The Opportunity

Reach Out and Read is a national nonprofit that partners with pediatric healthcare providers to promote early relationships, literacy and school readiness. By integrating age-appropriate books and evidence-based reading guidance into well-child visits from birth through age five, Reach Out and Read equips families with the tools and confidence to build language-rich home environments where children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn.

Reach Out and Read operates through a national network of clinical sites — hospitals, community health centers, and pediatric practices — serving millions of children annually across the country with a particular focus on families in under-resourced communities. The Northwest region spans Oregon and Washington and has been home to an active, high-performing Affiliate for twenty years. It serves a geographically and demographically diverse population across urban medical centers, federally qualified health centers, and rural and frontier communities, with significant representation from communities of color, Indigenous communities, and immigrant, refugee, and Spanish-speaking families.

The region brings mature programmatic infrastructure, an experienced and committed staff team, established relationships with major hospital systems and community health organizations, and a funding portfolio engaged across foundations, state government, community groups, and individual donors.

The Regional Executive Director (Regional ED) is the senior leader of Reach Out and Read's Northwest Affiliate — its chief executive, primary external ambassador, and lead fundraiser. Accountable for the health and trajectory of the Affiliate, the development of a high-performing regional team, and the stewardship of a robust philanthropic portfolio, this individual operates at the intersection of community health, early childhood policy, and systems leadership. The role demands both strategic vision and executional depth, a willingness and ability to partner cross-functionally within and beyond the Northwest team, and rewards a leader who takes genuine joy in the complexity of work done at the community level as part of a national movement. The Regional ED reports to the Chief Operating Officer, contributes to strategy as a member of Reach Out and Read’s senior leadership community, and inherits a strong foundation and team built over the years — with the opportunity to bring new energy, skills, and vision to carry the region forward.

Your Key Responsibilities Will Include:

Strategic Leadership & Regional Vision

• Lead the execution of a multi-year regional strategy that advances Reach Out and Read’s mission across Oregon and Washington, aligned with national organizational priorities.

• Serve as the senior steward of regional culture, values, and team identity, modeling Reach Out and Read’s commitment to equity, early literacy, and community health.

• Drive annual planning, goal-setting, and budget development in close partnership with national staff, ensuring the region operates with clarity, ambition, and accountability.

• Translate national frameworks, initiatives, and priorities into regionally relevant implementation, adapting approaches to the diverse communities and contexts of the Northwest.

• Represent the Northwest at national Reach Out and Read leadership forums and contribute actively to enterprise-wide strategy, policy, and peer learning.

• Identify and act on opportunities to elevate the region’s profile, impact, and influence — both within the Reach Out and Read network and in the broader early childhood and health equity ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest.

Fundraising & Development

• Lead the region’s fundraising strategy and execution across all contributed revenue streams, including major gifts, foundation grants, corporate partnerships, and government funding across Oregon and Washington.

• Personally manages a portfolio of major donor and institutional funder relationships, serving as the primary relationship owner for the region’s most significant philanthropic partnerships.

• Partner with affiliate leadership councils and site leaders to build a culture of philanthropy across the network and leverage site-level relationships for regional fundraising.

• Collaborate with Reach Out and Read’s national development staff to align regional and national strategies, identify joint funding opportunities, and meet grant reporting requirements.

• Set and achieve annual contributed revenue goals; maintain rigorous pipeline discipline, accurate forecasting, and transparent reporting to national leadership.

• Cultivate new funding relationships and expand the region's donor base, with particular attention to deepening corporate and individual giving as complements to the region's established foundation and government portfolio.

External Relations & Community Presence

• Build and sustain a strong regional presence with healthcare system leaders, hospital executives, community health center networks, and civic and policy partners across Oregon and Washington.

• Engage proactively with elected decision-makers, state agencies, and governors' offices in both states, representing Reach Out and Read's mission and advancing the organization's policy interests and public profile at the state level.

• Represent Reach Out and Read at regional conferences, advocacy convenings, and public events, elevating the organization’s visibility and credibility in the Pacific Northwest’s early childhood, health equity, and pediatric health communities.

• Cultivate relationships with pediatric healthcare leadership to deepen institutional commitment to the Reach Out and Read model.

• Serve as a spokesperson and advocate for early literacy, school readiness, and health equity in regional media, policy environments, and cross-sector convenings where appropriate.

• Leverage the region’s existing community relationships as a foundation for new partnership development, coalition participation, and systems-change work aligned with Reach Out and Read’s mission.

Clinical Relationships & Program Quality

• Oversee and support the team’s work maintaining strong, trust-based relationships with clinical site leaders across Oregon and Washington, ensuring sites have a reliable partner in solving problems.

• Oversee affiliate performance against program quality indicators, site health metrics, and compliance standards; work proactively with underperforming sites to identify root causes and build sustainable solutions.

• Connect sites to national resources, technical assistance, peer networks, and learning opportunities that strengthen program fidelity and site-level capacity.

• Champion a culture of continuous improvement across program sites, facilitating peer learning, shared practices, and cross-site collaboration.

• Support strategic growth opportunities within the region’s footprint where aligned with mission and capacity, including new site development.

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Directly manage the Northwest regional staff team, providing consistent coaching, substantive feedback, individualized professional development support, and clear performance accountability.

• Cultivate a team culture defined by inclusion, psychological safety, high standards, and genuine investment in one another’s success — a culture that makes the region a place where talented people want to build their careers.

• Lead the onboarding and integration of new team members, ensuring they are set up for success and connected to the region’s mission, community, and ways of working.

• Create conditions for direct reports to grow into expanded leadership roles, actively investing in their development and succession readiness.

• Manage team workflow, capacity, and role clarity, ensuring staff are appropriately resourced, supported, and positioned to do their best work.

