in the world.

This means cultivating a workforce, organizational culture, and priorities that respect and celebrate a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team made up of individuals with different identities, lived experiences, and backgrounds. Within both our team and across every part of our work, we strive to integrate and elevate the full range of survivor voices.

This is a living commitment. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to be manifested daily, in the work we do, the decisions we make, and the way that we treat each other and the people we seek to serve. This means creating space where staff can be included, heard, valued, and set up for success, and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, best selves to work. We will not check boxes and consider it done. We will push new innovations and different ways of thinking, and treasure the community built and strengthened by each of our contributions.