Job Description for Program Director, The Greenhouse
Seeds of Change | Louisville, Tennessee
Mission for the Founding Program Director: To build and lead a paid workforce program for men coming home from prison, carrying the first cohort personally and turning a small pilot into a program that lasts and makes an impact in East Tennessee and beyond.
THE NEED
In Knox County, roughly seven in ten people released from local jail return back to prison. Tennessee spent over $900 million on incarceration in 2023, and counties added more than $550 million to run local jails. Meanwhile East Tennessee is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and its industries cannot find enough skilled workers.
Looking beyond just the numbers, people coming home rarely fail for lack of potential. They fail because they come home without a support system. No job, no housing, no transportation, frayed relationships, and trauma nobody ever helped them name. They have been found by plenty of systems. But rarely, and sometimes never, has someone ever known them.
THE GREENHOUSE
A seed does not become a tree by trying harder. It becomes a tree because it is planted in the right conditions and is tended with care by a gardener. The Greenhouse is that environment for people returning home from incarceration and addiction.
- A six month program, launching as a twelve week pilot. Cohort one begins in Fall, 2026 with four to six men and runs twelve weeks, finishing just before Christmas. The spring 2027 cohort grows to eight to twelve and moves toward the full six month model. Steady state is twelve to fifteen men across two cohorts a year.
- Paid from day one. Participants earn $15-18 an hour for real work with real expectations, on a working campus with a production greenhouse and landscaping crews. ~3 days/week are focused on on-the-job and hands-on training and work.
- A curriculum built in four phases. ~2 days per week are focused on learning and growth. Healing and stabilization, growth and skill building, thriving and leadership, transition and sustainability. Up to twenty nine micro credentials sit inside it, from tool safety and greenhouse operations to trauma healing, digital literacy, and adult education.
- Established partnerships and real credentials. TCAT Knoxville supports the Greenhouse’s Registered Apprenticeship and provides instruction. UT Extension delivers the Certified Landscape course. UT Federal Credit Union teaches financial literacy. KLF enrolls participants through its reentry grant. Men of Valor and other reentry and housing partners refer the men who walk through the door.
- Four pathways out: A full time role with Seeds of Change, placement with a partner employer, the entrepreneurship incubator, or continued education. Every graduate leaves with certifications, work history, a resume, and people in his corner and a belief in what is possible.
- On day one, every participant plants a plant with his name on it. By graduation, both have roots.
The Greenhouse is the first expression of the Seeds Workforce Academy and is backed by Seeds of Change, an established landscaping social enterprise whose crews already include men who have walked this road. This is not a charity that discovered work. It is a working company that believes work restores people, and that a business can put people first and still be sustainable.
THE ROLE
Seeds of Change is hiring one person to lead The Greenhouse. This is the founding hire. The director finalizes the curriculum with training partners, builds the team, walks beside the men in the first cohorts, and turns a pilot into a program that lasts.
The job is part pastor, part farmer, part coach, part founder. Nobody is all four. Two or three, with real hunger for the rest, is the right shape.
FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES
Leading the cohort
- Run the daily rhythm: morning meetings, class blocks (while avoiding the word “classroom”), greenhouse and field rotations, and Friday service projects.
- Carry the one to one work personally. Every participant gets regular sit down time and a development plan built with him and revisited through the program.
- Work four areas with each man: health and insurance access, legal rights and obligations, financial stability and debt, and the slower work of identity, spiritual healing and growth, and self worth.
- Own the participant journey from intake interview through twelve months after graduation.
- Celebrate what deserves celebrating. A license restored, a debt paid, a first lease, a recovery anniversary. These are the harvest, and the Greenhouse will be a place of much celebration.
Building the team and the model
- Hire and lead the founding team as funding allows, including greenhouse and training staff, and in time a dedicated coach so the one to one work outlives a single calendar.
- Set the team rhythms: weekly check ins, monthly reviews, and an honest debrief at the close of every cohort.
- Refine the curriculum between cohorts. What works for five men in twelve weeks will need rebuilding for fifteen across six months.
- Run intake and selection: interviews, assessments, orientation, and the hard early conversations about fit.
Holding the partnerships
- Serve as the primary point of contact with TCAT, UT Extension, KLF, UT Federal Credit Union, Men of Valor, transitional housing providers, and workforce agencies.
- Turn partner enthusiasm into written agreements, and keep them current.
- Build the employer pipeline: landscaping companies, builders and trades, and beyond.
- Work alongside Seeds of Change operations so training crews and business crews strengthen each other rather than compete for the same hours.
Telling the truth about the numbers
- Track attendance, credentials earned, wages at entry and exit, barriers removed, and retention at six and twelve months.
