VP of Operations

About Us:

From Small Beginnings: We opened a food pantry in Somerville designed to demonstrate caring at its best. In May 2014, we began operating out of donated space in a small 30 member church, providing food during 32 family visits. Sixty percent of Emmanuel Church stepped up and volunteered to serve. As the church saw the impact of what was happening, they allowed use of all of their main floor space for pantry operations. Although we were open only a few hours each Tuesday, we grew very quickly. We distribute meat, fresh produce and non-perishables each month to veterans, the working poor, persons with disabilities, seniors and the unemployed. Many use 50% or more of their income for their housing. All this takes place in one of the richest counties in both NJ and the US, and for now, we are only reaching the tip of the iceberg.

Click Here to Learn More about Feeding Hands

About the Position:

The VP of Operations serves as a senior executive leader of Feeding Hands and is responsible for translating the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities into effective day-to-day execution.

Reporting to and working closely with the CEO, the VP of Operations will provide organizational leadership across operations, people, systems, processes, facilities, food distribution, technology, risk management, and organizational performance. The VP of Operations will help ensure that Feeding Hands possesses the infrastructure, leadership capacity, operational discipline, and internal systems necessary to support continued growth without compromising the culture and values that have made the organization successful.

This individual will be both a strategic leader and an operational executor. The VP of Operations must be comfortable moving between high-level organizational planning and the practical realities of operating a growing, multi-location, volunteer-intensive nonprofit organization.

A central responsibility of the VP of Operations will be creating greater organizational capacity. The VP of Operations will help develop leaders, strengthen accountability, improve communication, establish scalable systems, clarify responsibilities, ensure processes, identify performance indicators, and ensure that organizational priorities move from discussion to execution.

The successful candidate will understand that operational excellence at Feeding Hands is ultimately about people. Systems, processes, facilities, technology, food, finances, and logistics exist to enable Feeding Hands to serve guests with dignity, equip employees and volunteers for success, strengthen community partnerships, and steward entrusted resources faithfully.

Salary Range: $100,000 – $120,000

Reports to: CEO

Location: Hillsborough, NJ

Essential Responsibilities

Executive Leadership and Organizational Strategy

Serve as a trusted strategic partner to the CEO, helping translate organizational vision into measurable priorities, operational plans, and results.
Participate as a key member of the senior leadership team and contribute to organization-wide strategy, planning, budgeting, decision-making, and organizational development.
Help establish annual organizational priorities, goals, performance measures, timelines, and accountability structures.
Provide the CEO with timely, accurate, and thoughtful information regarding organizational performance, operational challenges, emerging risks, staffing needs, resource requirements, and opportunities for improvement.
Develop the organizational infrastructure necessary to support Feeding Hands’ continued growth and expanding community impact.
Help create a culture in which strategic priorities are clearly communicated, responsibilities are understood, and leaders are accountable for results.

Operational Leadership

Provide executive oversight of Feeding Hands’ day-to-day operational functions.
Ensure that pantry operations, food acquisition, transportation, warehousing, inventory, distribution, satellite locations, facilities, equipment, technology, and administrative systems operate effectively and efficiently.
Evaluate existing operational processes and identify opportunities to increase efficiency, quality, consistency, safety, scalability, and guest experience.
Develop, document, implement, and maintain appropriate standard operating procedures throughout the organization.
Ensure effective coordination among the main pantry, satellite distribution sites, staff, volunteers, food suppliers, transportation resources, and community partners.
Maintain a strong working knowledge of the organization’s operations and be willing to engage directly in solving operational challenges when necessary.

Organizational Systems and Scalability

Design systems that allow Feeding Hands to grow while preserving its personal, compassionate, and relationship-centered approach to serving guests.
Identify organizational bottlenecks and develop practical solutions.
Evaluate technology platforms and recommend improvements when appropriate.
Develop management dashboards and reporting systems that allow organizational leadership to understand performance and make informed decisions.
Establish meaningful key performance indicators for major operational functions.

Staff Leadership and Organizational Culture

Partner with the CEO and appropriate staff to identify staffing needs and develop workforce plans that support organizational growth.
Provide leadership, coaching, support, and accountability to assigned staff and department leaders.
Help build a healthy organizational structure with clear roles, reporting relationships, decision-making authority, and performance expectations.
Strengthen management practices throughout the organization.
Develop leaders who can effectively manage people, volunteers, programs, and resources.
Promote healthy communication and collaboration across departments and locations.
Help establish appropriate employee onboarding, performance management, professional development, succession planning, and leadership development processes.
Address performance issues promptly, fairly, and constructively.
Model humility, integrity, accountability, professionalism, service, and respect.
Protect and strengthen Feeding Hands’ distinctive organizational culture as the organization grows.

