About the Role
The Design Lab is seeking a Program Manager (“PM”) who can act as the operational backbone of the organization. Program operations will include the operations of the funding challenges, the design of programming, and general operations of The Design Lab. The PM’s focus will be to deliver the best possible program experience for challenge participants, stakeholders, and co-funders.
The PM will work in close proximity with the Executive Director and The Design Lab’s fiscal sponsor. The PM will be responsible for ensuring the operational success of each funding challenge cycle, including drafting the call for proposals, promoting the funding opportunity to ensure a robust group of applicants, stewarding the selection process, and partnering with The Design Lab’s fiscal sponsor to disburse funds. Specifically, this will include developing project plans, event management, utilizing tools/developing processes to manage program data, building and scheduling the programming calendar, as well as recruiting, hiring, training, and managing additional team members or consultants.
Experience with operations, grants and/or running a selection process is required and is a major part of this role. Familiarity with event planning and with nonprofit organizations is preferred but not required. Familiarity with youth issues is strongly preferred but not required. The PM will be both internally focused working in support of internal operations and externally focused in support of funding challenge awardees and the broader network of partners.
Responsibilities include:
- Operations (50%)
- Funding Challenges and Cohort Programming (40%)
- Advocacy (10%)
About the Company
The Board of Advisors for The Design Lab for Digital Wellbeing seeks a Program Manager who is an experienced, equity-focused, entrepreneurial grant making and operations manager to partner with the Founding Executive Director to design a healthier digital future for young people in the U.S.
The Design Lab for Digital Wellbeing (“The Design Lab”) will identify, fund and scale solutions to shape a human-centered digital future. This new nonprofit organization, funded by a coalition of philanthropic entities including Pivotal Ventures and the Susan Crown Exchange, will champion equitable digital wellbeing and serve as an incubator for new solutions across the digital wellbeing ecosystem. The Design Lab will partner with a coalition of change-agents and organizations that have developed evidence-backed solutions for a healthier digital world. The Design Lab will focus on solutions that support people most marginalized within the current tech ecosystem, in particular BIPOC and LGBTQ+ young people.
The Design Lab will have three core priorities, which may evolve or expand over time:
§ Provide thought leadership on emerging patterns and solutions on youth, tech, and wellbeing. This includes attracting different champions, funders, and government leaders to this critical sector. Provide subject matter expertise to other nonprofits and funders to achieve impact across the sector;
§ Design and manage two to three open-call funding challenges annually to identify and scale 20-30 new solutions for healthier tech engagement. Solutions may include new innovations, resources, technologies, and/or organizational-level support. Identify and fund work that will help youth thrive in a tech-filled world, including identifying the “ten most exciting/needed solutions” and diversifying exposure to a larger number of solutions and ideas; and
§ Foster community and design support to incubate and scale organizations funded under the challenges, enabling the best solutions to develop, gain traction, mature, and grow. Ensure that these solutions are highlighted, broadly visible and known, as well as connected with key audiences.
Funding challenges will take on particular thematic areas that cover different aspects of the digital wellbeing ecosystem. Each funding challenge area will have an outside nonprofit partner (examples are listed below) to help publicize and adjudicate the challenge.