Community Engagement Manager

Responsibilities

Works with the Neighborhood Transformation Core to develop surveys and data gathering methods, and dissemination procedures for data analysis summaries to the administrative team.

Collaborates with Neighborhood Transformation Core, Housing, Infrastructure and Economic Development Core, Neighborhood Partnership Core, and Social Development Core to design and carry out Community Navigator orientations for all data gathering needs and program opportunities for residents.

Engages directly with residents and neighborhood small business owners to learn about needs, aspirations, and current conditions of the census tract 166 neighborhoods.

Mentors two full-time Community Navigators in the methods and strategies of daily community engagement.

Schedules all informal group gatherings of residents and publicly announced formal meetings with residents.

Meets weekly with Community Navigators to assess progress.

Keeps meticulous notes of team supervision meetings and resident gathering meetings.

Analyzes, interprets, and translates qualitative and quantitative insights generated through daily navigator engagement, ensuring that resident perspectives are systematically integrated into neighborhood planning, project development, and cross-core decision-making.

Serves as a public presenter to neighborhood residents of community resources and opportunities from both within the Project and from other community sources.

Maintains open communication weekly with the Project’s Executive Director.

Qualifications

• High School Diploma with at least 10 years of relevant experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Interdisciplinary Sciences, Urban Planning, Public Health, or another relevant field with 5 years of relevant experience.
• Extensive experience in community organizing, preferably in the City of Buffalo.
• Working and personal experience with residents of underdeveloped neighborhoods.
• Demonstrated capacity to manage a cross-trained team working across a diverse population.
• Strong skills in engagement methods including facilitation of formal meetings, household conversations, block-level engagements, and on-the-street interactions with residents.
• Deep knowledge of the barriers residents face, the dynamics of community trust, and the operational challenges inherent in neighborhoods shaped by decades of racialized underdevelopment.
• Proven experience supervising and mentoring staff.
• Experience designing and executing plans for program or service delivery.

Preferred Qualifications

• Capacity to work with people from multiple cultures and social classes.
• Advanced listening skills.
• Healthy humility and a grounded communication approach that puts residents’ needs and aspirations first.