Letters of Interest may be submitted to Kent Mitchell, VP of Strategy and Innovation, Lutheran Services in America at kmitchell@lutheranservices.org.
LOIs are encouraged by November 13, 2023
LOIs should be no more than 1-page and reference your interest in this opportunity, a relevant engagement or two and link to any website, LinkedIn or other materials you would like us to see. Please include contact information, confirm you can start in November 2023 and partner through December 2024 and your hourly rate.
Summary and Budget
Lutheran Services in America (LSA) is seeking a skilled facilitator and project manager with expertise in race, equity and inclusion to supplement and strengthen the existing capacity of the LSA Children, Youth and Families team for the period November 2023 through December 2024. The consultant would provide critical leadership with respect to the Faith, Families and Community Partnership initiative (FFCP; see below for more information). The role involves: 1) leading project management meetings for FFCP, 2) organizing and facilitating a series of four high-profile virtual convenings and partnerships in 2024, 3) assisting with two in-person convenings in 2024, 4) writing four brief case studies, 5) supporting other outreach, engagement, policy and communications work.
The total budget for the role is up to $40,000, with actual expenses to be invoiced monthly.
Background
The Faith, Families and Community Partnerships Initiative unites people with lived experience together with human services professionals, people of faith and policymakers to reimagine and to take action to stabilize and improve the lives of children and families. The partnership is a collaboration of the LSA Results Innovation Lab and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to ensure all children in the U.S. live in safe, stable, and permanent family homes that advance their health and opportunity.
A majority of children removed from their families are removed for neglect. Neglect is most often a symptom of poverty with millions of families working to overcome systemic barriers to food, shelter, clothing, medical care, child care and other necessities. Black and Indigenous children are at significantly heightened risk for being removed from their family due to long-standing bias and discrimination in publicly funded systems. The partnership provides the space to build awareness and foster the engagement of people with lived expertise to address housing, child welfare and other systems that must change how they interact with and support communities.
We believe that making progress on long-standing inequities in family stability starts with listening, learning and collectively moving together from intention to action. Through the Initiative, we are:
- Elevating and amplifying a diversity of voices with lived expertise.
- Convening cross-sector stakeholders and communities for opportunities to learn, grow and take action.
- Advocating for changes in policy and practice that address inequities.
- Developing and sharing tools for building broader support for family stabilization.
Our goal is to strengthen the cultural awareness and leadership capacity of leaders across sectors that results in a durable coalition of support for family stabilization.
Target Audience
The Faith, Families and Community Partnerships Initiative is targeted to nonprofit professionals, leaders of faith communities and grassroots leaders working on issues of family stabilization, with a special focus on professionals or leaders in the child welfare/foster care, housing and economic empowerment spaces. The LSA community and the community of our church partners is national in reach and serves diverse communities.
To learn more about the LSA community, please learn more about our Member Network and view our most recent Annual Report. To learn more about the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s social justice work, please view their website.
Work Steams
The Facilitator/Project Manager would either lead or support the following five (5) work streams:
- Project management: convene a small group of LSA staff (three persons and others, as invited) in weekly meetings to advance the work of the initiative, track progress and support follow-through.
- Virtual learning series: lead the development and delivery of four high-quality virtual convenings and partnerships with a race, equity and inclusion focus. Content partners have been cultivated. The role of the consultant would be to finalize partnerships, guide partnerships and content, support marketing and outreach to drive attendance, moderate each convening (LSA would host on our Zoom platform), lead evaluation efforts with attendees and content partners and support post-convening dissemination of supportive materials or report-outs. In addition, the consultant will work to build community between convenings.
- Support two in-person convenings: support the success of two in-person convenings, one of which will be in Washington D.C. in summer 2024. The second convening will be at a location to be determined in 2024.
- Case studies: author four brief case studies (two to four pages) on the race equity work of four partnering children, youth and family organizations (organizations already engaged with LSA).
- Outreach, engagement, policy and communications activities: Partner with LSA staff to meet outreach and recruitment goals for various engagement opportunities, including the virtual series, a fellowship, in-person convenings and other offerings. In addition, support public policy agenda development and partnership with the LSA communications team.
Experience and Qualifications
LSA is seeking a Facilitator/Project Manager with the following experience and qualifications:
- Excellent project management skills and experience supplementing the capacity of an existing nonprofit team.
- A race, equity and inclusion leader with ample relevant work experience and successful engagements.
- A track record of developing/cultivating compelling in-person and virtual content.
- Exemplary facilitation skills and speaker presence.
- Knowledge of issues and dynamics in systems related to family stability, especially child welfare, housing and economic empowerment.
- LSA would value consultants with a demonstrated commitment to accessing one’s own life story and narrative to become an instrument of change.
