Role purpose
The Chief of Staff serves as a trusted strategic partner to the CEO, creating the clarity, capacity, and coordination needed for the CEO to lead at his best and JUMPSTART SC to fulfill its mission with Kingdom-class excellence. This role turns vision into measurable results, strengthens leadership alignment and accountability, and ensures that trusted information and stakeholder feedback lead to meaningful action. Through wise counsel and dependable follow-through, the Chief of Staff helps JUMPSTART SC reflect Christ-centered values in how it leads people, stewards resources, and serves those impacted by incarceration.
Core outcomes
- The CEO leads at his best. The CEO’s time, attention, and preparation align with the highest priorities, creating capacity for spiritual leadership, strategic direction, leadership development, and key relationships.
- Vision becomes measurable results. The Go Forward Annual Strategic Plan has clear owners, milestones, measures, and consistent follow-through. Directors collaborate, address obstacles early, and deliver on their commitments.
- Kingdom-class values shape relationships and results. Trusted information, honest feedback, and continuous improvement strengthen participant outcomes, organizational health, and faithful stewardship. People experience dignity, care, integrity, and clear expectations.
Mission and leadership values
We disciple the incarcerated and assist returning citizens with re-entry services in partnership with donors, churches, and community partners.
- Love God & Love People
- Live & Work For God’s Applause
- Collaborate, Innovate, and Implement Best Practices
- Measure and Celebrate Results
- Have Fun While Giving Our Best
Strategic partnership to the CEO
- Serve as senior advisor to the CEO, providing research-based insight, candid counsel, and recommendations on strategy, growth, risks, personnel, and opportunities.
- Meet weekly with the CEO to align priorities, review decisions and commitments, assess capacity, and agree on what to advance, delegate, defer, or stop.
- Prepare the CEO for key meetings with context, stakeholder perspectives, options, tradeoffs, and recommendations; capture relevant insights afterward.
- Ensure participant, staff, volunteer, donor, and partner perspectives are heard through surveys and conversations and accurately represented in executive discussions.
- Co-Lead Team Director and All-Staff Meetings.
CEO effectiveness and executive rhythm
- Maintain a rolling 90-day executive meeting and priority schedule. Manage meeting requests and protect time for focused work, preparation, and important follow-up.
- Coordinate donor visits, board member meetings, prison visits, leadership engagements, and appropriate travel and logistics for the CEO and Chief of Staff.
- Attend designated significant meetings to advise, listen, and capture decisions and next steps.
- Ensure designated meeting summaries and action items are entered in Planner within 48 hours, with clear owners and deadlines.
- Track executive commitments, facilitate resolution of obstacles, and alert the CEO to recurring non-completion with recommended next steps.
Go forward plan and accountability
- Coordinate the annual leadership retreat and assist with creating our Go Forward Annual Strategic Plan, establishing clear owners, quarterly milestones, measures of success, and reporting expectations.
- Lead assigned strategic initiatives, coordinating people, resources, and deadlines within approved scope and authority.
- When objectives fall behind, coordinate a documented assessment of causes, a recovery plan, and follow-up. Recommend changes when evidence or capacity warrants a different course.
- Maintain a current record of commitments so leadership can distinguish completed work, emerging risks, and decisions needed.
Measure and celebrate results
- Serve as executive owner of organizational data integrity and insight. Define and steward Kingdom-class measures for mission impact, participant outcomes, staff and volunteer health, operational excellence, and donor stewardship.
- Establish clear data definitions, sources, owners, and reporting schedules. Direct team leads to ensure accurate, consistent capture and audit data quality regularly.
- Analyze weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports and provide the CEO with a concise weekly briefing identifying trends, concerns, and recommended actions for team directors.
- Use approved AI tools to assist with pattern recognition and research. Verify findings, identify uncertainty, and track decisions and follow-up arising from recommendations.
- Coordinate the monthly all-staff PowerPoint and regularly recognize meaningful results and examples of employees and volunteers living JUMPSTART SC’s values.
Collaboration learning and implementation
- Facilitate monthly cross-team collaboration to identify challenges, assess proposed improvements, and share effective practices.
