Executive Director

Job Description

Job Description

United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland is seeking a full-time Executive Director to lead the organization into its next chapter of stability, growth, and community impact.

The Executive Director will serve as UBF’s top executive leader and report directly to the Board of Directors. This role is responsible for providing day-to-day leadership across operations, staff, programs, fiscal sponsorship, fundraising, partnerships, financial oversight, community engagement, and mission execution.

This is an important leadership opportunity for a hands-on, mission-driven nonprofit leader who can balance strong internal operations with external relationship-building and revenue development. The ideal candidate will be financially aware, people-centered, operationally strong, and able to lead during a period of continued transition, rebuilding, and future growth.

About United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland

United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland is a long-standing nonprofit organization committed to strengthening Black-led, community-rooted, and historically underserved organizations, leaders, entrepreneurs, and initiatives across Greater Cleveland.

For decades, UBF has served as a trusted community institution, investing in organizations and initiatives that advance equity, opportunity, leadership, economic mobility, and community impact. As the organization enters its next chapter, UBF is positioned to build on recently strengthened internal systems, governance structures, financial controls, program infrastructure, and operational processes.

The next Executive Director will inherit an organization that has gone through significant operational rebuilding and will be responsible for sustaining, refining, and growing the systems now in place.

Key Responsibilities

Organizational Leadership and Operations

The Executive Director will provide overall leadership and management for UBF’s daily operations, staff, contractors, programs, fiscal sponsorship, administrative functions, and organizational priorities. This includes ensuring that UBF operates with clear systems, documented processes, accountability, consistent communication, and strong internal discipline.

The Executive Director will help lead the organization through continued transition while supporting long-term sustainability and operational strength. This person will be responsible for building and maintaining a healthy, collaborative, accountable, and mission-centered staff culture.

Board Relations and Governance Support

The Executive Director will serve as the primary staff partner to the Board of Directors and will support effective governance by providing timely information, clear recommendations, regular reports, and strong communication to the Board, Executive Committee, and board committees as appropriate.

This role will help maintain a strong separation between board governance and staff operations while supporting implementation of board-approved priorities, policies, committee structures, and organizational expectations.

Financial Oversight and Budget Management

The Executive Director will work closely with the Fractional CFO Team, Treasurer, Finance Committee, and Board to support financial stability, transparency, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and compliance.

This includes helping ensure that spending, contracts, reimbursements, payables, restricted funds, grants, and fiscal sponsorship activity are managed according to approved policies, internal controls, and sound nonprofit financial practices.

Fundraising and Revenue Development

The Executive Director will lead and execute UBF’s fundraising and revenue development strategy in partnership with the Board, Fund Development Committee, Development Coordinator, grant writing support, and community partners.

This includes cultivating relationships with donors, funders, corporate partners, foundations, public agencies, and community stakeholders. The Executive Director will help strengthen donor stewardship, fundraising systems, campaign coordination, revenue tracking, and a shared culture of fundraising across the organization.

Program Leadership and Community Impact

The Executive Director will provide leadership and oversight for UBF’s programs, including grant-making, fiscal sponsorship, the Center for Diverse and Thriving Organizations, and other community investment or capacity-building initiatives.

This role will ensure programs are mission-aligned, well-managed, documented, measurable, and financially sustainable. The Executive Director will support program staff in tracking goals, outcomes, key performance indicators, participant feedback, reporting requirements, and community impact data.

The Executive Director will also help ensure that programs do not expand faster than the organization’s staffing, financial, and operational capacity can support.

Human Resources, Staff Supervision, and Performance

The Executive Director will supervise staff and contractors directly or through designated reporting structures and will partner with the Fractional HR Specialist to strengthen HR policies, onboarding, offboarding, employee relations, compliance, and performance management.

This role requires a leader who can support, coach, direct, and hold people accountable while modeling respectful, transparent, mission-aligned leadership.

Required Qualifications

The successful candidate must demonstrate strong experience across nonprofit leadership, operations, financial oversight, program management, fundraising, governance support, staff leadership, and community engagement.

Minimum requirements include:

• Bachelor’s degree in nonprofit management, business administration, public administration, social work, community development, public policy, finance, organizational leadership, or a related field.
  
• Master’s degree preferred. Comparable executive leadership experience may be considered in lieu of an advanced degree.
  
• Minimum of 8 to 10 years of progressive leadership experience, preferably in nonprofit, philanthropic, public sector, community development, social impact, or mission-driven organizations.
  
• Minimum of 3 to 5 years of senior management experience supervising staff, managing budgets, overseeing programs, and leading organizational operations.
  
• Proven experience working with or reporting to a Board of Directors.
  
• Demonstrated experience with nonprofit operations, program management, financial oversight, fundraising, and community partnerships.
  
• Experience leading through transition, change management, organizational restructuring, or infrastructure development is strongly preferred.
  
• Understanding of nonprofit finance, fiscal sponsorship structures, grant funding, restricted funds, compliance, reporting, and internal controls preferred.
  
• Experience in Greater Cleveland’s nonprofit, philanthropic, civic, business, or community ecosystem is strongly preferred.
  
• Experience working with Black-led, grassroots, community-based, or historically under-resourced organizations is preferred.
  

Required Skills and Competencies

• Strong operational leadership with the ability to manage day-to-day execution while staying focused on long-term priorities.
  
• Ability to translate board-approved direction into clear plans, workflows, goals, and outcomes.
  
• Strong written, verbal, listening, presentation, and relationship-building skills.
  
• Financial awareness and ability to understand budgets, financial reports, forecasts, internal controls, restricted funds, and sustainability issues.
  
• Strong staff supervision skills, including the ability to support, coach, direct, and hold people accountable.
  
• Ability to build effective relationships with donors, funders, board members, staff, contractors, partners, and community stakeholders.
  
• Culturally competent, equity-minded leadership with a deep commitment to Black communities and historically underserved populations.
  
• Comfort navigating transition, ambiguity, competing priorities, and organizational change.
  
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
  
• High level of organization and ability to manage multiple functions, timelines, and stakeholders.
  
• High integrity, discretion, professionalism, emotional intelligence, and sound judgment.
  

Compensation and Work Environment

This is a full-time, exempt position based in Cleveland, Ohio. The role requires regular in-person presence for organizational leadership, board and committee meetings, funder meetings, community events, and partner engagement. Hybrid flexibility may be available, but this is not a fully remote position. Standard business hours are Monday through Friday, with flexibility required for evening and occasional weekend commitments.

The starting salary for this position is $105,000, with final compensation commensurate with experience, qualifications, and the board-approved compensation structure. Benefits may include paid time off, holidays, health and wellness benefits, retirement contributions, and professional development support, subject to final board-approved compensation and benefits offerings.

Equal Employment Opportunity

United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, ancestry, disability, veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship.

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PLEASE NOTE: This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of every activity, duty, or responsibility required of the employee. Responsibilities may evolve, or new duties may be assigned, modified, or removed with or without notice, consistent with organizational needs.