JOB DESCRIPTION – DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Location: Chelsea, MA
Organizational Overview
Founded in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1988, Roca’s mission is to disrupt the cycle of poverty and
incarceration by helping young people transform their lives.
Our evidence based Intervention Model engages the highest risk, 17-24 year old young people in a long
term process of behavior change and skill building opportunities. With two years of intensive
engagement and two years of less intensive follow-up, Roca’s Intervention Model provides a robust
combination of services, including relentless street outreach, data driven case management, stage based
education and employment training.
We focus our efforts on two groups of very high risk young people: young men trapped in cycles of
crime and incarceration and young mothers with a multitude of risk factors. Ultimately, our goals for
these young people is to help them get off the streets, reduce their involvement in crime and, stay out
of jail, get jobs, and become better parents and better community members.
Understanding that we cannot and should not do this work alone, Roca partners with an important array
of leaders and institutions from the criminal justice field, government, social service sector and business,
to create system improvements in the way our society responds to the these young people and the
crises and trauma that affects their lives.
Roca’s Intervention Model is a cognitive‐restructuring and skills development intervention that was
developed and implemented to address the high‐risk, underserved population of 17‐24 males who are
either: 1) aging out of the juvenile justice or juvenile probation systems with a strong propensity for
reincarceration as an adult; 2) connected with the adult justice system; or 3) are high‐risk members of
the community being served who have a strong propensity for incarceration as an adult. Our goals are
to avert continued or future incarceration, help young people stay out of jail, and to help young men
develop the skills they need to succeed and stay at work. Roca also works with young mothers in
Chelsea, Revere and East Boston. The programming includes the Healthy Families Home Visiting
Program and a pilot project for high risk young mothers.
Roca has recently expanded and is now providing services to young men in the following communities:
Boston, Chelsea, Cambridge, Charlestown, East Boston, Everett, Lynn, Malden, Medford, Revere,
Somerville, Winthrop, Agawam, Chicopee, East Longmeadow, Holyoke, Longmeadow, Ludlow,
Springfield, West Springfield and Westfield. Roca is also planning for its first out of state replication and
a process for long term scale and impact.
At 27 years old, Roca is honored and excited to be the service provider for the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts’ first and largest pay for success project – designed to avert future incarceration of high
risk young men who have been involved with the criminal justice system. This project is one of the first
three in the country and the largest to date; Roca will serve 929 young men though the pay for success
initiative!
Roca has a strong organizational culture where learning, personal experience, leading with values, and
having deep faith are essential to achieve bold goals with disenfranchised young people. Roca helps
young people to change their behavior and shift the trajectories of their lives to move toward the
outcomes of economic independence and living out of harm’s way.
Position Overview
Job placement, long-term retention and growth to employment with a living wage and beyond is a key goal of
Roca’s intervention model for high risk young men and young mothers. Roca’s employment programming
includes: transitional employment run by Roca; workforce readiness; pre-vocational training; job placement and
retention support; and work with young people to move towards a career path with a livable wage.
While this is a similar goal as many other organizations that work with young people, the starting point for the
young men and women we serve is fundamentally different. When young men and young women start at Roca,
they are fundamentally not ready, willing and able to work and/or participate consistently in education, training
or employment. The program’s design is to help young people learn the skills they need to succeed in life,
employment and education. It is interesting to note that the young men in Roca’s programs generally average 15
– 18 months of time in transitional employment before they sustain 60 days in a row. The young mothers face
behavioral barriers as well as a host of other challenges.
To meet the specific needs of the young people at Roca, their starting points in the organization, and address their
barriers, Roca’s employment programming is based on stages of behavior change meeting young people where
they are in terms of attendance, performance and attitude. The stages of change approach allows young people
to practice skills until they succeed as opposed to creating yet another place of failure in their lives. The
employment programming is further reinforced with an innovate cognitive behavior curriculum designed to teach
young people the skills they need to think different in order to act different; thus allowing them choices and
opportunities in their lives.
The Roca transitional employment model and expanding diversity of employer partners are key to the success of
the young person in the work world. Roca’s transitional employment program is modeled on evidence based
practices for transitional employment with “real pay for real work” at the core. Roca’s model is akin to a business
within a business where Roca operates work crews for cost and operates a range of advanced transitional
employment opportunities for cost. Given the needs and trajectory of young people at Roca, Roca hosts both
basic and advanced transitional employment. Basic transitional employment is a work crew model with a
working supervisor providing cleaning, painting, maintenance, etc.; young people get paid minimum wage on the
work crews. Advanced transitional employment (ATE) with expanded hours and pay may include: a supervised
painting or apartment turnover crew or single placements with an employer that often function similarly to a
temp to perm opportunity.
Equally critical are employer partners. Roca has a host of small to medium, size business partners and is just
beginning to establish partnerships with larger organizations for increased transitional and/or permanent
employment opportunities.
Although Roca has had staff assigned to business development and employer relationships, that work has been
connected with additional and major responsibilities. In a recent re-structure, Roca is looking to pull this work
out to a separate individual who will work with other senior staff and the job developers to expand ATE
opportunities and develop/maintain employer partnerships.
