Community Partnerships Director

United Way of Southeast Minnesota (UWSEMN) responds to the greatest needs across our region by inspiring people to get involved, give back, and take action. We envision a resilient region defined by care and collective action where residents are healthy, households are financially secure, and young people succeed in school and life. UWSEMN serves Dodge, Fillmore, Olmsted, and Winona counties. Our work is entering a new chapter focused on strengthening community partnerships, reducing fragmentation, and helping people connect to the right support at the right time.

You can learn more about our organization, our impact, and our values at www.uwsemn.org

WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS

UWSEMN is transforming its former Community Impact structure into an active partnership backbone. This is not simply a program management position. The Community Partnerships Director owns the operating system that turns executive direction and partner commitments into priorities, standards, participation expectations, shared infrastructure, and measurable progress. The Director leads the Community Partnerships & Programs portfolio, including Building Bridges, 211, Get Connected, VITA, grant and investment partnerships, regional partnership development, Imagination Library, Running Start for School, resource intelligence, and future Building Bridges capacity. The Director sets direction and leads performance while the Operations Manager, Partnership Coordinator, and other assigned capacity carry much of the recurring execution and individual partner service. Building Bridges remains startup-stage work. The Director will help UWSEMN build, test, refine, activate, and stabilize the shared infrastructure that allows independent organizations to work more effectively as a community system.

HOW YOU WOULD FIT IN & STAND OUT

This role is for a leader who can:

• Translate strategy into a practical partnership operating system.
• Lead people and priorities so recurring work moves with clarity, accountability, and follow-through.
• Build trust, align partners, and move organizations from interest to shared practice.
• Interpret data and partner experience and turn learning into decisions and improvement.
• Write clearly enough to make complex work understandable to staff, partners, executives, the board, and donors.

We are looking for someone who combines execution discipline, written structure, partner credibility, practical judgment, and systems thinking. This is a hands-on leadership role, but it is not a role in which the Director personally performs every recurring task.