Executive Director Immigration Equality

Immigration Equality and Immigration Equality Action Fund are seeking an experienced, dynamic, creative, highly skilled individual to become our new Executive Director. The Executive Director is a full-time, permanent position to be based in our New York City office. The Executive Director reports to the Boards of Directors of Immigration Equality (a 501(c)(3) organization) and Immigration Equality Action Fund (a 501(c)(4)).

Executive Director Immigration Equality

Immigration Equality is proud to be the national leader in the field we pioneered: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV immigration rights. We helped end the HIV travel ban, led the successful fight to secure green cards for LGBT families and represent LGBT asylum seekers and detainees every day.

Immigration Equality has a dual focus of direct representation and policy work. We hear every day from clients who need help right now, and we work to change the systems that have lasting impact on how LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants get treated. We work with LGBT and HIV-positive asylum seekers, detainees and binational couples, answering more than 4,000 hotline inquiries and representing more than 300 individual cases each year.

In 2014 and beyond we are doubling down on our asylum and detention work.  In 76 countries it is a crime to be gay. Being out or being outed is truly life-threatening. That’s why we work to train, represent and hold accountable the lawyers and government officials who make life or death decisions for LGBT people seeking safety in the U.S. We are proud to do life-saving work, and with much success to be proud of, we have more energy than ever to fight the policies that hurt scores of our families. We are energized to be seeking a new Executive Director.

Essential Qualities

For a candidate to be considered, she or he must demonstrate the following qualities:

Team leadership

Our organization owes its success to the highly motivated and highly skilled professionals who were recruited and trained by our current Executive Director. It will be essential that our next Executive Director likewise be skilled at nurturing and developing talent. Our next Executive Director will also need to excel at coordinating the various workstreams that create successful advocacy, integrating inputs from our legal, policy, fundraising and development, communications and financial staff. We will be looking for strong management experience that evidences these qualities.

Strong external communications

Our Executive Director is our face to the outside world, including donors and potential donors, fellow human rights and advocacy organizations and the various governmental bodies that we lobby for change. In addition, the Executive Director is the principal interface between our staff and our board. Our next Executive Director will need to have strong communication skills and will need as well to be effective at building bridges and maintaining strong communications with our board, with other advocacy organizations and with our government. In addition, our new Executive Director needs cultural competence with our wide range of stakeholders: we seek a leader who can be effective at establishing a rapport with LGBT immigrants who come to us for assistance, addressing a rally of impassioned immigration activists and explaining our work to a boardroom of bankers or lawyers who are highly experienced on legal and policy matters.

Familiarity with LGBT and immigration issues

We are an organization that is focused on the intersection of LGBT and immigration issues. Immigration Equality is both “the immigration group” at the organized LGBT table and “the LGBT group” at the immigration table. Authenticity and credibility in both of those settings is key to advancing our work. It will be essential that our next Executive Director be close to both worlds and have an intimate knowledge of the issues facing LGBT persons and immigrants in the United States (including the relevant legal issues they face).

Enthusiastic fundraiser

Our organization relies on individual, foundation, and corporate donations for all of its operating expenses. It is the job of our Executive Director and our development staff to locate and develop donors who understand the importance of our work. Supported by our excellent development staff, our next Executive Director will need to be one of the drivers behind this process and be prepared to play an outward-facing role in development efforts.

Additional Qualities that We Look For

We recognize that our field of candidates is likely to include worthy persons of a wide range of personal qualities and experience. While our next Executive Director might not embody all of the qualities we set out below, a candidate’s ability to demonstrate these qualities will enhance the strength of her or his application:

Personal connection to LGBT issues

We are an organization focused on LGBT immigrants, and our success lies in understanding our clients and making them feel comfortable and in building bridges to other LGBT organizations. An ideal Executive Director would demonstrate a close connection to LGBT issues.

Personal connection to immigration and diversity issues

Our clients are immigrants to the United States and are from a broad diversity of ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. Ideally, our next Executive Director will demonstrate a close connection to the immigrant experience in the United States and to the full range of ethnic, racial and religious experience in this country.

Legal and policy expertise

We are principally a legal and policy organization. Stated more precisely, our work consists both of direct representation of clients and advocacy of governmental bodies for policy change. Our staff has had great success in the past, in part because of the sophistication our staff has demonstrated on the legal and policy issues we advocate. Our organization will be well served if our next Executive Director is trained as a lawyer or, at a minimum, is very comfortable operating in the worlds of law and policy.

High energy level

Working for governmental change requires intense energy and determination. Our past success owes itself in large part to the extremely high energy level of our current Executive Director, which proved infectious and helped motivate and sustain our extremely skilled staff.

Propensity for strategic thinking

With political advocacy work, facts on the ground can change quickly. The needs of the LGBT immigrant community will continue to evolve as a result of global geopolitical developments and US political developments. Our next Executive Director will ideally be adept at identifying changes in the political and cultural landscape, assisting the board in considering the implications of these changes and being nimble in adapting our strategy and approach.

Salary and Benefits

Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits, including full health insurance coverage, dental and vision, 403(b) plan, long-term disability insurance and four weeks of vacation annually.

Environment

Immigration Equality is an equal opportunity employer and values having on its staff and its board persons representing a full mix of diverse ethnic, racial, religious and sexual identities. Applicants are expected to collaborate within a diverse and inclusive environment. We encourage persons of all backgrounds to apply.

Immigration Equality is a mission-driven organization full of smart, dedicated people. If you want to work at the cutting edge of the two most potent civil rights issues of our time, and do it with terrific colleagues in a fast-paced, nimble organization that seeks results, this is the place for you.

To Apply

Send a cover letter and resume to EDsearch@immigrationequality.org. The cover letter should describe your management experience in some detail, including specific examples supporting the foregoing criteria. We encourage you to describe your number of years of management experience, size of staff and size of budget, along with an explanation of the skills and qualities you believe will help you excel.