- Guide approved improvements through research, pilot, implementation, and evaluation, using defined outcomes, resource requirements, and criteria for continuing, adjusting, or stopping.
- Coordinate participant and volunteer surveys, organization-wide staff feedback, and team feedback on directors. Complete the July–August evaluation cycle in preparation for the September leadership retreat.
- Turn accepted recommendations into action plans with owners and deadlines, evaluate results, and communicate what changed in response to feedback.
Leadership development and culture
- Advise the CEO on leadership capacity, organizational structure, staffing priorities, and culture concerns.
- Coordinate director feedback, evaluations, and development plans, supporting the CEO and directors in following through on agreed actions.
- Ensure new employees receive effective onboarding and understand the mission, leadership values, and role expectations within their first 30 days.
- Reinforce clear expectations, respectful accountability, candid conversation, joyful service, and recognition of contributions across the organization.
Reporting relationships and delegation
- The Chief of Staff reports directly to the CEO. Team directors continue to report to the CEO and retain responsibility for their teams, budgets, and daily service delivery. The Chief of Staff exercises delegated authority to coordinate agreed priorities, request information, enforce established expectations, and resolve cross-team issues.
- Convene meetings, establish follow-up requirements, and direct execution of approved organizational commitments within the CEO’s delegated authority.
- Enforce daily operational compliance through team leads and directly with staff when their team director is absent or unavailable. Inform the responsible director and CEO of material issues and actions taken.
- Speak on behalf of the CEO within delegated authority when policy, leadership values, or operating procedures are not being upheld. Keep the CEO informed and maintain a record of material decisions.
Talent selection and personnel decisions
- Lead interview selection for designated openings, using consistent interview tools and role-based evaluation criteria in partnership with the hiring leader.
- Hold a veto in hiring decisions. Document the rationale and resolve disagreements with the CEO before an offer is issued; compensation and position changes require CEO approval.
- Exercise delegated termination authority for non-director staff during a CEO-designated acting-authority period, in accordance with the employee handbook and written delegation. Document the decision and notify the CEO promptly.
- Obtain CEO approval for director terminations, changes to organizational structure, and expenses exceeding budget.
Performance expectations
The CEO and Chief of Staff review performance against the following expectations and the agreed annual objectives. Measures are reviewed regularly to support learning, accountability, and mission impact.
- CEO priorities
At least 90% of predictable recurring CEO priorities scheduled 90 days ahead; weekly priority and capacity review completed.
- Meeting follow-through
100% of designated leadership and strategic meeting decisions and action items documented within 48 hours with owners and deadlines.
- Strategic execution
Every Go Forward Plan priority has an owner, quarterly milestones, and measures; monthly reviews identify progress, risks, and recovery actions.
- Reporting quality
100% of required team reports submitted by agreed deadlines; verified weekly CEO briefing delivered with recommendations and tracked follow-up.
- Learning and people
Annual feedback informs the leadership retreat; accepted recommendations and development plans have owners and deadlines; onboarding milestones completed within 90 days.
Qualifications
- Mature Christian faith, integrity, humility, and alignment with JUMPSTART SC’s mission and leadership values.
- Demonstrated success advising senior leaders, leading complex projects, or coordinating work across departments; nonprofit, board, or ministry experience is valuable.
- Strong analytical and financial literacy, sound personnel judgment, discretion, and the ability to turn information into practical recommendations.
- Clear communication, confident facilitation, and a record of building trust, addressing difficult issues respectfully, and completing commitments.
- Proficiency with Microsoft 365 and work-management tools; thoughtful use of AI, reporting systems, and meeting documentation.
- Ability to work in person or conduct site visits four days per week, work from home one day per week, and travel to program locations, prisons, and partner meetings as required.
Compensation and benefits
$75,000–$92,000 annual salary, depending on experience.
21 days of annual paid time off • All federal holidays off • Ability to contribute to a 401(k) plan
Reports to
Chief Executive Officer
Member of Senior leadership Team
Full-time
Schedule
Four days per week in the office or conducting site visits, with one day working from home. The work-from-home day is coordinated with the CEO.
Interested in this role?
You apply on the company’s site.
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