- Report plainly to leadership, advisors, and funders, including the parts that did not work.
- Contribute to grant reports and impact storytelling. Fundraising is not carried alone, but this voice matters in the room.
THE FIRST THREE SEASONS
- Fall 2026, the pilot. Depending on start date, the director either joins cohort one in progress or takes it over at the finish line. Either way, these weeks are for learning the ground, meeting the men, and watching honestly.
- Winter 2026 into 2027, the rebuild. Graduate cohort one. Tell the truth about what worked. Rebuild the model where it needs it, finalize the apprenticeship structure with TCAT, and recruit cohort two.
- Spring 2027, the first full cohort. Launch eight to twelve men on the improved model, with the staffing and structure to carry them.
QUALIFICATIONS
Seeds of Change is searching across five streams, and expects the right person to run deep in two or three of them.
- Recovery and reentry. Time spent walking with people through it, possibly including lived experience of incarceration or addiction recovery, which counts here as expertise and not a liability.
- Shepherding people. Pastoral leadership, chaplaincy, ministry, counseling, or discipleship. The ability to sit with someone on his worst day without flinching and without rescuing.
- Growing things. Greenhouse production, horticulture, agriculture, or serious landscaping. An understanding that living systems do not respond to urgency, only to consistency.
- Building something from nothing. A program, a business, a church plant, a crew. Knowing what responsibility entails, and knowing what it costs to be the first one in and the last one out.
- Developing leaders. Having taken people further than they thought they could go, with names to point to. Gets told often they are an encouragement to others
Not optional
- Holding grace and accountability at the same time, without letting go of either.
- Telling the truth when it is expensive.
- Exceptional communication, in a room, on a job site, and in writing to a partner or a funder.
- Steadiness. This work has one bad Tuesday a week minimum, and the crew takes its cue from whoever is leading.
- Full physical presence in Louisville, Tennessee, outdoors, in all seasons.
- Comfort leading in an environment rooted in Christ and open to all who will work alongside us regardless of faith background.
THE CULTURE
Five values run through everything at Seeds of Change, and they run through this role.
- Made to Work. The work is worthy. So is the worker. No pity jobs, no busywork, no hierarchy of dignity.
- Tell the Truth. Take Responsibility. The question is never whose fault. It is who is fixing it, and the answer is me.
- Better, Not Perfect. One rep at a time. The redo is not punishment. It is the practice.
- People First. Always. When the issue and the person show up at the same time, the person comes first.
- Fully Alive. The goal is not employed, sober, and housed. The goal is whole. And the evidence is the day a man starts giving it away.
THE HONEST PARTS
Better said now than discovered later.
- The pilot is small on purpose. Four to six men is not a soft launch, it is a decision. Better to prove the model at a size that can be funded and staffed well than to promise twelve and deliver chaos.
- The fall cohort launches on September 21 whether or not this seat is filled. Recruiting is already underway, with an interim director as an option. Starting mid season means joining a crew already moving.
- Funding is real but young. Seeds of Change is operating the pilot through its own resources alongside of the local community. Partner funding carries much of the pilot. Building sustainability is part of this job, not something that comes with it.
- The work will break your heart on schedule. Some men will relapse. Some will leave. Some will go back. This role needs someone who grieves honestly and shows up the next morning anyway.
- Counsel, not cover. A Founding Advisory Council of trusted leaders helps shape the work. Leadership decides and stays accountable. The director will never be alone in this, and will never be able to hide in a committee either.
POSITION, LOCATION AND COMPENSATION
- Location. Louisville, Tennessee, on a ten acre waterfront campus in the Knoxville area. On site.
- Status. Full time preferred. An interim engagement through the pilot at reduced scope and adjusted compensation will also be considered, with a path into the permanent role in the winter/spring of 2027.
- Reports to. The Founder/CEO of Seeds of Change with the Founding Advisory Council providing counsel through the launch window, and reporting to the Board of Directors once formed.
- Compensation. Base salary 55,000 to 70,000 depending on experience. Total compensation with benefits valued at 70,000 to 85,000.
TO APPLY
No cover letter. Send a resume and short answers to four questions, 300 words or fewer each.
- Tell us about a time you stayed with someone through his worst season. What did it cost you?
- Tell us about something you built from nothing. What broke first, and what did you do about it?
- What is work actually for?
- Why this work, and why now?
Apply on Indeed or send to [email protected] with the subject line "Greenhouse Director.”
865-635-9412 |
www.growingseedsofchange.com
Pay: $55,000.00 - $70,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible schedule
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply
Work Location: In person
