Program and Volunteer Coordinator

Founded in 2003, GiGi's Playhouse Inc.’s mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome through national campaigns, and educational programs, and by empowering individuals with Down syndrome, their families, and the community. All programs are free and are therapeutic in nature. Each one of our programs is designed to work on specific skill development, including speech and language, literacy, socialization, and fine and gross motor skills. GiGi’s Playhouse currently has over 50 locations across North America and is growing by several locations annually.

Job Description:

GiGi’s Playhouse offers innovative programs for children and adults with Down syndrome, designed to develop confidence and the development of a wide variety of skills – educational, therapeutic, and career development. The Program and Volunteer Manager facilitates the implementation of all programs, ensures they operate effectively, and supports volunteer recruitment, orientation, scheduling, training, and recognition of volunteers within the Playhouse. This includes ensuring programs are properly staffed with skilled and trained volunteers and follow structured curriculums. Interacting well with people at all levels of the organization is necessary - daily communication with staff, volunteers, and participants with varied diagnoses and their families will be needed in this role to be successful.??A flexible schedule is a must, as you may be required to oversee or cover programs when needed, including some evenings and weekends. All staff members are the face of GiGi’s Playhouse and play an essential role in representing GiGi’s to families, volunteers, donors, and community members.

This is an hourly position with 35 hours per week (70 per pay period). Pay dependent on experience.

Reports To: Site Manager or Board VP at Local Playhouse

Essential Job Functions:

• Program Oversight and Continuous Improvement

• Ensure all programs at the Playhouse meet the stated objectives and branding messages delivered by the GiGi’s Playhouse national office

• Maintain a project log for ongoing improvement of current programs and activities to help inform better solutions

• Partner with National Program Director to leverage and continually improve centralized strategies and tools for program execution and volunteer management

• Facilitates quarterly local Program committee meeting

• Attend monthly National Program calls

• Proficiently uses Microsoft 365 programs such as Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, & Teams

• Volunteer Management

• Ensures all programs and activities are fully supported for the needs of the Playhouse

• Recruits new volunteers to ensure the Playhouse is continually supported for all programs and other Playhouse needs, leveraging community organizations, universities, and other local resources.

• Orients, onboards, and trains new volunteers and provide ongoing training as needed

• Builds and maintains open communication with new and existing volunteers

• Responds to volunteer inquiries and questions via phone and email in a timely and professional manner. Oversees the Volunteer email address for the Playhouse.

• Performs follow-up from virtual Volunteer Orientation within 3-5 days. Working to schedule observations and informing of the next steps, volunteer opportunities, signatures needed, and expectations.

• Conducts one-on-one Volunteer Orientation sessions for volunteers who are not able to attend the monthly session.

• Collects volunteer needs and is responsible for scheduling volunteers into volunteer roles using our volunteer categorizations

• Informs Program Leaders/Committee Chairs when a new volunteer has been placed

• Maintains volunteer information in GiGi’s Playhouse database, including entering volunteer demographics, availability, interests

• Maintains open communication with the Education Coordinator and Director to ensure volunteer needs are covered and successful programs and events are delivered

• Coordinates Volunteer Recognition events for all Playhouse Volunteers, a minimum of two times per year

• Coordinates with staff for social media, website and blog entries relating to volunteer impact, recognition, and stories

• Program Impact, Participation and Volunteer Hours

• Becomes an expert at Salesforce (relational database tool) to document and track volunteer activity and program participation, including reporting on trends

• Continually seek opportunities to track program impact and document it in Salesforce, while minimizing program interference and volunteer paperwork

• Program Marketing

• Updates online calendar with all programs and events, at least 6-8 weeks in advance

• Continually captures success stories, quotes, and quality pictures during programs for use in marketing efforts

• Informs and inspires families, volunteers, donors and other constituents via social media, website, blog, and email newsletter campaigns by sharing pictures, news, events, volunteer needs and stories in partnership with local Director

• Program Strategy and Planning

• In partnership with Program Committee and/or Executive Director, define long term (6-12 months) program plan, including program sessions, themes, rolling out new programs, etc.

• Work with Playhouse families to understand additional demand for new program types, better program times, themes, etc. to ensure the Playhouse is meeting the needs of families while remaining consistent with the GiGi’s mission

• Work with the Director and Education Coordinator to endure Standards of Execution are at the highest level possible

Competencies

• Teamwork: Balances team and individual responsibilities; exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views; gives and welcomes feedback; contributes to building a positive team spirit; puts success of team above own interests; able to build morale and group commitments to goals and objectives; supports everyone's efforts to succeed.

• Problem Solving: Identifies and resolves problems in a timely manner; gathers and analyzes information skillfully; develops alternative solutions; works well in group problem solving situations; uses reason even when dealing with emotional topics.

• Written and oral communication: Ability to express ideas and thoughts verbally; expresses ideas and thoughts in written form; exhibits good listening and comprehension; keeps others adequately informed; selects and uses appropriate communication methods.

• Adaptability: Adapts to changes in the work environment; manages competing demands; changes approach or method to best fit the situation; able to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events.

• Innovation: Displays original thinking and creativity; meets challenges with resourcefulness; generates suggestions for improving work; develops innovative approaches and ideas; presents ideas and information in a manner that gets others' attention.

• Planning/Organizing: Prioritizes and plans work activities; uses time efficiently; plans for additional resources; sets goals and objectives; organizes or schedules other people and their tasks; develops realistic action plans.

• Quality: Demonstrates accuracy and thoroughness; looks for ways to improve and promote quality; applies feedback to improve performance; monitors own work to ensure quality.

• Customer Service: Manages difficult or emotional customer situations; responds promptly to customer needs; solicits customer feedback to improve service; responds to requests for service and assistance; meets commitments.

• Technical Skills: Assesses own strengths and weaknesses; strives to continuously build knowledge and skills related to technical tools.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• Education and/or Experience: Bachelor's degree from four-year college or university in a field related to special education or management preferred; or strongly preferred five years related experience and/or training in a field working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Language Skills: Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the public.

• Mathematical Skills: Ability to add, subtract, two-digit numbers and to multiply and divide with 10’s and 100’s. Ability to perform these operations using units of American money and weight measurement, volume, and distance.

• Computer Skills: Computer Skills: To perform this job successfully, an individual should have knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) Proficiency in social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Ability to work proficiently in a database program (Salesforce) to manage interactions and transactions with all individuals who interface with this location, including donations, volunteer hours, program participation, etc.

• Certificates, Licenses, Registrations: Not Applicable.

• Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to walk; sit and reach with hands and arms. The employee is occasionally required to stand; climb or balance; stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl and taste or smell. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include ability to adjust focus.

• Work Environment : The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is occasionally exposed to outside weather conditions. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

GiGi’s Playhouse Core Values : GiGi’s challenges all staff and volunteers to embody the following core values:

• Enthusiasm: Bringing positive, high energy to our work.

• Best of All: Always looking to improve in all that we do. Challenge yourself every day.

• Get It Done: Making things happen and blasting through barriers when needed; figure it out.

• Believe: Believe in ourselves, believe in our mission, believe we can achieve all that we set out to achieve.

• Locally Concerned, Enterprise Minded: To best serve our local communities, we share our location’s best practices and have the humility to leverage the collective learnings from across the GiGi’s network.