Program Officer, Youth Homelessness; RF

Posted on April 13, 2019

Founded in 2002 and based in Seattle, the Raikes Foundation has been a leader in catalyzing systems-level change and influencing issues related to young people and impact-driven philanthropy. With a strong reputation locally and nationally for their work in youth and young adult homelessness, the Raikes Foundation is entering an exciting next phase of this work, testing and scaling models in partnership with communities, non-profit organizations, and young people across Washington state and the country to make youth homelessness rare, brief, and one-time.

Its ambitious goal of working alongside community partners to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness in King County, Washington state, and nationally exemplifies the foundation’s deep commitment to developing and funding efforts that lead to lasting systemic change for some of society’s most challenging issues. To support this growing body of work, the Raikes Foundation now seeks a new Program Officer who will support coordinated community responses to youth homelessness.

The ideal candidate will share a passion for the foundation’s mission, contribute a wealth of knowledge and experience working with communities to end youth homelessness, a deep commitment to advancing equity, and success utilizing data, advocacy, and strategic communications to work with partners and scale successes. The Program Officer will be a proven relationship-builder and work collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders, including young people, funders, government, nonprofit agencies, and community leaders.

While the ideal candidate will have expertise in youth homelessness, candidates with other backgrounds will be considered if they have deep experience addressing and scaling solutions to complex, adaptive challenges. This is an exciting opportunity to support innovation and collaboration across sectors to make a genuine difference in the lives of youth and young adults.

This search is being conducted by Carolyn Ho and Chris Cannon of NPAG. Application instructions can be found at the end of this document.

Tricia and Jeff Raikes were inspired early on by the catalytic potential of investing in youth and youth-serving systems. In the first years of the foundation’s work, the Raikes articulated the foundation’s belief in the unlimited potential of young people and its commitment to work toward a just and inclusive society where all young people have the support they need to reach their full potential.

This focus led to careful attention to the systemic barriers often impeding the potential of far too many, particularly low-income children and young people of color. The foundation’s work in education and youth homelessness focuses on eliminating these barriers and works to change systems that have traditionally been, and continue to be, inequitable.

Every year more than 4.2 million young people, ages 13 to 25, experience homelessness in the United States. Overwhelmingly, they are youth of color and young people who identify as LGBTQ. The Raikes Foundation believes youth homelessness is solvable. As a society, there are missed opportunities through our public schools, child welfare, behavioral health, and juvenile justice systems to recognize the early warning signs of young people in crisis and connect them to supportive services in a faster, more integrated fashion.

Communities can also do more to create an effective crisis response system where youth homelessness can be a rare, brief, one-time occurrence. The foundation has played a central role in convening key stakeholders in the region and funding initiatives to build systems that address youth homelessness and its root causes and works with others to support communities to better understand the needs of young people, more effectively align services, and offer innovative solutions.

The Raikes Foundation believes that every young person deserves a safe, stable place to call home and is working with local, state, and national leaders to make that vision a reality. Driven by…