Staff Culture
99 Balloons is marked by warmth, flexibility, trust, and deep relational care. Team members are known personally, supported holistically, and encouraged to bring both excellence and humanity to their work. Collaboration, humility, curiosity, and learning are essential cultural markers. The Director of Operations must protect and strengthen this culture while also ensuring the staff is clearly aligned, operationally effective, and consistently driving the mission forward with measurable impact.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead organizational operations and staff alignment: Ensure staff are clearly aligned with mission and priorities by communicating expectations, setting goals, and holding team members accountable for outcomes.
- Serve as strategic implementer for the Executive Director: Translate vision and strategic direction into actionable plans, timelines, and measurable objectives across the organization.
- Build and strengthen scalable systems and infrastructure: Create, refine, and document operational systems: HR, finance, administration, databases, and workflows that support both current needs and future growth.
- Develop and lead staff performance and execution: Coach, support, and guide staff to operate at their highest potential while fostering clarity, ownership, and collaboration.
- Ensure excellence in planning and execution: Lead cross-functional projects and initiatives with foresight, consistency, and attention to detail.
Key Qualifications
- Operational leadership experience: 5 to 7 years of progressively responsible leadership experience in operations, organizational leadership, or senior management within a growing organization.
- Proven people leadership: Demonstrated success leading teams, setting expectations, and driving accountability in a relational culture.
- Strategic and systems-oriented mindset: Experience building processes and infrastructure that support scale, clarity, and sustainability.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills: Ability to translate vision into action and foster alignment across diverse roles and personalities.
- Faith alignment and theological fit: Active Christian faith with an understanding of and commitment to the dignity of people with disabilities.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or equivalent experience preferred.
Challenges You’ll Face
- Bringing clarity to ownership, decision-making, and accountability in a growing team.
- Shifting the organization from reactive execution to proactive operational planning.
- Building scalable systems without losing relational depth and person-centered care.
Opportunities Ahead
- Creating operational stability that allows founders’ vision and voice to flourish.
- Strengthening staff sustainability, clarity, and long-term effectiveness.
- Laying the groundwork for thoughtful program refinement and future expansion.
First Year Wins
- The Executive Director focuses fully on vision, fundraising, and external leadership while gaining margin for family responsibilities and lived experience shaped by disability.
- The staff operates with clear expectations, strong accountability, and shared confidence in how work gets done.
- Operational systems support measurable impact and position the organization for healthy growth.