Regional Program Manager Jobs

– Fresh Films Regional Program Manager

Fresh Films Regional Manager will work in the field to manage the day-to-day Fresh Films program operations for a designated portfolio of sites in their region, support our growth in sites, students and partnerships and drive high-quality standards in teaching and learning for Fresh Films Career Pathways serving both teenagers and young adults ages 18-26.

This position is one of our four regional managers across the country who oversee our 32 program sites. Regional managers report into the Executive Director of Filmmaking, Creative & Training. The four regions include Boston/Northeast, Atlanta/Southeast; LA/West and Chicago-QC/Midwest).

Fresh Films programs engage teens and young adults in learning film industry skills for future jobs; are supported by donors; are taught by local film professionals; are hosted at partner school and youth club sites; and are connected to local film industry partners to create future opportunities for our participants. As the Regional Program Manager, you are the connector between these programmatic elements - ensuring the program runs effectively and at the highest quality. You’re also responsible for sharing the impact of the program!

Specific duties for your region include:

Program Logistics:

• Participate in curriculum/syllabus updates with Creative Director, Managing Director & other staff to continually improve program outcomes
• Supervises programming/ teaching quality through weekly site visits, attending program meetings, working with local FF instructor staff, students and program partners (requires working late each Thursday until 9pm ET during program weeks, and until 9pm on a handful of Wednesdays; work schedule will be adjusted to accommodate these longer days)
• Ensure program effectiveness, program fidelity and quality across sites; working to resolve specific issues and develop collaborative improvement
• Manages program implementation at local site level, working collaboratively with FF teaching artists and key staff at school and program partners; includes regular communications and in-person meetings
• Evaluate program effectiveness with team of instructors / FF staff
• Coordinates scheduling of classes, shoots and project production deadlines against all school calendars to ensure alignment and full execution of all program modules

Participant Engagement & Coordination:

• Coordinate, facilitate and/or promote industry field trips, events & guest speakers
• Support, recommend and coordinate advanced program placements (Level 2/Level 3) for qualifying participants, including participation in soft-skills sessions
• Ensure weekly attendance and address any retention or potential retention issues immediately; actions upon them in order to seat other students
• Work with Marketing team and local site partners to ensure successful recruitment, enrollment and retention of youth participants; help marketing team with local market insight
• Engage with and get to know the students in the program at all sites; from current program and throughout their journey as Alumni
• Collaborate with team for participant onboarding plan and sending of weekly communications
• Engage with parents / families as needed in support of student engagement
• Coordinate and facilitate 3 soft-skills sessions yearly in collaboration with FF staff and partners
• Attend and engage students for local recruiting events
• Ensure participants move into Alumni database and continue to receive program engagement
• Coordinate local premieres to showcase student work

Working with Local Instructors:

• Support teaching artists with substitute staff in when teaching artists are unavailable
• Perform reviews with teaching artists
• Support and mentor teaching artist staff in relationships/communication with partners and students and for program needs to improve program and production quality
• Interview and hire local teaching artists in collaboration with Executive Director
• Facilitate all teaching artist communications and regular check in meetings
• Coordinate with teaching artists to ensure student work is shared and archived
• Co-facilitate teaching artist orientation and weekly training
• Coordinate with teaching artists for best films for film festival submissions; coordinate with home office or intern for submission payments, uploading of film assets, etc.

Working with local Program Partner Sites

• Collaborate with FF team for new site launches
• Work with site for participant recruitment, attendance and retention
• Share program-specific updates, impact videos, student learning and films/links with sites
• Work with sites for specific on-site program locations, tech and/or programming needs
• Coordinate equipment and software installation and management/inventories
• Oversee & facilitate local partner site onboarding and ongoing meetings/communications
• Gather site-specific demographic and other details for development or marketing

Employer / Community Relations

• Facilitate and help place youth into these local opportunities
• Represent FF at local film industry events, donor events and/or at school or community partner events that support building program awareness, recruitment or internship opportunities
• Be the on-the ground connector between our youth and additional opportunities
• Expand and enhance connections with local film industry supporters (in collaboration with FF Development team) to create additional networking, internship or job opportunities for youth
• Engage with the local Advisory/Employer Council

Program Assessment & Evaluation

• Work with instructors to ensure completion of pre and post student evaluation surveys
• Administer post-program teacher & partner evaluation surveys
• At mid and end of program (or when asked of by donors), support the creation of written and visual report of regional or site-specific program outcomes for donor impact reports
• Support and/or lead capturing of behind the scenes photos/videos, testimonials, stories and anecdotes and exit interviews (from students, instructors, sites and partners)
• Meet monthly with development team to discuss progress or challenges
• Share student films, upcoming events, behind scenes photos/videos, testimonials, etc with sites, instructors, local partners and FF team to showcase program engagement
• Other duties as assigned
• Gathers all participant demographic information for each site
• Coordinate and attend donor site visits as needed

Job Requirements:

• Work in education or youth programming preferred
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in applicable field preferred
• Additional film experience or past work in the film industry a plus
• Experience: Minimum 3-5 years professional experience required; preferably in full-time people or program management

What we’re looking for:

A strong program manager with a track record of working with multiple stakeholders to execute high-quality programming. The ideal candidate is an organized, self-starter who discerns work priorities and meets deadlines with minimum supervision in a fast-paced environment. We’re a small team that does big things. Hands-on doing is part of the culture.

Other qualities that will make you successful:

• Must be a strong planner with the ability to be flexible when plans need to pivot and change
• Must be able to relate and connect to others (empathy)
• Must be a team player, working collaboratively but also able to work independently
• Must understand that there are multiple stakeholders all supporting the same mission but who need different things and will need to be communicated with in different ways
• Must promote high expectations for instructors and students in an enabling manner
• An unquestioned belief that young people have brilliant stories to tell, are full of untapped potential and no matter their background or experience level, should have equal opportunities to access college and career opportunities in the growing media industry
• Must be highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to work with multiple stakeholders
• Must be solutions-oriented and able to make decisions with imperfect information
• Unquestioned integrity, passion, and commitment to the Fresh Fims mission, the youth we serve, and the work we do

Compensation

• Full-time, 40 hours weekly
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Additional 3 weeks of vacation
• Office closed for 8 Federal holidays plus the week between Christmas and New Years

Work Environment:

• You must be from Greater Boston.
• Additional travel to FF Rock Island, IL headquarters and/or to other program locations 2-3 times per year to connect with other FF staff will be assigned as needed.
• All out-of-town travel paid for by Fresh Films; employees will have company credit card.
• Hybrid Position: Some work from home; some from Fresh Films office in Greater Boston; some at local sites
• May require some additional evening or weekend work and travel to support program
• If you are assigned sites outside of your home region (i.e. Pittsburg or NYC) you will also travel to that site 3-4x yearly. This travel is only 1-2 days.
• You must have your own vehicle for transportation
• You must be able to work until 9 pm on most Thursdays (late Oct to early June) and be able to travel to one or more program sites each Thursday

WE ARE A PROUD EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

Fresh Films is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We believe diversity drives us to deliver more valuable and meaningful experiences for clients and employees. That means we not only provide equal opportunity and consideration to all employees and applicants – we welcome it. Fresh Films doesn’t discriminate on the basis of gender, gender identity or expression, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, physical or mental disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by law.