Volunteer Operations

Recognize volunteers as an essential part of Feeding Hands’ operating model and organizational culture.
Work with staff leadership to ensure volunteers are effectively recruited, trained, scheduled, equipped, supervised, appreciated, and retained.
Develop systems that allow Feeding Hands to expand its volunteer base without sacrificing the quality of the volunteer or guest experience.
Help cultivate the organization’s commitment to contagious volunteerism by creating an environment in which volunteers understand the mission, recognize the importance of their contribution, and experience meaningful connection through service.
Ensure staff understand how to effectively lead and partner with volunteers.

Food Distribution, Warehouse, and Logistics

Provide executive-level oversight of food procurement, donation pickup, receiving, warehousing, inventory management, transportation, distribution, and related logistics.
Ensure appropriate systems are in place for inventory control, food safety, storage, product rotation, waste reduction, and distribution.
Help maintain productive relationships with food banks, grocery partners, food rescue partners, businesses, churches, nonprofit organizations, government sources, and other suppliers.

Facilities and Safety

Provide executive oversight of Feeding Hands facilities, vehicles, equipment, security, maintenance, and operational safety.
Coordinate with outside vendors, landlords, contractors, insurers, and other partners as appropriate.

Financial Stewardship and Resource Management

Partner closely with the CEO and finance leadership in developing and managing the organization’s annual operating budget.
Ensure operational decisions reflect responsible financial stewardship and alignment with organizational priorities.
Monitor departmental and operational spending against approved budgets.
Identify opportunities to improve efficiency without compromising service quality, organizational culture, or guest dignity.
Assist with financial forecasting, capital planning, facility planning, staffing projections, and evaluation of major expenditures.
Provide oversight to ensure appropriate internal controls, purchasing procedures, approval processes, and financial accountability throughout operations.
Provide operational information necessary for grant reporting, audits, board reporting, donor stewardship, and other organizational requirements.
Maintain Feeding Hands’ strong commitment to ensuring that entrusted resources produce meaningful mission impact.

Compliance and Risk Management

Help ensure Feeding Hands complies with relevant food safety, employment, insurance, nonprofit, facility, and operational requirements.
Maintain appropriate organizational policies, procedures, documentation, and records.
Work with professional advisors and organizational leadership to identify and mitigate operational, financial, personnel, reputational, technology, facility, and safety risks.
Ensure appropriate insurance coverage, emergency preparedness, incident response procedures, and business continuity plans are maintained.
Promote an organizational culture in which employees and volunteers understand that safety, accountability, transparency, and responsible stewardship are shared responsibilities.

Guest Experience and Program Excellence

Ensure Feeding Hands’ operational systems support an exceptional experience for our guests.
Protect the organization’s commitment to treating individuals and families with dignity, empathy, compassion, respect, and personal attention.
Evaluate operations from the perspective of the guest and identify barriers that may unnecessarily complicate access to services.
Ensure operational efficiency never replaces the human connection that is central to Feeding Hands’ mission.
Help develop systems for collecting and evaluating guest feedback and using that information to improve programs and services.

Community and Partner Relationships

Represent Feeding Hands professionally with community partners, churches, businesses, government agencies, food suppliers, nonprofit organizations, donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders.
Help develop strategic partnerships that strengthen Feeding Hands’ operating capacity and community reach.
Work collaboratively with CEO and program staff to ensure operational capabilities support fundraising commitments and external partnerships.
Participate in community meetings, organizational events, donor activities, volunteer events, and other external functions as appropriate.
Serve as an ambassador for Feeding Hands’ mission, culture, values, and commitment to excellence.

Board Support and Organizational Governance

Provide operational information, reports, analysis, and recommendations to the CEO for presentation to the Board of Trustees.
Attend Board or committee meetings when requested.
Help organizational leadership establish appropriate policies and internal controls.
Ensure significant operational risks, challenges, and opportunities are communicated appropriately to executive leadership.
Support strong governance by ensuring organizational decisions are accompanied by reliable information and disciplined execution.

Leadership Expectations

The VP of Operations must be more than an experienced administrator. Feeding Hands is seeking a leader who understands how to build an organization and possesses the courage and authenticity to influence and inspire others to lend their hands and heart to the mission.

The successful candidate will bring structure without creating unnecessary bureaucracy, accountability without undermining relationships, and operational discipline without losing the compassion and personal connection that define Feeding Hands.

