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Director of Programs

Turn the systems Holon has built into offers that small nonprofits, groups and neighbors can pick up: what we offer, for which kinds of group and in what order, each one ready before it reaches anyone.

How to apply Download the role description (PDF)

Time: About 4 to 6 hours a week, a little more around deadlines or events.
Term: Twelve months, renewable each year. The first ninety days are a trial for both of us, and you may step down at any time.
Where: Houston. Mostly online, with some evenings and weekends in person.
Pay: Unpaid. Approved expenses reimbursed.
Reports to: Esteban Montero, Executive Director
Starts: Early 2027, once selected and onboarded.

Holon has built, mostly with donated time, the systems a serious organization runs on: a map and a calendar anyone can use, a volunteering directory, event pages and messages, and behind them the systems Holon runs itself on, from its books and its board's records to its funding lists. Our program shares what is ready with other nonprofits, small organizations and individuals who could not build or afford it alone: the tools openly, the funding lists by invitation, and the way we keep our board's records as guides. This role decides how each reaches them, one offer at a time.

The work

Keep the program's plan: what we offer, for which kinds of group, in what order, and what each offer needs before it goes out.
Turn our systems into offers a group can pick up on its own: a short guide, a checklist and someone to ask.
Plan with the Director of Community Outreach, who brings the groups: what they need, what is ready to offer and what is not yet.
Bring what groups need to the people who build our tools as plain requests, and try each change before a group sees it.
Keep an honest record of what groups did with each offer, and report it in writing each month.
Keep the list of our systems and where each one stands current and dated, so that nobody promises what is not ready.

You decide

The order in which offers are prepared, within the plan agreed with the Executive Director.
The form of each offer: its guide, its checklist and how a group starts.
How the program's progress is recorded and reported.
Which requests go to the builders first, within the time set for building.

You will do well here if

You have managed a program, a product, a service or a set of projects.
You turn a long list into a short sequence, and you can say “not yet” to good ideas.
You write plainly: a one-page plan, a guide a stranger can follow.
You like online tools, and you can tell when one is ready for someone else.
You know small organizations from the inside, as staff, board member or volunteer.

Your first ninety days

Learn our systems and what each one does today, and meet the Director of Community Outreach and the people who build our tools.
Write the program's plan for the year with the Executive Director: the first offers, their order, and what each needs before it goes out.
Bring the first offer to its first groups with outreach, and report what they did with it.

What this role does not do

Sign agreements, set prices or promise anything on Holon's behalf; the Executive Director signs and sets terms.
Ask for money or handle it; funding conversations stay with the Executive Director.
Offer a tool to anyone before its status is confirmed with the Executive Director that week.
Rank or compare organizations or people.
Give anyone access to Holon's own records or systems (the Executive Director invites community visitors), or keep notes outside our records.
Ask volunteers to do work that Holon has promised to pay someone for.

How we work together

A thirty-minute check-in with the Executive Director every two weeks for your first ninety days, then once a month.
One hour a month with the Executive Director and the other director, online, in the evening.
A few lines each week, in writing, on what moved and what is stuck.
When the work needs more hands, you invite volunteers for pieces of it. Before your term renews, you train someone who could step in.

What you receive

A real area of work that you decide within, with the Executive Director behind you.
Orientation and the training your role needs, at no cost to you.
Out-of-pocket expenses you agree with us in advance, reimbursed against receipts; driving at the IRS charitable mileage rate.
A record of the hours you give, letters of reference when you ask, and your name on our team page if you wish.
A place among the people building what urban conservation in Houston needs to stand on.

What we ask of everyone

You are 18 or older.
A conversation, a one-hour working session on a real question from the role, two references and a background check that Holon pays for (with a driving record check if you will drive for Holon), all completed before you begin.
You agree to our code of conduct, our confidentiality and conflict-of-interest commitments, and a volunteer leadership agreement that sets out what you may decide, which of the work you create belongs to Holon, and how you may keep using it.
You sign an acknowledgment of the duty to report suspected abuse of a child, because some events include volunteers from age 14.
This role is unpaid. Holon reimburses approved expenses and does not promise paid work.

How to apply

Write to info@holonfoundation.org with “Director of Programs” in the subject line. Tell us who you are, why this role, and how many hours a week you can give. A résumé or a LinkedIn profile helps. We usually reply within two business days.

Apply by email

See the listing on Holon's volunteering directory Download the role description (PDF)

About Holon

Holon Foundation is a nonprofit that builds the capacity that urban conservation needs to stand on and grow to the next level. In Houston, households and small groups already care for front yards, community gardens, parks, esplanades and schoolyards, and the support has not reached them. We build what that work needs, from guidance to start and ways to afford it to supply from close to home, and a network in which each effort can see and work with the others around it. Today everyone who runs Holon, its Executive Director included, gives their time.

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