Program Associate

(Full-Time Position in Washington, DC)

Who We Are

Impact Justice advances safety, justice, and opportunity through boundary-breaking work that honors and empowers people and is changing expectations about what we can accomplish together. We imagine, build, and scale innovations, leverage research and other knowledge to connect the desire for change with informed action, and work to shift the narrative so that decision-makers and the public understand what’s at stake and what’s possible.

Specifically, we work to reduce the number of people caught up in harmful legal systems by creating alternatives that are responsive, restorative, fair, and effective; to improve living conditions and life outcomes and safeguard fundamental human rights for the millions of people still subject to mass incarceration; and to expand opportunities for formerly incarcerated and other system-involved people to heal, fully participate in community life, and reach their potential. We operate from the understanding that the struggle for justice takes place in a context of historic, systemic, and pervasive racism.

We are a diverse and allied staff of reformers, transformers, abolitionists, and dreamers who bring a wide range of knowledge, skill, and life experience to the challenging work we undertake together. We’re committed to living our values and to creating the kinds of equitable and inclusive team environments internally that we fight to help create in our broader communities. This includes providing opportunities to all job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, national origin, age, criminal history, disability, or genetics. The organization strongly encourages people of color, individuals who identify as part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer communities, and individuals impacted by the legal system to join the team. A majority of individuals on our current executive team identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ. We are committed to workplace diversity and providing equal employment opportunities.

Check us out at www.impactjustice.org.

The Team

The National PREA Resource Center (PRC) is a project of Impact Justice operated via a cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The PRC serves as the national source for training and technical assistance to assist adult prisons and jails, juvenile facilities, lockups, community confinement, and tribal confinement facilities in their ongoing work to eliminate sexual abuse by increasing their capacity for prevention, detection, monitoring, responses to incidents, and to provide services to victims and their families. We also support the Justice Department in training, certifying, providing continuing education, and maintaining the systems and instruments for auditors who determine facilities’ compliance with PREA.

The PRC Operations and Resource Management Team (ORM) provides operational support and coordination to all the programmatic, data and strategic teams at the PRC. The ORM team provides financial and grant management in conjunction with the IJ Fiscal Division for the cooperative agreements with the Department of Justice that fund the work of the PRC. ORM oversees all mandatory reporting under the cooperative agreements, works with each PRC division to ensure adherence with grant requirements, and coordinates external and internal communications as well as some meetings and events. Additionally, the ORM team coordinates new employee hiring and onboarding activities for the PRC.

Who You Are

You are someone eager to own a project from beginning to end; you are attendant to detail, have the ability to keep track of several ongoing projects with various timelines, tasks and details, and can work effectively with multiple divisions of the organization. You have 3 or more years of work experience, ideally working across organizational teams with responsibility and participation in the hiring/onboarding of employees and the monitoring of progress on federal grant deliverables. You already have some knowledge regarding federal grant management rules and regulations or you are eager to learn about this area.

You have a customer service orientation, naturally empathize with colleagues to understand and anticipate needs, and do not tend to get impatient or flustered easily. Naturally, you will not have an answer to every question you are asked, but you research and seek out information to get that answer; you are a person who wants to find new solutions to new problems. You are excited to engage with various stakeholders and collaborators – including our partners at the Department of Justice, corrections professionals, advocates, our dedicated contractors and consultants, and the PREA auditor community.

You are also –

• Able to juggle and implement simultaneous multiple project responsibilities and deadlines.
• Adept at time management with a proven ability to meet deadlines.
• Comfortable working with remote team members.
• Tech-savvy: comfortable with Google Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, Asana, and databases/case management systems.
• A critical thinker with a high level of analytical/interpretive thinking and problem-solving skills.

With that said, we know there are great candidates who may not think they fit into what we’ve described above or who have important skills we haven’t thought of. If that is you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself! And if you’re a formerly incarcerated individual, someone who has a family member who is or has been incarcerated, or otherwise have direct experience with the criminal legal or juvenile legal systems, we will be particularly excited to hear from you.