This leader should naturally ask questions such as: How can we do this better? How can we make this repeatable? Who should own this responsibility? What information do we need to make a better decision? What could prevent us from succeeding? How do we prepare for the next stage of growth? How do we measure whether this is working? How do we preserve what makes Feeding Hands special while building the systems necessary to serve more people?

The VP of Operations should be comfortable leading through change and helping an entrepreneurial organization mature without becoming overly corporate or institutional.

Education and Experience

Personal and Leadership Characteristics

A bachelor’s degree in business administration, nonprofit management, operations, organizational leadership, supply chain, finance, or a related field is preferred. An advanced degree is beneficial but not required when accompanied by substantial relevant leadership experience.
Significant progressive leadership experience in operations, general management, nonprofit leadership, supply chain, logistics, food distribution, human services, or a similarly complex operating environment is expected.
Demonstrated experience leading multiple organizational functions and managing managers or department leaders.
Experience developing organizational systems, policies, processes, standard operating procedures, performance measures, and accountability structures.
Demonstrated ability to help an organization scale operations during periods of significant growth.
Strong financial and business acumen, including experience with budgeting, forecasting, resource allocation, financial reporting, and cost management.
Experience managing facilities, logistics, inventory, transportation, warehouse operations, or multi-site operations is strongly preferred.
Experience in a nonprofit, food bank, food pantry, hunger-relief, human services, church, ministry, or other mission-driven organization is highly desirable.
Experience working in an organization that relies significantly upon volunteers is highly desirable.
Demonstrated ability to use data and technology to improve organizational performance.
Strong understanding of risk management, workplace safety, compliance, and organizational controls.
Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal, and organizational communication skills.
Ability to manage multiple priorities and make sound decisions in a fast-moving environment.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills combined with practical judgment.
Ability to move comfortably between strategic thinking and hands-on execution.

The successful candidate will be a servant-minded executive who demonstrates integrity, humility, maturity, sound judgment, emotional intelligence, and a genuine concern for people.

Mission-driven and energized by the opportunity to serve neighbors experiencing food insecurity and poverty.
Aligned with and respectful of Feeding Hands’ Judeo-Christian foundation and comfortable working in an organization where faith informs its understanding of service, compassion, stewardship, and human dignity.
A strategic thinker who can translate ideas into executable plans.
An operational builder who enjoys creating structure, systems, and clarity.
A strong leader who develops people rather than simply managing tasks.
Highly relational while still willing to make difficult decisions and hold people accountable.
A clear and thoughtful communicator.
Calm and decisive when facing operational challenges.
Highly organized without becoming rigid.
Resourceful and comfortable operating in an entrepreneurial nonprofit environment.
Collaborative and able to work effectively with employees, volunteers, donors, churches, businesses, community partners, and Board members.
A careful steward who recognizes that every dollar, donation, volunteer hour, facility, vehicle, relationship, and resource entrusted to Feeding Hands should be used wisely.
Comfortable working alongside people from a wide variety of socioeconomic, cultural, professional, and faith backgrounds.
Committed to preserving the dignity of every Feeding Hands guest.
A leader who sees excellence not as an end in itself, but as a means of serving people well.

Faith and Mission Alignment

Feeding Hands is motivated by Judeo-Christian teachings and believes its work should reflect compassion for neighbors in need, responsible stewardship, meaningful human connection, and service that honors the Creator.

The VP of Operations will be expected to understand, respect, support, and advance Feeding Hands’ mission, values, and faith-informed approach to serving the community.

This individual must be comfortable operating in an environment where churches and faith communities are important organizational partners and where prayer, spiritual encouragement, service, generosity, and faith are natural parts of the organization’s history and culture.

The Opportunity

This is an opportunity to join Feeding Hands during an important period in its development.

What began as a local effort to serve neighbors in need has become a substantial community organization with multiple locations, thousands of volunteers and supporters, significant food distribution operations, strong community partnerships, and a growing regional impact.

With that growth comes the need for the next level of organizational infrastructure and leadership.

The VP of Operations will have the opportunity to help build that next level.

Working alongside the CEO, staff, volunteers, Board, donors, churches, businesses, and community partners, the VP of Operations will help ensure Feeding Hands has the people, systems, processes, facilities, technology, operational capacity, and leadership structure required to meet increasing community needs.

For the right leader, this position offers the opportunity to combine executive leadership, operational excellence, organizational building, faith, and service in work that has a direct and measurable impact on thousands of lives.