The full Chief Executive Officer job description follows below. To apply, please visit: https://www.on-ramps.com/jobs/2441

CASES is one of New York City’s leading providers of direct services for people involved in the criminal legal system, including people living with serious mental illnesses. CASES’ programs include:

• Community-based alternatives to cash bail, pretrial detention, and jail/prison
• State-licensed treatment for people experiencing mental illness with a focus on those 8impacted by involvement in the criminal legal system (CLS)
• An array of neighborhood-based programs featuring education, employment, family, and mentoring services for youth and young adults (ages 13-27) vulnerable to CLS involvement

Over the past 55 years, CASES’ programs have achieved significant success preventing the harm and trauma of incarceration; supporting participant achievement of education, employment, recovery, and housing goals; and reducing recidivism. CASES’ mental health treatment programs have been recognized through multiple national awards, including the 2021 Mutual of America Company Foundation’s Community Partnership Award. The success of CASES’ programs has provided evidence essential to advancing recent and ongoing reform efforts in New York City, including:

• Innovation and investment in the decriminalization of mental illness, including the scaling of intensive mobile mental health treatment teams
• Raising the age of adult criminal responsibility
• Reducing the application of bail and pretrial detention
• Closing Rikers Island

Over the past 20 years, CASES has consistently recruited and incorporated people with lived experience of the CLS in our programs. CASES is committed to centering lived experience as essential in both broader reform efforts and our organizational future.

THE POSITION

CASES seeks a strategic, committed, and experienced leader to serve as its Chief Executive Officer. After a successful tenure of over 30 years, its founding Executive Director will be stepping down and the incoming CEO will join an organization in strong financial and strategic health. The CEO will serve as CASES’ most senior advocate and executive, overseeing strategy for continued growth and delivery of consistent, high-quality programs and leading development of the organization’s strategic plan to chart CASES’ future course.

CASES is guided by a Board of Trustees with experience in the fields in which it operates. Reporting to the Board, the CEO will directly manage an executive leadership team and organization of more than 575 staff. Of CASES’ current non-administrative staff, 45% are clinicians/social workers, 10% are Peer or Credible Messenger positions specifically requiring lived experience, and 8% are psychiatrists or nurses.

CASES now annually serves more than 7,000 people from main offices in Central Harlem and Downtown Brooklyn along with community offices in the South Bronx and Jamaica. The organization operates programs in five service areas (ordered by largest annual expenses):

1) PRETRIAL, providing the MANHATTAN SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM (MSRP), the city’s largest pretrial bail alternative, expected to serve up to 8,000 new admissions in the coming year, providing community-based services supporting court attendance, avoidance of rearrest, and engagement in behavioral health, employment, and housing services

2) BEHAVIORAL HEALTH, including 14 Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) teams for people living with serious mental illnesses (SMI) and intensive case management for individuals with SMI returning from state prison to the New York City shelter system

3) CLINIC, featuring the State-licensed Nathaniel Clinic in Central Harlem, a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic offering a robust continuum of same-site integrated treatment, health, and support services, including telehealth and mobile crisis outreach, for individuals ages 13+

4) EDUCATION, CAREER & ENRICHMENT, serving young people ages 13-27 at high risk for CLS involvement to support skill building, credential attainment, and employment while addressing behavioral health, family, and other needs

5) CLINICAL & COMMUNITY ALTERNATIVES, including ATIs providing trauma-informed, evidence-based services for people with behavioral health needs

CASES’ programs rely heavily on government funding from a range of criminal legal and public health agencies, including Medicaid reimbursement for licensed mental health services—part of the 44% of organizational revenue derived from Behavioral Health and Clinic Services this fiscal year.

