Ashoka Opportunities

Full Job Description

Youth Years Leader (Europe)

For a general introduction to Ashoka and how this leadership role fits into the European and global Ashoka work, see the broader context and overview text further below. Over four decades of work, Ashoka has distilled four essential changemaking elements. It’s mission now is to ensure that every person has an opportunity, from childhood, to master them. We realized that these changemaking skills are now as necessary as literacy was in the Industrial Age. They are essential for living and working in our fast changing world.

At Ashoka, we believe the following elements are essential for living and working in our fast-changing world:

1 Conscious Empathy The ability to be aware of and understand our own, other individual’s and groups’ perspectives, and to use that understanding to recognize patterns over time and guide one’s actions to contribute to the good of all.

2 Sophisticated Teamwork The ability to con- tribute and thrive in a fluid ecosystem of teams that mobilizes around a problem or opportunity.

3 New Leadership The capacity, as a leader, to envision, en- able, and ensure that every player is an initiator and sees the big picture.

4 Practicing Changemaking The process of creating a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society rather than to private individuals.

You will lead Ashoka’s efforts across Europe to reform the institutions that shape how young people grow up to ensure every young person leaves secondary skill having mastered these four changemaking elements.

Specifically, you will create strategic and deeply rooted partnerships with ministries of education, public school systems, teacher unions, educational publishers, teacher training schools and other relevant organizations to put changemaking at the core of their strategies. A key ambition is to quantifiably influence the education systems and youth-focused media to prioritize graduating changemakers through new curricula and syllabi and related teaching materials.

You will not do this alone. Ashoka has a wealth of proven tools to build strategic partnerships. For example, one core program – Ashoka Young Changemakers (AYC) – involves a rigorous selection process that engages directly with young people and supports them in becoming changemakers through the transformative experience of launching and leading their own community-minded ventures. In the past, Ashoka strategic partners have enthusiastically participated in selecting these young changemakers, and in some occasions have involved them in the work young changemakers, and then they involve them in the work of co-creating a new model of education, changemaker education.

Success in the first year in this role would: (a) agree two partnerships with influential players and (b) advance at least one place-based model that is tracking to decreasing direct support from Ashoka. Within five years we would expect to see progress on two metrics that illustrate what societal paradigm change looks like in practice: (1) the percentage of secondary school students in Europe who self-identify as changemakers, and (2) the proportion of school leaders who define success by the extent to which their schools are graduating changemakers.

To apply for this role click the blue Apply button on this page.

Everyone A Changemaker in Europe

We are looking for extraordinary leaders

Ashoka’s vision is Everyone A Changemaker (EACH). We want the world’s most influential organizations to commit to working in ways that activate the potential for every individual to contribute for the good of all – i.e., to be changemakers.

We are recruiting three extraordinary leaders to lead our efforts to help influential organizations embed EACH as their core purpose. These individuals will join Ashoka’s global leadership group and report directly to Ashoka founder and CEO Bill Drayton and Europe Diamond Leader Marie Ringler.

This document is written for experienced leaders who might be interested in one or more of these full-time staff roles, or who may wish to nominate someone.

For more than 40 years, Ashoka has been identifying and connecting world-leading social entrepreneurs to drive systems-changing solutions to our biggest problems. We have learned from Ashoka Fellows how to create communities of changemakers, and how to create ecosystems of support for changemaking. Our job now is to help the world’s most influential organizations to benefit from these powerful insights.

The tools of our trade are conscious empathy, sophisticated teamwork, new leadership, and practicing changemaking. Amongst other things, they constitute our distinctive way to the egalitarian democratic promise of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

If you are ready, willing, and able to lead this work, we look forward to getting better acquainted, answering your questions, and asking some of our own.

Ashoka’s recruitment team wants to have an authentic, collaborative conversation with you that foregrounds your interests and aspirations as we reach for the fit between you and Ashoka.

How did Ashoka get here?

As Ashoka enters its fifth decade, it is evolving from one world-changing “big idea” into a second one. It began in 1980 and led the vision on social entrepreneurship, a term it coined that has since been adopted globally. As Ashoka mobilizes for its second big idea, it is a global network active in more than 90 countries comprising some ten thousand people – social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows), staff, ex-staff, supporters, partners, and young changemakers.

The leadership positions that we are filling in Europe will steward Ashoka as it builds out idea two from idea one. What does this mean? What are these two ideas?

The first was that the rare individuals driven to change systems for the good of all are not well understood and are poorly supported by conventional sources – i.e., individual giving, organized philanthropy, and government – and that there was massive leverage to be realized in providing the types of support they most required. Ashoka gave these individuals an identity – “social entrepreneurs” – and over 40 years built a powerful global network to provide them bespoke support through a community that Ashoka calls the Fellowship.

These super-changemakers now number more than 4,000 in 90+ countries. Over 75% of Ashoka Fellows have changed patterns in their fields (e.g., the environment, human rights, cultural resilience) within five years of launch. Over half have changed national policy within the same five years. Ashoka has inspired hundreds of other organizations to take up similar models.

As the social entrepreneurship movement grew, Ashoka saw powerful patterns in how the Fellows worked. The most outstanding is that many Fellows put young people in charge by giving them the opportunity to lead change. Not only were these youth leaders making powerful impacts on important problems such as inequality, ill-health, and climate change. They were also gaining skills that gave them a critical advantage in life.

