Friends of the Children

Help Shape the Future of Young Adult Success at Friends of the Children.

At Friends of the Children, we are committed to breaking the cycle of generational poverty through long-term, salaried, professional mentoring relationships. Our model pairs youth facing the greatest obstacles with a dedicated professional mentor, called a Friend, from kindergarten through high school graduation and beyond, for 12+ years, no matter what.

As we continue to expand our Pathways for Young Adults strategy and National Alumni efforts, we are seeking a highly organized, collaborative, and mission-driven professional to join our team as the Pathways Executive Coordinator & Advisory Council Liaison.

This is a unique opportunity to support a growing national initiative focused on helping young adults achieve economic independence and career success. In this role, you will serve as a key partner to program leadership, helping coordinate operations, communications, stakeholder engagement, events, advisory council activities, and strategic initiatives that advance the Pathways for Young Adults mission.

Working closely with national staff, chapter leaders, employers, community partners, advisory council members, and program stakeholders, you will help ensure projects stay on track, relationships remain strong, and the Pathways team can focus on delivering meaningful impact for young people across the country.

Why This Role Matters:

The Pathways for Young Adults program is helping young people bridge the gap between adolescence and adulthood by providing individualized career coaching that will create meaningful connections to education, careers, community, and economic opportunity.

The Pathways Executive Coordinator & Advisory Council Liaison plays a critical role in ensuring this work is coordinated effectively behind the scenes. Through strong organization, communication, project management, and relationship-building, this position helps create the structure and support systems necessary for success.

This role offers:

• Meaningful work supporting a nationally recognized youth development organization.
• The opportunity to help launch and grow innovative strategies focused on young adult career success and economic independence.
• Exposure to executive leadership, advisory councils, community partners, employers, and national stakeholders.
• Professional growth in project coordination, operations, communications, and stakeholder engagement.
• A collaborative team culture grounded in belonging, empowerment, innovation, and continuous learning.
• Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits.

Basic Function / Position Objective:

The Pathways Executive Coordinator & Advisory Council Liaison plays a critical role in supporting the successful implementation, growth, and day-to-day operations of the Pathways program. This program is part of the National Center of Excellence for Professional Youth Mentoring and includes the National Alumni Program. This position is based in Portland and reports to the National President, with a dotted line to the Director of the Pathways for Young Adults Program. 

This position provides administrative, operational, communications, and project coordination support to ensure staff, partners, employers, and stakeholders are effectively engaged and program activities are executed efficiently. They excel at working as part of a team, effectively manage multiple projects and tasks, and keep work on track. The Coordinator serves as a key team member who helps maintain organizational excellence, supports strategic initiatives, and advances Pathways' mission of helping young adults achieve economic mobility and career success.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

Administrative Support (40%)

• Manage calendars, scheduling, and meeting logistics
• Prepare agendas, meeting materials, meeting notes, and track action items.
• Prepare expense reports and maintain supporting documentation for program-related travel and activities.
• Monitor and manage shared email inboxes, directing inquiries and ensuring timely follow-up.
• Organize and maintain digital files, records, and program documentation.
• Maintain organizational calendars for meetings, events, trainings, and implementation deadlines.
• Support onboarding of new staff.
• Coordinate office administrative needs, including supplies, technology support requests, and vendor communications
• Develop and maintain administrative procedures that support efficient team operations.
• Participate in team meetings, planning sessions, and special administrative projects assigned.

Operations & Implementation Coordination (30%)

• Coordinate travel, site visits, convenings, and event logistics, including itineraries and scheduling.
• Support Pathways Program implementation, expansion to additional chapters, and launch activities by coordinating meetings and maintaining project schedules.
• Support onboarding of new employees by coordinating orientation/training activities, preparing training materials, and ensuring new staff have the tools, resources, and information needed
• Schedule and coordinate partner, employer, committee, and stakeholder meetings.
• Work with the team to track project timelines, deliverables, and follow-up activities to help ensure deadlines are met.
• Support coordination of logistics for workshops, trainings, and Pathways events.
• Support keeping project trackers, stakeholder lists, and operational reporting tools up to date
• Identify and address operational needs that improve program effectiveness and efficiency.

Communications & Stakeholder Engagement (20%)

• Work with the team to edit and print promotional materials
• Support the development, production, and distribution of Pathways communications materials, including program overviews, presentations, reports, recruitment materials, and impact stories.
• Provide administrative support for Pathways communications and stakeholder engagement activities.
• Manage and maintain inventories of Pathways marketing, outreach, and program materials, creating systems for organization and distribution.
• Assist with the preparation of communications for partners, employers, funders, committee members, and community stakeholders

Other Special Projects (10%)

• Conduct research and compile information to support decision-making, partnership development, grant proposals, and program planning.
• Assist with the development of presentations, reports, dashboards, and other materials for leadership, boards, committees, funders, and community partners.
• Participate in special projects and cross-functional teams that advance Pathways goals, improve operations, strengthen partnerships, or support program growth.
• Participate in coordinated national team administrative activities as needed.

