The R Street Institute—a free-market think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with regional offices across the country—seeks a motivated, organized program manager to help us implement and maintain systems for our projects and grants. This position reports to the Policy Director, Criminal Justice & Civil Liberties. If you want to join an energetic organization and do something extraordinary, this may be just the opportunity you need.
The role
A typical day at R Street may include drafting grant reports; reviewing and tracking the fulfillment of committed project deliverables and associated metrics of success on a restricted grant; monitoring the progress and resource allocation to date on a particular project; improving the estimation of time invested across the organization for creating a white paper; and mentoring your colleagues in project management. Note: this is not a policy writing or policymaking role, though it will be what you make of it—providing opportunities to take on more responsibility and leadership if you have the drive, passion and skills.
Key roles and responsibilities
Aspects of Your Role
- Create the systems and guidance that will enable the Criminal Justice team to create project plans; manage any given project to a budget and deadline; and track team achievements and progress toward metrics of success.
- Work with grant leads to support the development and fulfillment of all Criminal Justice deliverables, project goals and other projects with highly-restricted funding as necessary
- Oversee and track grant application processes.
- Institute accurate time reporting and capacity planning.
- Track and report on all policy goals and metrics of success in compliance with accounting needs, team priorities and donor requirements.
- Ensure excellent communication between policy teams, management and executive leadership, during the creation, implementation and monitoring of project systems.
- Foresee project conflicts, assess risks, and help create and document mitigation strategies.
- Work with Finance and policy teams to forecast resource needs and flag problems for policy heads and managers.
- Work with the Finance team to develop internal financial reports by grant and contract (such as fund utilization, budgeted vs. actual) and highlight any critical deviations.
- Derive insights from financial analysis to enable performance review of the programs in the Criminal Justice portfolio in order to facilitate strategic/operational decisions.
- Monitor spending against grants and awards on a monthly basis.
- Work with the Business Development, Finance, and Criminal Justice teams to develop financial budgets for proposals to funders and ensure application of sound cost-recovery methodologies.
- Assist with development of funding proposals.
Experience and skills
Skills and Qualifications
- Grants management expertise is required
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, Google Apps and Salesforce is a plus
- Ample, demonstrated experience in managing and planning complex projects and developing innovative, real-time ways to track progress toward policy goals
- Financial management acuity is preferred
- Effective communicator of both big-picture and individual elements for a variety of internal and external audiences
- Flexibility in diverse groups and the ability to mentor colleagues
- Desire to take on complex, challenging problems and stamina to see them through to resolution
- Organized, detail-oriented and deadline driven
- Passion for free markets and limited, effective government
- A sense of humor and a desire to grow with a dynamic organization
- Experience in Criminal Justice policy work is preferable
Additional useful information
Workplace
R Street offers a flexible working arrangement. This is a full-time position that can either work the majority of the week in our DC office or be fully remote.
Compensation, Benefits and Perks
R Street strives to provide a compensation package superior to those at other think tanks and nonprofits. In addition to a competitive salary, we provide the following benefits and perks:
- Unlimited paid time off policy, including all Federal holidays, the day after Thanksgiving, and two weeks holiday closure in December
- Alternating Fridays off
- A health insurance option entirely paid by the employer (even for families)
- Dental and Vision insurance
- 401(k) contributions with up to a 4 percent match
- HSA employer contribution match
- Quarterly wellness reimbursement
- Mobile equipment reimbursement
- Internet subsidy
- Monthly mobile plan reimbursement
- Annual educational and professional development reimbursement
- An option between a child care assistance, pet care assistance, or student loan repayment assistance reimbursement
R Street does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, era of military service, gender identity or anything else that’s illegal, immoral or nonsensical to use as a basis for hiring.
We currently plan to accept applications for this job until filled. We will contact qualified individuals for telephone interviews and conduct them on a rolling basis. Interviews will be held virtually, via Zoom.
To apply, you must upload a cover letter and resume in Microsoft Word or PDF format.