Operations, Finance & Compliance

• Oversee regional operations including budget management, financial reporting, grant compliance, and contract administration across both states.

• Ensure the region consistently meets Reach Out and Read’s national reporting requirements, data integrity standards, and governance expectations.

• Partner with national finance and operations staff on budget development, variance tracking, and resource allocation decisions.

Qualifications and Experience:

There are innumerable ways to learn, grow and excel professionally. We respect this when we review applications and take a broad look at the experience of each applicant. We want to get to know you and the unique strengths you will bring to the work. We’ll honor your lived and professional experience as key aspects of your candidacy for the role and prioritize applicants with experience dismantling the structural inequities that disproportionately impact children and families with traditionally marginalized identities. We are most likely to be interested in your candidacy if you can demonstrate the majority of the qualifications and experiences listed below:

Required:

• Commitment to increasing equity in opportunity and outcomes for children and to recognizing factors known to significantly impact differential outcomes for children, including race, ethnicity, language, and socio-economic status.

• 10 or more years of progressive leadership experience in the nonprofit, healthcare, public health, education, or social sector, with meaningful people management responsibility.

• Demonstrated fundraising and development success, including major gifts cultivation, institutional funder relationship management, and contributed revenue goal achievement.

• Experience securing and managing public funding, including a track record of building and maintaining relationships with elected officials and government stakeholders at the local, state, or federal level.

• Strong track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder relationships across diverse communities, organizations, and geographies.

• Strategic thinker with the ability to set a compelling direction and translate vision into concrete operational plans and measurable outcomes.

• Exceptional communicator — written, verbal, and in person — with the credibility and presence to represent an organization effectively to executive audiences, donors, and community partners.

• Demonstrated commitment to equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive leadership, including experience working across communities of color, immigrant and refugee communities, and low-income populations.

• Growth mindset: genuine openness to feedback, comfort navigating ambiguity, and a bias toward continuous learning and improvement. This is a non-negotiable for this role.

• Ability and willingness to travel regularly across Oregon and Washington, and occasionally to national convenings.

Strongly Preferred:

• Experience in pediatric health, maternal and child health, early childhood development, early literacy or a closely related field.

• Familiarity with healthcare systems, hospital administration, or community health center environments, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

• Regional or multi-site leadership experience, including management of geographically distributed teams across diverse communities.

• Experience leading in a networked or federated organizational model, navigating the balance between national alignment and regional autonomy.

• Knowledge of the Oregon and/or Washington philanthropic, healthcare, and policy landscapes.

• Bilingual or multilingual capacity, particularly Spanish, is a plus given the significant Spanish-speaking populations served across the region.

Position Specifications:

Full-time (40 hours), remote working, exempt position, located in either Oregon or Washington. Regular travel, up to 25% time throughout the region, and attendance at one to two national meetings per year is required. Given the large region, overnight travel will be frequent and necessary to accommodate meetings.

How to Apply

Reach Out and Read has retained an executive search firm to support this search. Application materials, including a resume and cover letter, should be submitted through the search firm’s process. The cover letter should speak specifically to your interest in this role and region, and what you would bring to this particular leadership moment.

Compensation, Benefits

The salary range for this position is $160,000 to $175,000 per year. Reach Out and Read offers a robust benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) retirement plan with match, paid time off, and more.

Commitment to Diversity

Reach Out and Read is committed to building an organization that embraces diversity, pursues equity, and fosters an environment of inclusion. Reach Out and Read sits at the intersection of health and education, uniquely positioned to play a critical role in addressing systemic disparities and inequities in the public health framework. Reach Out and Read strives to be an antiracist organization, using its influence to fight against social injustice by supporting a culture of learning, empowerment, equity, and a deep appreciation for the unique experiences that we each bring to our communities. We believe that changing the world begins with holding ourselves and our workplace to that same standard.

About Reach Out and Read

Reach Out and Read gives young children a foundation for success and reaches 4.6 million children across the country – half of whom identify as BIPOC and two thirds of whom come from low-income families. The nonprofit recently set a strategic goal to double its impact by 2030, to serve 10 million young children — 50 percent of all U.S. children from birth to 5.

In deep partnership with a network of clinicians, Reach Out and Read leverages the near-universal reach of the pediatric well-child visit. It uses children’s books and shared reading to support parents and caregivers in strengthening healthy relationships with their infants and young children from birth through 5 years old.

Reach Out and Read works directly with pediatric care providers to share the lifelong benefits of parents reading aloud with their children daily. Nurturing, language-rich interactions like shared reading give young children a foundation for success — building early language and literacy skills; teaching curiosity, patience, and empathy; and creating deep bonds between parents and their children. By integrating our evidence-based model into pediatric care and providing the tools and encouragement families need to read aloud together, we can transform pediatric care practices, foster healthy families and communities, and give children of all backgrounds and means a better start to life.

The Impact:

• Reach Out and Read program sites are located in 6,500 clinics, safety net hospitals, medical systems, and other healthcare settings in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

• Reach Out and Read serves 4.6 million children and their families annually.

• More than 7.7 million new, developmentally appropriate books are integrated into well-child visits with families annually.

• 39,000 clinicians currently participate in Reach Out and Read

• Our peer-reviewed body of evidence demonstrates that Reach Out and Read parents are two-and-a-half times more likely to read regularly to their children, and that children experiencing Reach Out and Read show enhanced language development.

To learn more about Reach Out and Read, visit www.reachoutandread.org.

Reach Out and Read is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Reach Out and Read is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, cultural heritage, ancestry, political belief, age, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability or veteran status. Reach Out and Read is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and we are committed to making special accommodations for your interview or work as a member of our team. If specific accommodations are needed, please email HR @ reachoutandread.org and our HR team will work to accommodate your needs.