Beyond Housing is a comprehensive community development organization. Our work is concentrated in the 24:1 Community, which includes the municipalities within the Normandy schools’ footprint in North St. Louis County. We have made a long-term commitment to this community and to the families who live here.
Our mission is to strengthen families and transform communities. At the center of our work is a pretty simple belief: People and Places. Families and communities cannot reach their full potential independently of one another. You cannot focus only on families while ignoring the conditions around them, and you cannot transform a community without helping the families within that community move forward.
Because of that, we work on both sides of the equation. We help families build stability, income, assets, and greater economic mobility. At the same time, we invest in infrastructure like housing, education, health, economic development, municipal government, and the partnerships necessary to create greater opportunity.
Our goal is not simply to help families navigate difficult conditions. We are also working to change the conditions themselves. Although our work is concentrated in the 24:1 Community, we believe it matters to the entire region because St. Louis cannot reach its full potential while entire communities remain disconnected from opportunity.
Position Summary:
The Workforce VISTA will build the workforce-development capacity of the Beyond Housing Academy. The VISTA will identify and organize career pathways, cultivate employer and training partnerships, research funding and barrier-removal resources, strengthen referral systems, and create practical tools that Academy Advisors can use to help residents advance in education, employment, income, and long-term economic mobility.
Academy Advisor, the VISTA will not carry a family caseload. The assignment is designed to build durable systems, partnerships, resources, and workflows that remain useful after the service term ends.
Reports to:
- Senior Director of Housing
Primary Responsibilities:
Map Career Pathways and Regional Opportunities:
- Research education, training, credential, apprenticeship, employment, and career-advancement opportunities available to Academy residents.
- Organize opportunities by career field, entry requirements, training length, schedule, cost, location, credential, and advancement potential.
- Identify barriers such as transportation, childcare, technology, testing fees, licensing costs, tools, uniforms, documentation, and temporary income disruption.
- Develop clear career pathway maps showing entry points, intermediate steps, credentials, employment opportunities, and potential advancement.
- Identify gaps where resident career interests do not yet have a credible Beyond Housing partner or pathway.
Develop Employer, Education, and Training Partnerships:
- Research and cultivate relationships with employers, workforce intermediaries, apprenticeships, colleges, technical schools, trade programs, credential providers, and adult education partners.
- Create a consistent outreach and partner-vetting process.
- Explore opportunities for career presentations, workplace tours, job shadowing, mentoring, mock interviews, resume support, internships, apprenticeships, priority interviews, customized training, and direct hiring pathways.
- Document partner eligibility requirements, capacity, referral process, point of contact, expected response, and agreed opportunities.
- Develop draft referral protocols, partnership agreements, or memoranda of understanding for staff review.
Research Funding and Barrier-Removal Resources:
- Identify grants, scholarships, public workforce funds, employer-supported training, transportation assistance, childcare assistance, tuition support, credential and licensing funds, tools, uniforms, technology, testing fees, and other career-related supports.
- Maintain a funding-opportunity calendar with eligibility, deadlines, allowable uses, documentation, and staff ownership.
- Prepare concise opportunity summaries for Academy leadership and Philanthropy.
- Connect funding opportunities to documented resident barriers, Academy Progress Plan goals, and identifiable career-advancement outcomes.
- Help distinguish short-term transactional assistance from investments that remove a barrier or create a sustainable mobility pathway.
Key Deliverables:
- Workforce and education ecosystem map.
- Career pathway library for selected employment sectors.
- Employer, education, and training partner pipeline.
- Academy Workforce Resource Guide.
- Grow Your Opportunities draft operating model.
- Funding Opportunity Database and Calendar.
- Workforce referral and closed-loop follow-up workflow.
- Academy Advisor training module.
Qualifications and Attributes:
- Interest or experience in workforce development, career services, education, community development, economic development, business, public administration, nonprofit management, research, communications, or a related field.
- Strong research, writing, organization, project management, and follow-through skills.
- Ability to turn complex information into clear and practical tools.
- Confidence communicating with employers, education providers, funders, staff, and community partners.
- Ability to build professional relationships across departments and organizations.
- Comfort using Microsoft 365, spreadsheets, shared databases, and CRM or case-management systems.
- Ability to protect confidential resident information and work with appropriate boundaries.
- Commitment to dignity, family choice, equity, accountability, and economic mobility.
- Curiosity, initiative, adaptability, and willingness to revise assumptions based on evidence and feedback.
Success in This Assignment:
Success means Beyond Housing has a stronger, clearer, and more sustainable workforce-development system at the end of the VISTA service term. Academy Advisors can identify credible career pathways, residents encounter better-connected education and employment opportunities, partners understand how to work with the Academy, funding opportunities are organized around documented barriers and mobility goals, referrals include follow-through, Stage 3 has a practical design foundation, and the tools have identified owners who can maintain them.
