Manager of Partnerships, Twin Cities

Reading Partners is changing the education landscape. We are a leader in working to solve the literacy crisis in our country by leveraging community volunteers in under-resourced schools. Our diverse and expansive volunteer base provides one-on-one tutoring to students twice weekly, and our program is proven to help children master the reading fundamentals they need to unlock their potential as successful, happy, and confident readers in school and in life. Our people are our heartbeat and our greatest resource; we are all passionately rallied around our mission to help children become lifelong learners by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction that works. Join our stellar team leading the charge to deepen our impact and expand our service. Watch this video to learn more about Reading Partners.

The high level:

The Manager of Partnerships (MP) is a results-driven, highly collaborative, and flexible manager in the education space who will play a crucial role in expanding the Reading Partners Connects (RPCx) online tutoring program. The MP oversees program launch, program quality, and implementation by regional partners while providing ongoing coaching to those partners implementing the RPCx program. They use proven strategies for coaching to ensure the success of regional partnership implementation in service to students. The MP balances various workstreams within partnership support, and they develop and maintain strong relationships with external partners implementing the RPCx program to ensure partner retention in the Twin Cities region. This position reports to the Program Director and will collaborate with multiple Reading Partners regional and national departments to attract and retain partners.

What you’ll do:

Cultivate, launch, and coach regional partners to successfully implement the RPCx program with fidelity and in alignment to Reading Partners quality standards.

• Oversee Reading Partners implementation of RPCx across multiple regional partnerships, ensuring that the program is implemented and executed with fidelity and quality in alignment with partnership goals
• Provide onboarding, ongoing training, and coaching opportunities using program fidelity, quality, and user guidelines
• Ensure all student enrollment and service benchmarks are met throughout the year through regular coaching calls
• Train partners to coach and support tutors to successfully implement the RPCx program in their local communities

Establish new partnerships and cultivate a pipeline of prospective partners

• Work with the Program Director and Executive Director to implement a partnership recruitment strategy to maintain up to six (6) partners in 2026
• Build strong relationships with regional educational programs including after-school, supplemental learning, and literacy programs to expand the partnership portfolio

Ensure student success in meeting literacy goals across partnerships.

• Create and manage systems to ensure student success that regional partners can implement within their individual programs
• Help partners navigate and leverage current tools, systems, and resources to support students
• Develop agreement with partners to ensure they are using Reading Partners guidance documents, resources, and best practices
• Analyze data and coach regional partners to use student assessment and other data to create individualized student action plans to meet their literacy goals

Create and cultivate Reading Partners champions within each regional partnership to ensure partner retention

• Establish regular, bi-directional communications with partners
• Maintain partner relationships and ensure 90% satisfaction with the RPCx program, particularly in the areas of partner communications, training, and coaching
• Ensure program implementation is strong to increase Reading Partners’ footprint and brand in new districts, communities, and markets

Partner with other regional and national departments and teams to support partnership development and program-related projects and systems

• Collaborate with the program team and national partnership team on database management
• Manage partnership data input and completion in alignment with Reading Partners systems and workflows
• Bring partnership feedback to regional and national teams to discuss and consider immediate and/or future changes
• In partnership with regional Community Engagement, create systems for supporting tutor onboarding workflows with partners and monitor required documentation 

Other duties as needed.

How you’ll do it:

Educational Expertise: 

• Have a deep understanding of the Reading Partners’ program model, and work to keep up with current literacy trends and the broader educational climate. Highly capable of assessing, diagnosing, and developing support plans to coach national partnership(s) in areas of program implementation and quality. Demonstrate a deep passion for social justice and the educational success of all students. Demonstrate an ability to assess student performance to analyze data to coach partners in creating subsequent strategies aimed at increasing student achievement.  

Coaching and Management: 

• Positively collaborate with and lead partnership stakeholders to meet and exceed programmatic goals. Consistently observe, model, and coach on program implementation to ensure partner implementation meets Reading Partners’ fidelity guide and quality standards.  Support ongoing revisions of fidelity, quality, and partnership guidelines through identifying best practices in non-Reading Partners partnerships. Modify coaching strategies and techniques to meet the varying goals of partnerships. Design and facilitate onboarding and ongoing training for partner participants.  Experience launching programs and proven ability to track each phase of a launch that can be translated into a remote environment.

Project Management:

• Demonstrate exceptional skill at ensuring program goals, project or program purposes, and criteria for success are clearly defined. Clarify the related roles and responsibilities, deliverables, milestones, and needs of primary stakeholders. Integrate ideas and needs of others in developing feasible strategies to achieve goals. Manage multiple competing priorities and projects, and re-prioritizes as needed. Have an astute attention to detail and maintain key data input and completion throughout the year. Remain adaptable, flexible, and solutions-driven while navigating complex problems. Anticipate challenges and/or questions and proactively act to address them. 

Relationship Development & Communication: 

• Model highly effective communication practices that ultimately lead to achieving results through others. Quickly garner influence and build deep, trusting relationships with partnership stakeholders. Develop and/or refine systems for communication, tailor communications to audiences, and contextualize messaging for each person or conversation. Demonstrate an ability to communicate effectively in all modalities and settings ranging from phone calls to videoconferences to webinars to in-person training sessions. Effectively convey needs, outcomes, and next steps all aimed at supporting partners to implement our program with fidelity and high quality.

Flexibility & Ambiguity: 

• Display comfort with ambiguity while having a strong bias for structure. Be comfortable working in a space of unknown answers to establish what is possible for new opportunities and program models. Employ flexibility, resiliency, and perseverance when faced with obstacles and competing deadlines with limited resources. Show quick, sound decision-making ability. Demonstrate a strong ability to recognize problems, solve them quickly, and appropriately message all shifts. Consider options that take into account all stakeholders, recommend actions, and make decisions accordingly.

About you!

You’ll be successful in this role if you:

• have 2-4 years as a program manager in an education organization, including  2+ years working with elementary-aged students in an educational setting
• Have experience with program launches or start up phases of a project
• Are excited about innovation and technology usage in tutoring
• Have experience navigating technology systems like Salesforce, Google Suite, and E-Learning platforms
• Have experience with literacy assessments, teaching strategies, and student data analysis in an education or non-education setting
• Have partnership management experience in an education or non-education setting, with a track record of partner retention
• Display strong relationship-building, written/verbal communication, and interpersonal skills
• Are committed to improving education equity and access 
• Demonstrate a deep belief in our mission, and commitment to race, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and root your work in our core values

Bonus Points if you:

• Have served as a program manager at Reading Partners for 2+ years.
• Are an AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, or other national service alum/alumna
• Have experience working in the launch or growth phases of organizations

What we offer:

Reading Partners’ compensation and benefits programs are designed to attract, motivate, engage, and retain top talent to propel our mission forward. We aim to set salaries based on objective, external, high-quality market data. Our salaries are adjusted for candidates in different geographic regions. We do our very best to ensure that we’re bringing our best offer - therefore we do not engage in salary negotiations.

• This is a full-time, exempt, and salaried position. The pay range for this position is $58,884 - $69,275 per year.
• We offer a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, flex spending accounts, generous paid time off, commuter benefits, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and currently a 403(b) match option.
• Professional development reimbursement fund up to $1,000 per year.
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) benefits for regular employees scheduled to work 30 hours or more per week
• We offer an exciting and dynamic culture, and we commit to investing in and supporting our amazing people to grow their careers with us.

The other things you need to know:

• This role is a hybrid role. The Twin Cities region reports to the site 1-2 times per week for team meetings and events
• Travel: On average, this position may travel a few times each week to partnership communities in the Twin Cities metro, and may include some greater MN travel.