Program Officer at Nellie Mae Education Foundation

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation, New England's largest philanthropic organization focused solely on education, believes every young person in New England should be able to access excellent, rigorous, and relevant educational experiences that support their healthy development and prepares them to thrive in school, community, and careers of the future.

About the Organization

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation has worked for almost 25 years to help our region prosper by investing in solutions and organizations that prepare ALL learners for success. We believe that success is directly related to the health of schools, youth-serving institutions, and the network of youth, educators, parents, and community organizers and organizations that ensure young people and families are seen, understood, and supported to thrive.

While the current education ecosystem often operates through entrenched, top-down approaches, our grantmaking strategy works to upend that dynamic by inserting feedback loops and strengthening mechanisms at every level to interrogate for whom and how budget, policy, and practice choice points enable or hinder health student experience and outcomes.

The Foundation is now entering a new phase of its work. Over the past year and a half, Nellie Mae has undertaken an in-depth strategy refinement process to sharpen its impact and position the organization for the next chapter of education systems change in New England. Guided by the knowledge, feedback, and insights of more than 2,500 community members—along with message testing, media tracking, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires—the Foundation clarified both what it will prioritize going forward and how it can uniquely contribute through its grantmaking.

This work reaffirmed a shared vision and mandate to ensure every young person in New England has access to excellent, rigorous, and relevant educational experiences that support healthy development and prepare them to thrive in school, community, and the careers of the future.

With this refined strategy as a foundation, Nellie Mae is focused on supporting efforts that translate community insight into coordinated action. We want community insight to move upward – and for funding, policy, and practice to respond in alignment downward – so the whole ecosystem becomes more connected, aligned, and supportive of young people.

We invest at three interconnected levels:

• Community Engagement so that those most proximate to the challenges have the access, resources, and infrastructure to shape and advance a shared agenda; supporting communities to use qualitative and quantitative data to define root causes of student disengagement and develop plausible solutions.
• State Field building and a Knowledge and Information Ecosystem Infrastructure that support development of a durable and responsive education data and knowledge ecosystems — and support state and local actors to apply knowledge and take action that advance healthy student experiences and outcomes.
• Regional Field and Capacity Building to advance a unified vision and shared agenda, informed by community insights and data, that activates others and builds momentum for long-term systems change.

At the core of this next chapter is a commitment to continuous learning and evaluation, and to elevating the voices of the community members so that Nellie Mae's investments remain responsive, adaptive, and positioned to drive meaningful change rn more about what we do on our website.

About the Role

Reporting to the Chief of Staff and Impact, the Program Officer is an essential member of the Programs team, responsible for managing a portfolio of grants, cultivating strong relationships with grantees and intermediaries, and contributing to strategy development through research, analysis, and field engagement. This role offers a meaningful opportunity to work at the intersection of education systems change, community-based solutions, and philanthropy by providing systems that support partners across New England who are working to improve outcomes for students.

The Program Officer plays a key role in advancing the Nellie Mae…