Director of Community Innovation

Reports to: Executive Director

Organization: ACC Capital Foundation

Classification: Full-Time, Exempt

Compensation: Commensurate with experience

Position Summary

The Director of Community Innovation leads ACC Capital Foundation initiatives that support entrepreneurs and strengthen connections across Arkansas’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The Director’s primary responsibility is to design, launch, and lead a new statewide entrepreneurship competition for founders across Arkansas and lead the Foundation’s alumni and founder engagement strategy.

Working closely with the Foundation team, the Director will help strengthen a cohesive entrepreneurship pathway that begins with programming for students in fifth grade and continues through high school, college, and into founder and small-business support. This is a highly relational and entrepreneurial role requiring initiative, strong project ownership, comfort building new programs, and regular travel throughout Arkansas.

Primary Responsibilities

Statewide Entrepreneur Competition

• Design, develop, launch, and manage a new statewide entrepreneurship competition serving founders and entrepreneurs across Arkansas.
• Develop the competition structure, eligibility requirements, application process, judging framework, timelines, participant communications, event experience, awards, and post-program engagement.
• Lead statewide outreach and recruitment efforts to build a diverse and competitive applicant pool representing communities throughout Arkansas.
• Build relationships with entrepreneurs, economic-development organizations, chambers of commerce, educational institutions, entrepreneurship-support organizations, community leaders, and other partners that can identify and recruit potential participants.
• Identify, recruit, and steward sponsors, funders, judges, mentors, speakers, and strategic partners that support the competition and expand its statewide reach.
• Develop sponsorship opportunities and work with Foundation leadership to cultivate, secure, fulfill, and renew program-specific sponsorships.
• Manage competition budgets, vendors, contracts, event logistics, timelines, communications, and deliverables.
• Establish annual goals and performance measures related to applications, participation, geographic reach, participant experience, partnerships, sponsorships, founder outcomes, and other measures of program effectiveness.
• Evaluate the competition annually and recommend improvements that strengthen participation, founder experience, statewide representation, sustainability, and long-term impact.

Founder Support & Alumni Network

• Develop a post-competition engagement strategy that helps participating founders continue progressing after the competition.
• Connect founders to appropriate entrepreneurship resources, including technical assistance, mentors, accelerators, educational programs, capital providers, lenders, investors, professional services, and other business-support organizations.
• Track participant progress and outcomes to better understand how Foundation programming contributes to business formation, growth, access to capital, and continued entrepreneurial activity.
• Create meaningful opportunities for alumni to remain involved with the Foundation as founders, mentors, judges, speakers, ambassadors, partners, sponsors, and peer resources.
• Develop systems for maintaining alumni relationships, communicating opportunities, tracking engagement, and documenting business and professional outcomes over time.
• Work with Foundation leadership to communicate alumni and founder success stories that demonstrate the long-term impact of Foundation programs.
• Represent ACC Capital Foundation at entrepreneurship, economic-development, community, and partner events throughout Arkansas and serve as a visible ambassador for the Foundation’s entrepreneurship initiatives.
• Regular statewide travel is required, including occasional evening and overnight travel associated with programs, recruitment, meetings, and events

Grant-Funded Initiatives

• Lead designated grant-funded initiatives that align with the Foundation’s entrepreneurship and community-impact priorities.
• Coordinate implementation, partner relationships, participant recruitment, timelines, deliverables, performance measures, and required reporting for assigned grants.
• Work with Foundation leadership to ensure grant-funded programs meet funding requirements and advance the Foundation’s broader entrepreneurship strategy.

Qualifications

Required

• Demonstrated experience in entrepreneurship, economic development, community development, higher education, small-business support, nonprofit programming, or a related field.
• Experience designing, building, launching, or managing programs, competitions, events, or other multi-part initiatives.
• Strong project-management and organizational skills, with the ability to independently manage multiple priorities, deadlines, budgets, partners, and deliverables.
• Excellent relationship-building and communication skills, including the ability to engage entrepreneurs, sponsors, funders, community partners, educational leaders, and senior-level stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to recruit participants and partners through direct outreach, relationship development, presentations, networking, and sustained follow-up.
• Strong written communication skills and the ability to contribute to sponsorship proposals, grant activities, reports, participant communications, and program materials.
• Ability to work entrepreneurially, identify opportunities, solve problems independently, and move new initiatives from concept through execution.
• Ability to establish goals, track performance measures, evaluate results, and use data to improve programs.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly throughout Arkansas.

Preferred

• Experience with sponsorship development, fundraising, grants, or external partnership development.
• Located in Northwest Arkansas or Little Rock.

To Apply

https://airtable.com/apphOgyj5HtHLMJk5/shr6Zu1ucYEPEsx4x

The only applications considered will be the ones submitted through the form.

Questions about the role may also be directed to Tiffany Henry at Sign in to view email.

ACC Capital Foundation is the charitable arm of ACC Capital, Inc., a community development financial institution headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. ACC Capital Foundation is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or associated with the Atlantic Coast Conference or any of its member institutions. “ACC” as used herein refers exclusively to ACC Capital, Inc.