The City of Dayton and Learn to Earn Dayton will partner with FUSE to design, launch, and operationalize a Children’s Cabinet that formalizes cross-sector collaboration, embeds authentic youth voice, and drives coordinated action around the outcomes that matter most to Dayton’s children and families. Structured as a two-year engagement, this fellowship will establish the governance infrastructure, shared data systems, and sustainability strategies needed to make the Cabinet a lasting civic institution, one that advances Learn to Earn Dayton’s cradle-to-career priorities and positions Dayton as a national model for community-driven youth systems change.

Fellowship Dates: October 26, 2026 – October 20, 2028

Salary: Executive Fellows are FUSE employees and receive an annual salary of $95,000. Fellows can also access various health, dental, and vision insurance benefits. This amount is not representative of market-rate salaries for the experienced professionals in our program but is intended as compensation for a year of public service.

ABOUT THE FUSE EXECUTIVE FELLOWSHIP

FUSE is a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing the capacity of local governments to work more effectively for communities. We embed private sector executives in city and county agencies to lead projects that improve public services and accelerate systems change. Since 2012, FUSE has led over 400 projects in 58 governments across 26 states, impacting a total population equivalent to 1 in 10 Americans.

When designing each fellowship project, FUSE works closely with government partners and community stakeholders to define a scope of work that will achieve substantive progress toward high-priority local needs. Projects address today’s most pressing challenges and opportunities, including affordable housing, economic mobility, climate resilience, public safety, infrastructure, technology, and more.

FUSE conducts a full executive search for each individual project to ensure that the selected candidate has at least 15 years of professional experience, the required competencies for the role, and deep connections to the community being served.

Executive Fellows are embedded in government agencies working with senior leaders for at least one year of full-time work. Prospective responsibilities may include thorough data analytics and research, developing enhanced operations and financial models, building change management and strategic planning processes, and/or building broad coalitions to support project implementation efforts. Executive Fellows are data-driven and results-oriented and able to effectively manage complex projects. They build strong relationships with a broad array of stakeholders, foster alignment within and across various layers of government, and build partnerships between governments and communities.

Throughout the fellowships, Executive Fellows receive training, coaching, and professional support to help achieve their project goals.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Dayton is a city with great civic pride, a strong tradition of collaboration, and a growing commitment to ensuring that every child has the opportunity to thrive. Across the city, schools, nonprofits, healthcare providers, and community organizations are doing meaningful work to support young people, yet the collective impact of these investments has been constrained by fragmentation across systems. Coordination among partners has historically depended on informal relationships rather than institutionalized structures, and data about youth well-being remains distributed across multiple institutions, making it difficult to see a unified picture of how children are faring and where resources can be deployed most effectively. At the same time, persistent disparities in educational attainment, economic mobility, and well-being outcomes, particularly for young people in historically underserved neighborhoods, underscore the importance of moving toward a more integrated and equitable approach to community support.

The work of the City of Dayton and Learn to Earn Dayton has been building toward this moment for years. City Commission leadership has prioritized youth development as a central strategic commitment, and the City has invested meaningfully in convening, aligning, and amplifying the work of its community partners. A defining step forward was the Youth Voice Project, a student visioning initiative developed in partnership with Learn to Earn Dayton that engaged young people across Dayton in identifying their priorities and articulating a shared vision for their communities. The plan that emerged, created with and by young people, has accelerated community momentum and earned strong support from elected leadership and partners across sectors. Dayton is also participating in the Strive Together City Accelerator, in partnership with Harvard Education Redesign, connecting city leaders with peers from across the country who are building similar collaborative youth systems, a national learning community that directly supports and enriches this initiative.

This FUSE Executive Fellowship represents a timely and strategic opportunity to translate this momentum into durable infrastructure. By establishing a Children’s Cabinet that formalizes cross-sector governance, embeds shared data practices, and centers youth voice in ongoing decision-making, the City of Dayton and Learn to Earn Dayton are positioned to move from aspiration to action. The FUSE Executive Fellowship will accelerate the design and launch of this governance structure at a moment when community commitment is high, key partnerships are in place, and the political will exists to make the Cabinet a lasting institution in Dayton’s civic landscape.

PROJECT APPROACH

During the first 90 days of the fellowship, the FUSE Executive Fellow will conduct an in-depth discovery phase to develop a comprehensive understanding of Dayton’s existing landscape of youth-serving systems, cross-sector partnerships, and community conditions. The fellow will lead a structured listening tour with a broad range of stakeholders, including City Commission leadership, Learn to Earn Dayton staff, Montgomery County human service agencies, Dayton Public Schools, public charter schools, youth-serving nonprofits, healthcare and behavioral health providers, philanthropy, business leaders, and, critically, young people themselves. The fellow will review the Youth Voice Project plan and related community engagement findings, assess how data about youth well-being is currently collected and used across institutions, and research best practices from peer cities that have successfully established Children’s Cabinets or analogous governance structures, including Boston, Tulsa, Poughkeepsie, and other Strive Together City Accelerator participants. Based on these discovery insights, the fellow will present refined project concepts, proposed governance structures, and a recommended strategy for the Cabinet’s design and launch for review and approval by City and Learn to Earn Dayton leadership before proceeding.

