Chief Executive Officer

Crisis Assistance Ministry seeks a mission-anchored, people-centered, growth-oriented, and community-minded leader to serve as its next Chief Executive Officer. This is a rare opportunity to lead one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s most trusted institutions at a time when its work has never been more necessary.

Following Carol Hardison’s retirement in 2027 after more than 26 years of leadership, the next CEO will inherit a stable organization, experienced team, strong culture, deep community relationships, and significant credibility. This is not a turnaround assignment, nor is it a caretaker role. The opportunity is to earn trust, understand what makes the organization effective, and guide its continued evolution with fresh perspective, sound judgement, and a clear vision for measurable growth and greater impact.

Mission: To provide assistance and advocacy for people in financial crisis, helping them move toward self-sufficiency.

Vision: Our ultimate vision is a community where everyone has the resources and stability to thrive without our services.

Reporting Structure: The CEO reports to a 25-member Board of Directors and leads a five-member executive leadership team: the Chief People and Culture Officer, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Chief Advancement Officer, Chief Housing Stability Officer, and Chief Technology and Financial Operations Officer.

Impact and Scale: Crisis Assistance Ministry employs approximately 60 people and operates with an $18.4 million FY2026 budget. In 2025, the organization served nearly 44,000 people, distributed 1.7 million clothing and household items, and provided more than $8 million in emergency housing assistance.

Location and Working Environment: The role is based in Charlotte and requires a visible, consistent presence with staff, customers, donors, public officials, and community partners. This is not a remote leadership position.

Compensation and Benefits: Crisis Assistance Ministry offers competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package. The salary range is $215,000-$225,000.

The Leadership Opportunity

Honor the foundation. Lead the next chapter. Crisis Assistance Ministry is healthy, and it cannot stand still. The cost of living continues to rise, increasing the demand for services. The organization has the staff and operational ability to serve more people, but available aid funding has not kept pace with demand. The next CEO must expand and diversify resources while working with staff, customers, and community partners to increase housing stability for low-income residents of Mecklenburg County.

Key Responsibilities of the Chief Executive Officer

Strategic Direction and Measurable Growth

• Lead an inclusive planning process that defines the organization’s five-year direction, establishes measurable priorities, and creates accountability. Balance immediate crisis response with prevention, financial empowerment, and systems-level work while remaining grounded in the organization’s core mission.
• Use customer experience, program outcomes, community data, and staff expertise to determine what should be preserved, improved, piloted, expanded, or stopped.
• Set and achieve ambitious, measurable growth goals for public and private funding so direct customer assistance can keep pace with the community’s growing needs while protecting staff well-being, operational effectiveness, and customer dignity.

Fundraising and Financial Stewardship

• Partner closely with the Chief Advancement Officer while personally leading high-level relationships, visibility, storytelling, and asks that cannot be delegated. Cultivate durable relationships with individual donors, foundations, corporations, faith communities, and public funders.
• Drive significant growth in major gifts, planned giving, and private and public revenue strategies to ensure the organization can sustain greater direct assistance to customers.
• Ensure disciplined financial management, risk oversight, resource allocation, and transparent reporting to the Board and community.

Community Leadership, Partnership, and Voice

• Expand Crisis Assistance Ministry’s role as a highly visible community leader, trusted convener, educator, and advocate addressing the systemic conditions that drive financial instability. Build strong partnerships across government, philanthropy, business, nonprofits, schools, housing providers, faith communities, and neighborhoods.
• Convene partners, collaborate with organizations with similar missions, strengthen referrals, and improve connections to long-term housing solutions.
• Center the experiences of customers and people with lived experience in public education, advocacy, service design, and organization decision-making.

People, Culture, and Organizational Effectiveness

• Preserve a culture where dignity, integrity, respect, empathy, compassion, trust, flexibility, and employee well-being are experienced, not simply stated.
• Lead through a strong executive team by setting direction, opening doors, removing barriers, and holding leaders accountable.
• Communicate consistently and candidly across departments.
• Strengthen staff development, succession planning, training, internal mobility, onboarding, and the thoughtful transfer of institutional knowledge.

Service, Technology, and Operational Improvement

• Prioritize customer support and process efficiency as part of the organization’s continued evolution.
• Use technology, automation, data, and responsible AI to make services more accessible and efficient while preserving a personal and humane approach.

Board Partnership

• Build a candid, strategic partnership with the Board by providing timely information and encouraging open dialogue.
• Engage directors meaningfully in strategy, fundraising, community relationships, CEO accountability, and stewardship of the leadership transition.

The Ideal Candidate Profile

There is no single background that guarantees success. Three capabilities will be especially important: demonstrated fundraising and donor development, visible external community leadership and public advocacy, and ambitious vision and innovation. Through progressively responsible leadership experience, the strongest candidates will demonstrate these priorities and the following capabilities:

• Authentic commitment to economic justice and to developing deep expertise in poverty, housing instability, and the realities facing households with limited financial resources.
• A people-centered leadership style marked by humility, curiosity, emotional intelligence, transparency, calm, flexibility, and the ability to develop and empower strong leaders.
• A record of significant, measurable fundraising growth across individual giving, major gifts, foundations, corporations, and public funding, with the confidence and skill to personally cultivate and ask for meaningful gifts and commitments.
• Enterprise-level leadership in a complex environment.
• A record of visible external leadership, conveying partners and building trust across government, philanthropy, business, community organizations, media, and people with lived experience; Charlotte relationships are valuable but not required if the candidate can build credibility quickly.
• An ambitious, innovative, growth-oriented mindset, with the ability to translate bold vision into a focused, measurable strategy while exercising sound financial, operational, and risk-management judgment.
• Experience guiding ambitious change, thoughtfully listening before acting, explaining decisions, and moving with appropriate urgency while helping people feel stable and included through transition.
• Strong public speaking, storytelling, advocacy, and media skills, paired with the judgment to navigate political complexity.
• Meaningful experience partnering with a governing board.
• A bachelor’s degree is required; an advanced degree is preferred.

What Success Could Look Like After Two Years

• Staff engagement remains strong, and employees describe the culture as stable, caring, transparent, and open to thoughtful improvement.
• The Board, staff, and community understand a focused multi-year strategy, and the organization is measuring progress against it.
• Donors, government leaders, and partners experience continuity of mission while recognizing the new CEO’s distinctive leadership.
• Public and private fundraising are on a measurable growth trajectory enabling the organization to meet more of the community’s need.
• Customers and referral partners experience clearer, more accessible, and more dignified pathways to assistance.
• The executive team is empowered, the Board is governing actively, and responsibility for the organization’s success is broadly shared.

About Crisis Assistance Ministry

Founded in 1975, Crisis Assistance Ministry is Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s trusted safety net and a leader in housing stability and financial security. The organization provides emergency rent and utility assistance, free clothing and household essentials, financial empowerment coaching, community education, advocacy, and partnership-building — all grounded in dignity, integrity, compassion, and trust.

Want to know more? Visit crisisassistance.org.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Executive 401(k) match
• Flexible spending accounts (FSA)
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Short- and long-term disability coverage
• Group accident and critical illness insurance
• An Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Paid time off includes vacation, sick time, bereavement, volunteer time, and holidays.

Equal Opportunity

Crisis Assistance Ministry does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, genetic information, marital status, status as a covered veteran,or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws, in any of its activities or operations.