WNC Economic Recovery Program: Program Director/Site Coordinator for Western Region (Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain)

Pisgah Legal Services is a community-based non-profit corporation governed by a local Board of Directors. PLS has an annual budget of $8 million from a multitude of funding sources.  Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, Pisgah Legal Services (PLS) provides free civil legal assistance to low-income people in western North Carolina. PLS has offices in Asheville, Burnsville, Hendersonville, Rutherfordton, Newland, Spruce Pine, Brevard, Highlands/Cashiers and Marshall. With a dedicated staff of ninety-six, including thirty-six attorneys plus supporting staff, and an active pro bono panel of 300 private attorneys, the program provides free services to more than 20,000 people per year to meet their basic needs, primarily in the poverty law areas of housing, public benefits, domestic violence prevention, health care, immigration, and consumer law. 

Nature and Location of Position: The Program Director/Site Coordinator for the Western Region will support the regional program capacity of the WNC Economic Recovery Program for 7 western counties of North Carolina:  Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain for a multi-year grant funded expansion of anti-poverty work within the broad areas of free tax preparation/tax credits and outreach/enrollment for Affordable Care Act health insurance. The WNC Economic Recovery Program is designed to have long-term impact through two main priorities: (1) reduce the child poverty rate in each WNC county and (2) increase the insured rate through quality, affordable health care coverage in each WNC county. The program will work in conjunction with the entire PLS legal aid staff to support expanding free legal assistance to help a growing number of very low-income people each year to solve problems related to basic needs, particularly housing, domestic violence, health care, and insufficient income.  Work will likely include, but not be limited to, working from offices in Haywood and Macon counties, and from home.

Responsibilities

Pisgah Legal Services is seeking a Program Director/Site Coordinator manage the expanded work of the Health Justice Program, a collaborative model of partnering poverty law legal services to address the Social Determinants of Health with non-legal ACA health insurance enrollment work and tax return work. The enhanced program will involve considerable community outreach and education to inform non-tax return filers that it is in their interest to file tax returns and avail themselves of the child tax credits, the earned income tax credits, and the ACA advanced premium tax credits.

Passion for promoting justice and overcoming barriers facing low-income people, being a creative and zealous staff member and a team-player and demonstrating commitment to achieving lasting results for clients and low-income communities are all important to this challenging role. By ensuring that the lowest-income people in Western North Carolina have increased incomes and access to health care, we will increase opportunities for positive outcomes at the individual and community levels.

Key Responsibilities

• Supervise and manage regional aspects of program, staff and volunteers.
• Serve as a VITA Site Coordinator through the IRS and maintain required level of certification to manage and supervise tax preparation services.
• Work in close partnership with Mountain Projects, Inc., a community-based nonprofit serving this region.
• Engage community leaders and partner organizations that serve children, develop key community relationships and partnerships, and support recruitment of volunteers.
• Provide education, outreach and trainings to constituents of partner organizations.
• Engage in issue spotting and holistic service delivery for the client community and/or which seek to effectuate systematic change in conditions that adversely affect the client community.
• Maintain a caseload of tax preparation and ACA enrollment work, commensurate with experience and supervision role.
• Work with community partners to facilitate and incentivize referrals to PLS including review/creation of MOUs and referral processes.
• Help to administer major grant funding to implement this expanded and enhanced program.

Salary/ Benefits

Salary ranges from $38,484-$69,293 depending on experience.  Excellent fringe benefits, including 401(k) retirement plan, as well as life, health, and disability insurance.