Executive Director, GiGi's Playhouse Syracuse

Founded in 2003, GiGi's Playhouse Inc.’s mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome and send a global message of acceptance for all.  We profoundly change lives through national campaigns, educational programs, and by empowering individuals with Down syndrome, their families, and the community.  All programs are free and are therapeutic or educational 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 60 locations across North America and growing by several locations annually.  

Job Description 

The Executive Director is a business-minded manager who ensures long-term sustainability, prominence, and operational excellence of a GiGi’s Playhouse location or multiple locations in one community.  This includes helping to ensure the operation has the right team, is fully funded, and that the community is aware of the scope and impact of programs offered.  The Executive Director will be actively involved in development/ fundraising activities, driving community members to the Playhouse, and building a strong community presence and local donations through donor outreach, developing media contacts, and other related activities. In addition, the Executive Director is responsible for managing the playhouse staff and partnering closely with the local Board.  The role is estimated to be roughly 50% development/outreach and 50% playhouse management & marketing. Primary goals for this role include: 

• Increase funding through individual donors, grants, sponsorships, in-kind, and corporate support. 

• Maximize awareness of GiGi’s Playhouse and Down syndrome across the local community. 

• Lead the team to ensure delivery of the highest quality operational execution and outstanding customer experience to deepen family engagement and connection with the Playhouse. 

Essential Job Functions: 

• Strategic Leadership and Board Relations 

• • Drive the development of the Playhouse’s strategic plan in collaboration with the Board; implement the plan, ensuring alignment with mission, values, and growth objectives. 

• • Serve as the primary liaison between the Board and the Playhouse, providing regular updates and seeking guidance. 

• • Recruit and evaluate potential Board Members through community connections and present viable candidates to the Board. 

• Fundraising and Financial Management 

• • Oversee financial operations, including fundraising and ensuring financial sustainability; draft the organization’s budget to align with the strategic plan. 

• • Develop and implement a fundraising plan to achieve revenue targets in partnership with the local board and fundraising committee. 

• • Manage and implement a donor portfolio and stewardship strategy for donors and volunteers. 

• • Achieve hard dollar fundraising objectives, continually seeking revenue generation opportunities through grants, individual donors, family foundations, corporations, and events. 

• • In close partnership with the event chair for each fundraising event, support and heavily engage with all events, particularly revenue-generation, marketing, securing in-kind donations, volunteer recruitment and management, and overall community engagement. 

• Staff Leadership and Operations 

• • Ensure all playhouse hours, programs, events, and activities are staffed to support the needs of the Playhouse (GiGi’s programs are 99% volunteer-run). 

  • Hire, train, manage, and evaluate all Playhouse employees, fostering a positive and productive work environment.

  • In collaboration with the staff that is managing programs and volunteers, support recruitment, training, and management of volunteers, leveraging their skills and time to support the organization's mission.

  • Drive the Playhouse’s achievement of the GiGi’s Standards of Execution, continually striving to increased levels of achievement, to ensure a high-quality experience for families, volunteers, donors, and community members. 

• Marketing & Community Engagement 

• • Represent the organization to the public, media, donors, schools, community organizations, and other stakeholders with impact stories, building strong relationships and promoting the organization's mission. 

• • Grow community awareness by proactively bringing groups, organizations, and individuals to the playhouse to engage in the mission. 

• • Leverage newsletters, social media platforms, website, and other channels to provide inspirational and relevant content to promote local Playhouse programs, events, and activities. 

• • Engage in and proactively initiate acceptance initiatives throughout the community to help build a more accepting environment for our participants and families. 

• Program Implementation 

• • Oversee and ensure the program lineup and quality serves the needs of the community while executing the full fidelity expected of GiGi’s Signature programs. 

• • Passionately serve the needs of the local families and build relationships with them such that they understand that GiGi’s makes a lifetime commitment to them. 

• • Build and engage with a Family Committee that is involved in program input, volunteerism, community outreach, fundraising, and event support. 

• Connection with GiGi’s Playhouse national office and peers across the GiGi’s network 

• • Proactively engage with peers to share ideas, solve problems, and collectively raise the bar of performance of GiGi’s Playhouses nationwide; attend GiGi’s Annual Leadership Conference. 

• • Follow all national standards and policies; collaborate with the national teams to leverage centrally developed tools and resources in lieu of building new processes, programs, and tools from scratch. 

Competencies: 

• Visionary Leadership; displays passion and optimism; inspires respect and trust; mobilizes others to fulfill the vision; provides vision and inspiration to peers and subordinates. 

• Achievement Oriented: Focuses on results and desired outcomes and how to best achieve them.  Sets high goals and works doggedly to achieve them.  Pushes self and others to achieve milestones and measurable metrics. Goes the “extra mile” to ensure goal is met.   

• Communication: A ‘people person’ with a friendly demeanor and the ability to build relationships amongst staff, donors, families, volunteers, and community members. Exceptionally strong written and oral communication skills with ability to express ideas and thoughts verbally; writes clearly and inspirationally; edits work for spelling and grammar; varies writing style to meet needs; keeps others adequately informed; selects and uses appropriate communication methods. 

• Relationship-Based Approach: Naturally demonstrates gratitude and stewardship within relationships, continually finding ways to connect with individuals, express thanks, and share the impact of a donor’s investment in the organization. Strong social skills with the ability to and affinity toward networking and building connections with people of all personal and professional backgrounds. 

• People Management: Includes staff in planning, decision-making, facilitating and process improvement; takes responsibility for subordinates' activities; makes self-available to staff; provides regular performance feedback; develops subordinates' skills and encourages growth; solicits and applies customer feedback (internal and external); fosters quality focus in others; Improves processes, products and services; continually works to improve supervisory skills. 

• Collaboration & Teamwork: Team player with a strong work ethic, positive attitude, and collaborative spirit; ability to work collaboratively and professionally with staff, board members, committee members, volunteers, families, and donors. Exhibits good listening and comprehension; ability to gain buy-in and to get along with diverse personalities, at all times displaying tact, maturity, and flexibility. 

• Problem Solving and Judgment: Identifies and resolves problems in a timely manner; resourceful; exhibits sound and accurate judgment; includes appropriate people in decision-making process and develops alternative solutions; open minded and flexible; works well in group problem solving situations. 

• 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. 

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 the essential functions. 

• Education and/or Experience:  7 years management and related experience and/or training in organizational leadership, non-profit, and/or related field.  Marketing experience a plus. 

• Computer Skills: Adapts to new technologies and uses technology to increase productivity.  Has the self-discipline to continually learn and use the tools. Must have knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), proficiency in social media platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook. Ability to work proficiently in a database program (Salesforce) to manage interactions with all individuals who interface with this location. 

• Work Environment: This role requires extensive engagement with the Playhouse team, families, and volunteers.  In addition, roughly 50% of the time is expected to be in the community building relationships with donors, community organizations, etc. As such, this is an in-person role, not a remote role. 

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

• Enthusiastic: Bringing positive, high energy to your work.  

• Best of All: We are always looking to improve every day, with all that we do. Challenge yourself every day to embrace a Generation G life.  

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

• Believe: Believe in ourselves, believe in our mission, believe in each other, and believe in the history that brought us here.  

• Locally Concerned, Enterprise Minded: We collaborate, share best practices, and leverage the collective learnings from across the GiGi’s network.