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This position is responsible for generating $2.25 million in basic transitional employment work crew contracts,
$750,000 in advanced transitional employment work crew contracts in FY 16 to support work crew contracts in FY
16 and FY 17, with financial targets likely to increase annually.
In addition, this position is responsible for developing relationships with large scale employers and generating
employment opportunities for the high risk young men and women Roca serves.
The Director of Business Development will help create and promote the culture of successful employment for
Roca’s participants. At Roca we believe that there is “no progress without a job.” Employment is one of the most
critical factors keeping our proven-risk males out of jail, enabling a livelihood of success. It is also critical to
helping high risk young moms get out of poverty and support their families.
The position will include:
- Business Development for Transitional Employment (basic, advanced, and internal Roca business
development for transitional employment)
- Strategic Partnerships for Job Placement and transitional employment in Massachusetts and the
replication state
- High level oversight of Transitional Employment (not operational – but oversight of targets, improvement,
coordination and integration with pre-vocational training, and appropriate job opportunities
- High level oversight of Job Development and Placement (not operational – but coordination with
employer partners, improvement of pre-vocational training, knowledge of labor market and
opportunities, etc.)
The business development focus of this position will include: business development, basic and advanced
transitional employment, external pre-vocational training relationships, job development and job placement, and
other related work as appropriate.
Employment is one of the most critical factors keeping our proven-risk males out of jail, enabling a livelihood of
success and help young mothers get out of poverty. The employment partnerships and advanced transitional
employment will be developed appropriately for high risk young men and young mothers, respectively.
This position will report to the CEO and with coaching and additional support from the Chief Strategy Officer on
business development, partnerships and employment standards. The position will coordinate as appropriate will
all other program directors and development for corporate relations.
SPECIFIC JOB DUTIES
Specific job duties for the Director of Business Development include:
Business Development and Employment
 Basic Transitional Employment in Chelsea/Boston:
o Work with Program Directors to secure sufficient work crew contracts for basic transitional employment
work crews (relationship development and management, research of new opportunities and related
meetings, put in place a client satisfaction feedback process)
 Basic Transitional Employment in Springfield:
o Work with the Director as appropriate to secure sufficient work crew contracts in Springfield Replication
and related opportunities
 Advanced Transitional Employment:
o Work with the CEO and staffing team to create advanced transitional employment opportunities and
when possible to create a model that is self-sufficient. Will include: seeking work opportunities, finalizing
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legal contract, and working on several different models (individual placements, temp to perm like
opportunities, or work with a business on a group of or all their positions).
o Consider potential of short-term, one time, etc. jobs and how to manage that project (develop a business
model and youth management model around this idea.
Develop and maintain high level employer relationships for jobs and transitional employment
o e.g. Work with Beacon Communities to develop additional property management and painting
turnaround opportunities
o e.g. Work with Jan Callahan of Palmer Paving and Chris Judd of Roca to expand manufacturing
opportunities and or potential training for jobs
o please note: specific annual targets with a breakdown by quarter will be set
Provide leadership and coordination to the continuous improvement of:
o Pre- vocational training at Roca
o Connecting to additional training and skills development as appropriate and possible
New Business Development for Roca:
o Work with CEO and Business Development Committee on long-term growth and sustainability of
transitional employment
o Host a business development committee for advanced transitional employment and specialized
employment partnerships
o Develop and implement a learning agenda on transitional employment and social enterprises.
Related Administrative and contract development work:
o Provide related administrative and fund development work, e.g. attend meetings re economic
development or legislation, work on funding opportunities, operations manual, etc.
Develop a process for stewardship of exiting employer partners and coordinate with Development where
appropriate
o e.g. Au Bon Pain, Harvard, Beacon Communities
o We will determine regular thank you and maybe special events for them
Serve as liaison between key employer partners, Directors, job developers and staff
o This will need a specific and detailed understanding of the young men and the young women and their
specific issues
o This will involve trouble shooting and follow-up if there are issues with young people in employment
Administrative
 Lead all administrative responsibilities: reporting, budget management, grant writing, etc…
 Participate in fundraising
 Complete other tasks as assigned by supervisor (CEO)
QUALIFICATIONS:
The successful candidate for this position will have the following qualifications:
 At least 7 years of experience working directly with high risk young people, adults and/or comparable
community work
 At least 5-7 years of experience in business development
 Strong problem solving skills
 Ability to develop, launch and implement business projects
 Extensive sales experience
 Experience in marketing and the development of programmatic partnerships.
 Demonstrated ability to think and act strategically.
 Demonstrated understanding of financial management.
 Contract management experience
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Outstanding crisis intervention skills
Strong presentation skills
Strong verbal and written communication skills
In addition, the ideal candidate for this position will be a trustworthy decision-maker. He/she will have a sense of
humor, feel passionate and committed to direct work with high risk youth, and demonstrate interest in coaching
and supporting coworkers. Bilingual (English/Spanish) is preferred but not required.
To Apply: Please email a thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications
of the position and stating how you heard about this opportunity, and resume (both in Word format) to Roca at
HR@rocainc.com, subject line “Director of Business Development.” Applications will be reviewed on a rolling
basis
Roca is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes candidates from diverse backgrounds.
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