Over more than a decade of work, Ashoka has distilled four essential changemaking elements. Its mission now is to ensure that every person has an opportunity to master them. We realized that these changemaking skills are now as necessary as literacy was in the Industrial Age. They are essential for living and working in our fast-changing world.

World-changing idea two, then, is that as it becomes self-evident to all that everyone needs to be a changemaker, there is massive leverage in helping the world’s most influential organizations to become makers of changemakers, in showing them how this is their best possible strategy.

The following two articles describe these two parts of Ashoka for a popular audience:

• Everyone a Changemaker by New York Times columnist David Brooks
• Bill Drayton and Social Entrepreneurship: How a Social Movement is Changing the World...and Launching Another: EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER by (former) Forbes contributor Bill Meehan.

What is it that I would do? What is the strategy? What is it precisely that I would be expected to drive? What would I be accountable for? What would success look like?

You will realize strategic and deeply rooted partnerships with the world’s most influential organizations to put changemaking at the core of their strategies. What might that look like?

Let’s take a real case from our current work to shift the systems in which young people are educated. When we mapped these systems, we saw the following institutions were the most influential: ministries of education, public school systems, teacher unions, publishers, and teacher training schools. Over several years, working at national and local levels in multiple countries, we convened co-leadership teams across these organizations that now fully own the task of reforming their education systems to prioritize graduating changemakers. Along the way, new curricula and syllabi were produced and new textbooks were written. Special recognition was given for teachers who make changemakers. And most importantly, thousands of young people stepped into their power as changemakers.

We have some proven tools to build strategic partnerships around EACH. One core element – Ashoka Young Changemakers (AYC) – involves a rigorous selection process that engages directly with young people and supports them in becoming more impactful changemakers through the transformative experience of launching and leading their own community-minded ventures. Introducing these young changemakers to strategic partners imbues a unique authenticity into the work of revisioning education to support changemaking.

Success in the first two years in these roles would involve using the Ashoka EACH playbook to: (a) agree two partnerships with influential players and (b) advance at least one place-based model to the point where Ashoka could begin to step back. Within five years we would expect to see the needle moving steadily on two metrics that illustrate what societal paradigm shift looks like in practice: (1) the percentage of young people in Europe who know that they are changemakers, and (2) the proportion of leaders in any organization that define success by the extent to which they are cultivating changemakers.

We are furthest along in this work in Brazil, where the Brazil EACH Co-Lead Community is composed of 170 co-leaders, 31 of which are Young Changemakers, 4 are Ashoka staff, and the rest are Fellows, school leaders, partner team members (media/publisher teams, education school leaders, political unit teams, and co-leaders from education unions) and chosen partners in related fields. They are now organized in nine key “Changemaker Hotspots” across Brazil, where most of the action takes place.

What will your version of this last paragraph look like when you write it five years from now? What transformative combinations will you make from Europe’s 650 Fellows in 25 countries, 120 staff, a wellspring of young changemakers, hundreds of supporters, and to-be-identified powerful institutions, your partners?

The small print

• Annual gross base salary: £103,685 - £110,000 (with flexibility for the right candidate based on skills and experience)

• Discretionary annual performance-based bonus (up to 10%) and discretionary Senior Leader Equity Pay

• 25 annual leave days per year (pro-rata) plus bank holidays; up to 5 days can be carried over to the next year

• Flexible working arrangements

• Occupational maternity and paternity pay

• Occupational sick pay and leave

• 3% employer pension contribution

• Flexible Leave Days (approval needed in advance): Birthday leave, bereavement leave, emergency leave, unpaid leave, religious observance, family/personal events leave, study leave, volunteering days and other type of leave as needed

• Mental health support

• Professional development budget

• Employee referral scheme

• Employee Assistance Program

For further details on each role, and for the links to formally apply online, see the three thumbnail sketches below.

Empathy Movement Leader (Europe)

Given the societal mindset shift we work towards, the role of the Empathy Movement Leader is focused on early childhood and mastering the foundational skill of changemaking - conscious empathy. Alongside the Youth Years Leader and Framework Change Leader, you will guide Ashoka Europe as it unleashes demand for the now-necessary skills of changemaking. To see the full job description and apply, here is the link: Empathy.

Youth Years Leader (Europe)

While the Empathy movement leader is focused on the systems shaping early years (up to high school), the Youth Years Leader focusses on making the teenage years as a time when young people understand and step into their power as changemakers. Working alongside the Empathy Leader and Framework Change Leader, you will guide Ashoka Europe as it unleashes demand for the now-necessary skills of changemaking. To see the full job description and apply, here is the link: Youth Years.

Framework Change Leader (Europe)

The Framework Change Leader seeds a new meta narrative for the world today – one in which the most important values and skills are those of changemaking for the good of all. Ashoka is seeking an entrepreneurial and creative regional communications leader with experience in generating widespread change in their focus area. Together with Ashoka’s Europe communications and partnerships teams, you will recruit major media organizations – everything from the BBC to YouTube – to tell the most important story of our times – how we human beings overcome the cascading problems that we have made for ourselves by everyone becoming a changemaker for the good of all. To see the full job description and apply, here is the link: Framework Change.

Ashoka is a unique and special global organisation. You will have the opportunity to work with the most incredible Changemakers around the world and to be at the forefront of supporting young Changemakers. Come and join us.

Ashoka is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for every person who walks through our doors. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. Ashoka celebrates and embraces diversity.