The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) serves as the strategic and operational leader of Charles Settlement House (CSH) and The Community Place of Greater Rochester (CPGR), two affiliated nonprofit organizations operating under a shared services model and a joint Board of Directors, while maintaining separate legal identities.
The CEO is responsible for advancing a unified vision, ensuring mission alignment, and maximizing collective impact while maintaining compliance with each organization’s independent fiduciary, legal, and governance obligations.
This role requires a highly collaborative executive capable of navigating dual-entity leadership, optimizing shared services, and building strong relationships with volunteer Board members, staff, funders, government, and the broader community.
This is a unique opportunity to lead two mission-driven organizations with deep community roots and significant potential for greater collective impact. The CEO will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of an innovative shared services model while strengthening services for the Rochester community.
About Us
CSH and CPGR are settlement houses with roots well over 100 years in Rochester. Settlement Houses are place-based human service providers with programs that are focused on neighborhood needs and serve people of all ages.
CSH serves as the parent entity, while CPGR operates with a larger programmatic footprint, revenue base, and asset portfolio.
Essential Job Duties
Strategic Leadership & Vision:
- Lead long-term planning across both organizations, including long-term and annual growth, sustainability, and program innovation.
- Develop and execute a cohesive strategic vision that aligns the missions of CPGR and CSH while respecting their distinct identities. Identifying opportunities to deepen integration, improve efficiency, and expand community impact through shared services.
Governance & Board Relations:
- Serve as the primary liaison to the Board of Directors, ensuring transparency, trust, and effective communication.
- Support the Board in fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities, including governance, compliance, and strategic oversight.
- Navigate the parent–affiliate relationship, ensuring appropriate authority, accountability, and decision-making structures.
- Serve as a member of CSH subsidiary Boards related to the Stadium Estates affordable housing project, co-developed by CSH.
Operational & Financial Oversight:
- Oversee all operational functions across all entities, including programs, finance, HR, facilities, and shared administrative services.
- Ensure financial sustainability of both organizations, including budgeting, forecasting, and resource allocation.
- Maintain clear financial separation and compliance with each organization’s EIN and regulatory requirements.
- Optimize shared service functions to improve efficiency while maintaining appropriate internal controls.
Fundraising & External Relations:
- Lead comprehensive fundraising strategies across both organizations, including major gifts, grants, government funding, and partnerships.
- Serve as the primary external ambassador, strengthening relationships with funders, community leaders, and stakeholders.
- Elevate the visibility and reputation of both CSH and CPGR locally and regionally.
Program Leadership & Impact:
- Ensure high-quality, mission-driven programming that meets community needs and delivers measurable outcomes.
- Foster collaboration across programs and sites to maximize impact and reduce duplication.
- Promote data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.
Organizational Culture & Talent:
- Build and sustain a unified, inclusive organizational culture across both entities.
- Recruit, develop, and retain a high-performing leadership team.
- Support staff alignment and clarity within a shared services structure.
Key Leadership Challenges:
- Balancing dual-entity leadership with differing governance structures and organizational scale.
- Clarifying and strengthening the parent–affiliate relationship between CSH and CPGR.
- Aligning financial, operational, and strategic priorities across both organizations.
- Managing complexity while maintaining transparency and trust among stakeholder.
Qualifications
Required:
- Proven executive leadership experience, ideally as a CEO, Executive Director, or senior leader in a nonprofit or for-profit service or human services organization.
- Bachelor’s Degree (master’s degree preferred). In lieu of a degree a minimum of 20 years of experience in progressively more responsible positions, ideally as a CEO, Executive Director, or senior leader.
- Demonstrated success managing complex organizations, multi-entity structures, or shared services models.
- Success managing complex organizations, multi-entity structures, or shared services models.
- Strong financial acumen, including oversight of budgets, audits, and compliance.
- Experience working effectively with Boards of Directors.
- Exceptional leadership, (visionary strategy, decisiveness in ambiguity, empowering culture and emotional intelligence), communication, (strategic messaging, clarity and conciseness, two-way dialogue, authentic storytelling) and relationship-building skills (stakeholder engagement, conflict resolution and diplomacy, active networking).
Preferred:
- Experience in community-based organizations, settlement houses, or human services.
- Familiarity with parent–subsidiary or affiliate nonprofit structures.
- Track record of successful fundraising and external engagement.
- Experience leading organizational integration or transformation efforts.
Reporting & Structure:
- Reports jointly to the Boards of Directors of CSH and CPGR.
- Oversees executive leadership and shared services functions across both organizations.
- Works closely with Board leadership to ensure alignment between governance and operations.
The agencies are equal opportunity employers and do not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected status or characteristic.
Protected veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.