This is an ideal opportunity for a committed leader to help create more effective, humane criminal legal and mental health systems and lead development of innovative solutions to address the intersecting inequities experienced among CASES participants, including related to social determinants of health. The CEO will also lead the organization’s ongoing efforts to advance racial equity and diversity, building a culture that supports staff at all levels, from all backgrounds, to reach their highest potential. The Board’s Racial Equity & Diversity Committee and the Executive Leadership Team are developing initiatives with the explicit goal of advancing equity through both staff management and programmatic practices. The Committee has engaged external consultants to support these efforts. The CEO will be expected to elevate and support these initiatives and serve as a vocal advocate for racial equity internally and externally.

Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership – Ensure CASES continues to excel in its current work, while building the culture and infrastructure necessary for new high-impact initiatives

Relationship Management & Cultivation – Serve as the leading voice for CASES, enhancing brand recognition, partnerships, credibility, and resource development, acting as a strong advocate with key stakeholders, including government funders, officials, and monitors

Racial Equity & Diversity – Advance ongoing efforts to illuminate and dismantle structural racism, where it exists in both the criminal legal and mental health systems and in internal management practices, and work to undo its harms

Team Management & Financial Oversight – Leverage and guide the performance of established and emerging leaders to advance innovation, entrepreneurial drive, and performance, including in the criminal legal and healthcare systems to promote new and fiscally sound opportunities; maintain ultimate accountability for CASES’ success

Fundraising – Drive fundraising strategies that lead to sustainability and growth, engaging CASES’ donor base while cultivating new supporters among government, corporate, foundation, and individual supporters, including to raise unrestricted funds

Organizational Design & Development – Lead, in close partnership with the leadership team, a review of organizational structure, with the goal of designing management structures that support growth, accountability, and programmatic success

Board Stewardship – Act as lead liaison to the Board, engaging Trustees in the health and sustainability of CASES; ensure the Board reflects the expertise and diversity of the New York City and program participant community

Culture Building – Continue to build and enhance the CASES culture, defined by deep commitment to equity, team, clients, and New Yorkers

Thought Leadership – Amplify the work of CASES’ program teams, contributing to the national dialogue on reforming the CLS, decarceration, and social determinant of health solutions

Organizational Leadership – Provide vision, oversight, and direction, ensuring commitment and continuous improvement of service delivery focused on target populations vulnerable to poor outcomes and public attention; establish successful partnerships with community and grassroot groups to advance and disseminate the impact of CASES’ programs

 

Qualifications:

Leadership/Organizational Management

• Minimum 15 years of professional work experience, including five years in a significant leadership role in a criminal justice and/or social service organization (and/or advanced degrees and 10 years’ professional experience)
• Proven success as a leader, with the ability to articulate a clear, inspiring vision for CASES while managing and mentoring an organization of over 575 staff working across a wide array of efforts
• Experience overseeing budgets, with capacity to allocate resources strategically and manage spending effectively
• Record of creating and sustaining an organizational culture that fosters equity and belonging
• Deep understanding of structural racism within the criminal legal and health systems and its inequitable impact on marginalized communities
• Ability to convene, facilitate, and contribute to public dialogue that leads to systemic changes
• Integrity, with a commitment to ethically and empathically serving individuals and families involved in the CLS

External Relations

• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with strong relationships across a diverse spectrum of stakeholders, and ability to influence leaders in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors
• Strong knowledge of and experience navigating government officials and stakeholders, including to advocate for resource allocation and policy commitments
• Excellent public speaking and communication skills with the ability to serve as a strong external voice for CASES and its work
• Listening orientation and curiosity; values the full range of stakeholders (community groups, government, funders, participants, etc.) engaged in CASES’ work
• Success working effectively with a range of funders, including Medicaid

Strategic Planning/Oversight

• Ability to use quantitative and qualitative information to set a vision and support teams in creating strategies to achieve that vision
• Strong critical thinking skills and an ability to solve problems in the face of complexity and ambiguity
• Understanding of organizational design, with proven success developing systems and structures that foster positive employee engagement and successful programs

COMPENSATION:

$250,000 – $275,000