What You Will Do

The anticipated start date for this position is March 25, 2024. You will report to a Program Director on the PRC ORM team; however, you will work collaboratively with other teams/subteams and will likely receive guidance from and collaborate with other program directors, the PRC director, and other staff members for project-specific tasks. Your core responsibilities generally will include:

• Program and Event Support

You will plan meetings, training, and events involving internal staff and external stakeholders, ensuring overall planning stays on time and on budget, and programmatic work is supported by logistical details.. You will review and create agendas, meeting objectives, and oversee meeting logistics, including taking meeting notes as needed. You will coordinate details for events such as travel, hotel, event space, food/beverage, and audio visual needs as well as monitoring adherence to event budgets. You may assist program directors with the development of event budgets.

• Grants Management

You will work with the Program Director for Operations and Resource Management to ensure that Impact Justice is in compliance with 2 CFR Part 200, Uniform Guidance and DOJ requirements and special conditions for each award. You will meet regularly with all PRC divisions to understand and track deliverables in progress and you will coordinate the bi-annual reporting process to BJA for all deliverables under the PRC’s cooperative agreements. You may collect information from programmatic teams and assist with writing descriptions of program deliverables/events.

• Financial Record-keeping

You will work with the ORM and IJ finance division to manage financial records such as credit card transactions and supporting documentation, general ledger entries and tracking grant expenditures.

• Hiring and Onboarding

You will coordinate the hiring process for the PRC team, working closely with the PRC Director and program directors to identify hiring needs and priorities, and in consultation with the IJ People Team as needed. You will coordinate the development of a hiring plan for specific positions. You will assist the hiring manager in screening candidates, managing communications with candidates for interviews, securing job offer approvals, and preparing job offer and job declination documentation. You will also coordinate the onboarding and offboarding processes for the PRC team, working cooperatively with the IJ People Team.

• Internal and External Communications and Operations

You will coordinate communications across the PRC team and with external stakeholders as needed for various projects. You will work with PRC leaders to plan and facilitate PRC team meetings, as well as selected meetings with external stakeholders. You will track DOJ approval of PRC documents submitted for review. You will work with systems and tools utilized by the program or team, such as travel systems, inventory request systems, communication tools (e.g., Slack or Zoom), project management tools (e.g., Asana or Basecamp), databases (e.g., Salesforce or other), websites, or online learning tools (e.g., a learning management system).

Required Qualifications

• 4 years of professional training/education &/or closely-related experience
• At least 3 years experience in roles supporting program work through independently planning and managing work deliverables and/or supporting training delivery or writing/analysis activities
• A track record of excellent writing and editing skill; the ability to communicate verbally and in writing in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner; relative independence (with some oversight) in communication via email or phone
• Ability to complete a variety of tasks in a timely and efficient manner, managing multiple priorities to meet deadlines
• Attention to detail: thoroughness in completing tasks through concern for all areas, monitoring and checking work to ensure accuracy
• Problem solving skills
• Strong work ethic and team mentality
• Ability to interface among teams and take guidance from multiple program directors and staff as well as answer general operational questions from staff.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel (preferred)
• Knowledge of or work experience with federal grants and cooperative agreements; familiarity with JustGrants and DOJ Grants Financial Guidelines
• Experience in hiring processes and onboarding programs for new employees
• Interest in criminal and social justice work

Applying

The position will be paid $62,000-$68,000 annually. The benefits that come with working at Impact Justice include medical, dental, and FSA plans, significant vacation and wellness leave, and immediate vesting in our 401K with a generous match. This is a full-time, salaried position. This position is located in our Washington, DC office. We are not considering remote staff for this position. Currently, office-based staff are working a hybrid schedule, with two days in the office.

COVID-19 Vaccination is a condition of employment for all employees (office-based and remote). We require employees to be fully vaccinated and up to date per the CDC guidance.

If this all sounds like a good fit for you, please send your resume and a brief email or letter explaining why you are particularly interested in the role and why we should be particularly interested in you! You can send this to: prcprgmassociate@impactjustice.org.

Please have the subject line of the email read “[Your Last Name], [Your First Name] Application for Program Associate.

We will be reaching out to those candidates we are prepared to interview within the month following the application deadline of February 26, 2024. We plan to review applications on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply the better.

Hiring Process

Elements of the Impact Justice hiring process may include phone screen interviews, candidate exercises (written or presentations), Zoom interviews, in-person interviews, and reference checks. Candidates are welcome to ask for alternative arrangements in the process if needed (for example, conducting an interview via phone rather than Zoom), Impact Justice will do our best to accommodate reasonable requests. Please communicate any alternative arrangements requested via the hiring email listed above.