Following the discovery phase, the fellow will shift to designing and launching the Children’s Cabinet. This work will include defining the Cabinet’s governance structure: its membership composition, roles and responsibilities, decision-making processes, and accountability mechanisms, all calibrated to what the City can and cannot resource and do, and where community partnerships must fill gaps. The fellow will facilitate the process of convening founding Cabinet members and establishing a shared vision, strategic priorities, and an initial agenda to guide the body’s work in its first year. Attention will be paid to ensuring that Cabinet membership is genuinely representative and inclusive, reaching beyond the “usual suspects” to include voices from underserved neighborhoods and communities that have historically been absent from these tables.

The fellow will also lead efforts to centralize and integrate data about the well-being of Dayton’s young people, working across institutions, including schools, the Children’s Hospital, city departments, and community organizations, to develop shared indicators, align data sources, and leverage the City’s existing data team and dashboard infrastructure to build a unified view of how youth are faring. In parallel, the fellow will support the development of a comprehensive stakeholder communications plan to ensure broad community awareness of and engagement with the Cabinet’s formation and purpose. The fellow will work closely with Learn to Earn Dayton as the backbone organization, maintaining a regular communication cadence and ensuring that the Cabinet’s priorities advance Learn to Earn’s cradle-to-career framework and partnership commitments.

By the end of Year One, the City of Dayton will have a formally constituted Children’s Cabinet with an adopted governance and operating framework, an initial set of shared priorities rooted in the Youth Voice Project plan, and a functioning data system that provides a unified view of youth well-being across the city. The Cabinet will have conducted its inaugural convenings and established the structural foundation, membership, governance, shared goals, and data infrastructure needed to move from design to implementation. The City, Learn to Earn Dayton, and the fellow will collaborate during Year One to define more specific goals, success measures, and priorities for Year Two, based on emerging insights and the Cabinet’s early momentum. To ensure sustainability, the fellow will work with city and community partners to embed new practices and governance structures within existing organizations, establish clear ownership of coordination functions, and develop a long-term funding and staffing strategy for the Cabinet.

The FUSE Executive Fellow will be embedded within the City of Dayton, reporting directly to the Project Supervisor and receiving strategic guidance from the Executive Sponsor. Given the City’s intentional partnership model, in which Learn to Earn Dayton serves as the backbone organization and long-term steward of the cradle-to-career framework, the fellow will also maintain a formal “dotted line” relationship with Learn to Earn Dayton leadership, including a regular communication cadence to ensure that all project activities remain aligned with partnership priorities, community commitments, and the shared vision for Dayton’s children and youth.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

By Fall 2027, the FUSE Executive Fellow is expected to have produced the following:

  • Children’s Cabinet Governance and Operating Framework – Designed and launched a formal governance structure that defines Cabinet membership, roles, decision-making processes, and accountability mechanisms, aligned to what the City of Dayton can resource and sustain, and where community partnerships provide essential capacity.
  • Centralized Youth Well-Being Data System – Developed a unified data infrastructure that integrates indicators and feeds from schools, healthcare systems, city departments, and community organizations, leveraging the City’s existing data team and dashboard capacity to provide a shared, comprehensive view of how Dayton’s youth are faring and where action is most needed.
  • Shared Strategic Priorities and Measurement Framework – Established a set of data-informed priorities grounded in the Youth Voice Project plan, accompanied by shared outcome measures, baseline data, and an accountability structure that enables the Cabinet to track progress and demonstrate impact for children and families.
  • Youth Voice and Equity Engagement Model – Created and embedded a structured approach for ensuring meaningful youth and family participation in the Cabinet’s decision-making, including mechanisms for disaggregated data analysis and representation from underserved neighborhoods and communities.
  • Cabinet Sustainability and Funding Strategy – Produced a roadmap that outlines long-term ownership, staffing models, funding opportunities, and integration into existing City and Learn to Earn Dayton structures, ensuring the Children’s Cabinet can sustain and expand its impact beyond the fellowship period.

By Fall 2028, the Fellow is expected to have produced the following high-level deliverables:

  • Operationalized and Institutionalized Children’s Cabinet – Transitioned the Cabinet from initial design and launch to a fully operational, sustained governance body with established meeting cadence, decision-making authority, active cross-sector participation, and demonstrated use of shared data to guide coordinated action on priority youth outcomes.
  • Demonstrated Progress on Shared Youth Outcomes – Produced evidence of improved cross-sector coordination through measurable movement on selected child and family outcomes — such as early childhood readiness, school attendance, academic progress, or youth economic opportunity — alongside a documented, replicable model for community-driven systems alignment that can inform Dayton’s broader citywide strategy.

KEY STAKEHOLDERS

  • Executive Sponsor – Shirley Dickstein, Commissioner, City of Dayton
  • Project Supervisor – Verletta Jackson, Chief of Staff, City of Dayton
  • Place-Based Partnership Liaison – Stacy Wall Schweikhart, Chief Executive Officer, Learn to Earn Dayton

QUALIFICATIONS

  • 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in organizational transformation and change management, from practitioner to enterprise-level leadership.
  • Synthesizes complex information into clear and concise recommendations and action-oriented implementation plans.
  • Develops and effectively implements both strategic and operational project management plans.
  • Generates innovative, data-driven, and result-oriented solutions to complex challenges.
  • Respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies, and other processes.
  • Communicates effectively verbally and in writing and excels in active listening and conversing.
  • Fosters collaboration across multiple constituencies to support more effective decision-making.
  • Establishes and maintains strong relationships with diverse stakeholders, both inside and outside of government, particularly community-based relationships.
  • Embraces differing viewpoints and implements strategies to find common ground. Demonstrates confidence and professional diplomacy while effectively interacting with individuals at all levels of various organizations.

FUSE is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply for this position.