Executive Director

House Nashville is Nashville’s new cross-sector housing backbone, co-launched by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce to turn the city’s Unified Housing Strategy, including approximately 90,000 additional homes over the next decade, into sustained action. House Nashville will not build homes or duplicate existing work. It will align strategy and resources, remove barriers, mobilize capital, build public support, and establish accountability for results across government, business, philanthropy, financial institutions, developers, nonprofits, and community leaders.

The Opportunity

House Nashville seeks a founding Executive Director to build and lead this new organization and translate Nashville’s housing strategy into measurable progress. The Executive Director will combine experience in housing finance and capital mobilization with the ability to align institutions and move a complex coalition from shared intent to coordinated action.

This role is not for one person to be the expert in every dimension of housing. It is a role for a builder: someone who understands the economics of affordable housing and, just as importantly, people, institutions, partnerships, and how community change happens. The successful candidate will attract capital, recruit partners, establish priorities, build trust around shared goals, and create the conditions for government, business, philanthropy, financial institutions, developers, nonprofits, and community leaders to deliver together.

Job Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

• Build and lead a Nashville Housing Capital Collaborative that brings together philanthropy, banks, CDFIs, impact investors, public agencies, and other institutional capital providers.
• Develop and pursue a pipeline of local, state, and national funding and investment opportunities, including grants, public funding, guarantees, PRIs, MRIs, and other forms of impact capital.
• Cultivate relationships with national housing funders, financial institutions, intermediaries, and investors, positioning Nashville to compete for resources that may not otherwise flow to the region.
• Understand housing capital structures well enough to identify financing gaps, strengthen capital stacks, and connect promising strategies and projects to the right partners and resources.
• Work with the Nashville Catalyst Fund, CDFIs, lenders, and other existing vehicles to strengthen, not duplicate, Nashville’s housing finance infrastructure and identify where new capital products or pools are needed.

Align Partners Around Measurable Results (30%)

• Serve as House Nashville’s lead convener and champion, building trusted relationships across sectors and aligning partners around a focused set of shared housing priorities.
• Translate the Unified Housing Strategy into clear priorities, work plans, responsibilities, milestones, and measurable outcomes, with a strong bias toward execution.
• Bring the right leaders together to remove systemic barriers, coordinate policy and funding strategies, and accelerate housing production, preservation, and affordability.
• Build an inclusive coalition that combines professional expertise with meaningful participation from neighborhoods and people most affected by Nashville’s housing challenges.
• Partner with Metro and others to establish shared data and public-facing measures of progress.

Build Public Understanding (10%)

• Serve as a credible and compelling public voice for House Nashville and Nashville’s shared housing goals.
• Build public understanding and support for the policies, investments, and partnerships required to expand housing opportunity.
• Communicate regularly what is working, where Nashville is falling behind, and where greater action is needed.

Build the Organization (25%)

• Recruit, lead, and develop a strong team, complemented by external partners and subject-matter experts across policy, communications, data, finance, and community engagement.
• Establish House Nashville’s operating model, priorities, budget, and organizational infrastructure.
• Build a diversified and sustainable funding base for House Nashville’s operations, including local and national philanthropic and corporate support.
• Work effectively within the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s fiscal sponsorship structure while establishing House Nashville’s distinct identity, credibility, and voice.
• Partner closely with the House Nashville Advisory Board, leveraging members’ expertise, influence, networks, and resources.

Qualifications

The Ideal Candidate

We are looking for an exceptional connector, strategist, and builder who can operate effectively across sectors, mobilize capital, and translate relationships into action. The strongest candidates will bring:

• A demonstrated track record of securing public, private, and philanthropic funding and mobilizing investment capital for housing, community development, or closely related work.
• Substantial housing finance experience and fluency in affordable and workforce housing capital structures, including the ability to understand capital stacks, financing gaps, and the major tools used to fund development and preservation.
• Strong existing relationships with national or regional foundations, CRA-motivated banks, and impact investors, along with experience partnering with public agencies, intermediaries, corporate donors, or donor-advised funds.
• Proven success leading cross-sector partnerships and navigating competing interests while maintaining urgency, trust, and momentum.
• A systems-level understanding of housing production and affordability, including the interplay of finance, policy, land use, development, community engagement, and market conditions.
• Experience building and leading an organization, initiative, or team, ideally including launching something new.
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, public speaking, and relationship-building skills, with credibility among senior civic, business, government, philanthropic, and community leaders.
• A commitment to data, transparency, accountability, and meaningful community engagement.
• A deep commitment to Nashville and to creating a community where people across the income spectrum can find a safe, stable, and attainable place to call home.

Additional Information

Salary Annual salary is $180,000–$195,000, based on experience. Benefits Medical, dental, and vision insurance. The employer pays 100% of individual employee coverage and subsidizes dependent coverage. Disability and life insurance. The employer pays 100% of individual employee coverage. Paid family leave, fully funded by the employer. 11 paid federal holidays and 15 days of paid time off accrued annually. 403(b) retirement plan with employer contributions after one year of service