WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – The Hartford Community Coalition is accepting applications for a new Executive Director.
The full-time role oversees staff, board relations, strategic planning, fundraising, budgeting, grants and implementation of prevention initiatives, including the nonprofit’s seasonal Take a Bite Out of Hunger Summer Meals Program.
This new hire will be the coalition’s second Executive Director since achieving nonprofit status in 2018.
Emily Zanleoni, hired as the Executive Director in 2019, gave notice of her intention to step down to the Board in the first quarter of 2026, Chair Barbara Farnsworth told the Valley News in a phone interview on Tuesday.
A voicemail left for Zanleoni was not immediately returned.
“We feel pretty well prepared for bringing in this new leader and are really grateful for both the work that Emily’s done since 2019, but also the way that she’s helping us prepare the organization for this transition,” Farnsworth said.
Farnsworth declined to share how many applications the coalition has received since the job was posted at the beginning of the month.
“I would just say we have a robust number of interested candidates,” she said.
The coalition is hoping to bring in a new executive director in the “mid-November timeframe,” she said, to allow Zanleoni to help with onboarding before stepping down at the end of the year.
The ideal candidate is an experienced nonprofit or community leader “who can move comfortably between big-picture strategy and day-to-day management and is committed to youth and family well-being, prevention, equity, inclusion and building a healthy, resilient Hartford community,” according to the coalition’s website.
The hours of the Executive Director role will also increase from 32 to 40 due to “demand for programmatic support in the community,” Farnsworth said.
This year, the Coalition exceeded last year’s 22,000 meals distributed over seven weeks during Take a Bite Out of Hunger by roughly 10,000, the Valley News reported in August.
“This new Executive Director will have some programmatic responsibilities within the community as well as the leadership responsibilities of an Executive Director,” she said.
The application window for the position, which includes a salary range of between $83,000 and $86,000, closes on September 23.
Visit the Hartford Community Coalition’s website for more information about the job.
