Founding Executive Director Job Opening at House Nashville

Nashville’s housing future is about to get a single point person with a $180,000 to $195,000 salary and a mandate to move money. House Nashville, a new organization operating under the fiscal sponsorship of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, has opened a search for its founding Executive Director, a role designed to build a capital collaborative and translate the city’s Unified Housing Strategy into coordinated, funded action, Tennessee Nonprofit Network reported.

The position arrives when Nashville needs more than plans. The opportunity packet published by the Tennessee Nonprofit Network lays out a first-year workload weighted heavily toward capital mobilization and coalition building rather than routine administration. Thirty-five percent of the Executive Director’s time will go to mobilizing capital, thirty percent to aligning partners around measurable results, twenty-five percent to building the organization itself, and ten percent to serving as a credible public voice for shared housing goals.

A Builder, Not a Sole Expert

The packet is explicit that this is not a job for someone who must be the expert in every dimension of housing. Instead, House Nashville wants a builder who understands the economics of affordable housing while also grasping how institutions, partnerships, and community change actually happen. The successful candidate will attract capital, recruit partners, establish priorities, build trust around shared goals, and create conditions for government, business, philanthropy, financial institutions, developers, nonprofits, and community leaders to deliver together.

That coalition-building mandate reflects the complexity of Nashville’s housing challenge. The Executive Director will lead the creation of a Nashville Housing Capital Collaborative bringing together philanthropy, banks, CDFIs, impact investors, public agencies, and other institutional capital providers. The role also calls for developing a pipeline of local, state, and national funding opportunities, including grants, public funding, guarantees, PRIs, MRIs, and other forms of impact capital.

Mapping the Capital Landscape

By the end of the first year, House Nashville expects the new leader to have launched the capital collaborative with committed founding members meeting on a regular schedule. The Executive Director will complete a clear map of Nashville’s housing capital landscape, showing what resources exist, where gaps remain, and where capital can be combined for greater impact. An active pipeline of funding and investment opportunities should be in place, with initial new commitments secured for Nashville housing.

The packet emphasizes working with existing vehicles rather than duplicating them. The Executive Director will partner with the Nashville Catalyst Fund, CDFIs, lenders, and other structures to strengthen the city’s housing finance infrastructure and identify where new capital products or pools are needed. This approach acknowledges that Nashville already has pieces of a housing finance ecosystem; the challenge is connecting them.

From Strategy to Measurable Results

Thirty percent of the role focuses on turning the Unified Housing Strategy into action. The Executive Director will serve as the lead convener, translating broad strategy into clear priorities, work plans, responsibilities, milestones, and measurable outcomes with a strong bias toward execution. Partners are expected to agree on a focused set of priority actions, each with a work plan, lead partners, and milestones.

Shared measures of progress with Metro and other partners must be established, and House Nashville should release its first public update on Nashville’s housing progress within the year. Neighborhood and community leaders need to be engaged as partners, not merely as audiences. Leaders across government, business, philanthropy, and the housing community should see House Nashville as a credible, trusted convener that helps produce results.

Building the Organization Under Fiscal Sponsorship

Twenty-five percent of the Executive Director’s time goes to building a lean, effective, and sustainable new organization. That includes recruiting and developing a strong team, establishing culture and operating model, and securing a diversified, multi-year operating funding base. The role requires working effectively within the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s fiscal sponsorship structure while establishing House Nashville’s distinct identity, credibility, and voice.

The compensation package reflects the seniority of the role. Beyond the $180,000 to $195,000 salary, the employer pays 100% of individual medical, dental, and vision coverage and subsidizes dependent coverage. Disability and life insurance are fully funded for individual employees. The package includes paid family leave fully funded by the employer, 11 paid federal holidays, 15 days of paid time off accrued annually, and a 403(b) retirement plan with employer contributions after one year of service. Nonprofit Leadership LLC has been retained to lead the search.

What makes this search notable is the explicit expectation that the first year will be about foundations, not final victories. Success means the collaborative is launched, the capital map is complete, the funding pipeline is active, priority actions have work plans, shared measures exist with Metro, the founding team is hired, and the Advisory Board is actively engaged contributing expertise, relationships, and resources. It is a job description that treats housing affordability not as a single program but as a capital markets problem requiring sustained coordination across sectors that often operate in silos.