The ideal candidate will have the following Education and Experience:

• Excellent written and oral communication skills. This position builds relationships in-person, on the phone, and via video conferencing with diverse individuals inside and outside the organization.
• Must possess a high level of organization, attention to detail with the ability to multi-task.
• Pro-actively prioritize, coordinate, and plan work activities; Use time efficiently; meet deadlines.
• Ability to identify and resolve problems in a timely manner; Use reason even when dealing with emotional topics. 
• Ability to take initiative, maintain positivity, be self-motivated and work effectively on projects with minimal direct supervision. Ability to work independently and set own priorities.
• Ability to resolve issues while maintaining a good working relationship with internal and external customers.
• Adapt to changes in the work environment; Manage competing demands; Change approach or method to best fit the situation; Able to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events.
• Willingness and ability to work on both individual and team projects.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain confidentiality and model organizational values.
• Demonstrated ability to draft/produce accurate correspondence and reports. Demonstrated ability to edit written materials accurately and consistently, including own work. Demonstrated ability to take and produce accurate and timely meeting minutes.
• Strong organizational and time management skills. Able to plan, organize and implement projects and to follow up as required.
• Ability to work in diverse environments. Ability to cultivate and sustain relationships and work effectively with a wide variety of constituencies, including staff, program children, organizational supporters, current and potential donors, board members, foundations, and community partners.
• Ability to represent the organization to a wide variety of audiences in an inclusive, effective manner.
• Ability to research and learn new technological tools.

Required Education, Experience, and Abilities:

• Associate degree or equivalent experience required.
• Five years’ experience in administrative support position(s), including experience at a senior support level.
• Strong technical skills in Office 365, Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook).

Preferred, Experience, and Abilities

• Experience supporting executive leaders
• Knowledge of Adobe Acrobat, Mailchimp, Google analytics and media databases.

Work Arrangement:

• Onsite: Minimum 4 days per week onsite at the Duncan and Cindy Campbell National Center of Excellence for Professional Youth Mentoring, Portland, Oregon.

Culture of Belonging:

Friends of the Children endeavors to create a culture where each and every staff knows they belong.  From our policies to our procedures and practices, we aim to create an environment that is healthy, safe, accepting, supportive, and kind. Our benefits are one way to depict our value for work harmony, empowerment, health, and happiness.

Benefits:

Our competitive compensation, benefits package, and employee engagement demonstrate our values to families, children, healthy relationships, love, empowerment, goal achievement, and equity.  We are continuously seeking feedback and researching best practices to meet the needs of staff and their families. Below are ways we actualize a culture of care for each and every staff member. 

• Health: Friends of the Children covers 100% of employee only health premium for 2 of the 4 plans
• Dental: Friends of the Children covers 100% of employee only premium
• Vision: Friends of the Children covers 100% of employee only premium
• Basic Life Insurance and Accidental Death and Dismemberment: 100% paid by Friends of the Children
• Short Term Disability and Long-Term Disability: 100% paid by Friends of the Children
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA): Employees may contribute to an FSA account: Healthcare FSA minimum of $100 maximum of $3,400.
• Employee Assistance Program
• Voluntary Benefits such as Critical Illness, Hospitalization, Legal, etc.
• 401(k) savings plan with a company match of up to the first 4% of earnings that the employee contributes.
• Cell phone and/or Internet Reimbursement: Employee is eligible for cell phone and/or internet business expenses up to $75/month ($37.50/pay period), maximum.
• Office reimbursement of $150 per year on anniversary date.
• Time off:
  • Vacation: Full-time employees of Friends are eligible for up to three weeks of paid vacation annually for the first 4 years.  The first year the time is pro-rated and vacation increases to honor length of service.
  • Sick Time: Regular, full-time employees are awarded two weeks/80 hours of sick time on January 1 of each year. New employees are awarded prorated sick time, not less than 48 hours. Sick time can be used to care for your own physical and mental wellbeing or that of a family member.
  • Holidays: Eleven paid holidays. Three of which are Floating holidays to help honor how people choose to celebrate their cultural and religious holidays.
• Career Development and Wellness Reimbursement of up to $1000 after the first year of employment. Up to $200 can be used for Wellness. 
• Summer hours and end of year holiday gift of time off. (Assessed annually by Executive Management.)
• Employee Perks and Discount Programs including savings on hotels, rental cars, travel, entertainment, streaming services, electronics, eCommerce, and so much more.

We aim to create an environment that is healthy, safe, accepting, supportive, and kind. Our benefits are one way to depict our value for work harmony, empowerment, health, and happiness.

Benefits start first of the month on or following employee start date.

Compensation: Non-Exempt, with a compensation range of approximately $60,000-$70,000 annually (equivalent to roughly $28.85-$33.65 per hour

Classification: Non-Exempt (Eligible for Overtime)

Location: Portland, Oregon (Onsite; minimum of 4 days in-office presence required)

Applications without cover letters will not be considered; please use this as an opportunity to convey why you want to be our Pathways Executive Coordinator & Advisory Council Liaison!

Friends of the Children is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to addressing discriminatory practices. The equal employment opportunity policy of Friends of the Children provides fair and equal opportunities for all employees and job applicants. Friends of the Children hires and promotes individuals solely based on their qualifications for the job to be filled.

Friends of the Children is growing rapidly as communities across the country are experiencing the power of how “One” changes a child's story: One Friend. One Child. 12+ years. No matter what. #ThePowerOfOne.

To learn more about Friends of the Children go to:   https://friendsofthechildren.org/about