Rochester has built a strong foundation for improving outcomes for children and families through sustained cross-sector collaboration and a nationally recognized cradle-to-career partnership. The City of Rochester and ROC the Future will partner with FUSE to establish a Children's Cabinet that further strengthens coordination across systems and advances shared outcomes for children and families. The FUSE Executive Fellow will design and operationalize this governance structure to align city agencies, community partners, and data systems. Ultimately, this work will build sustainable capacity for coordinated, data-driven action that improves outcomes and reduces disparities for Rochester's children.

Fellowship Dates: October 26, 2026 - October 22, 2027

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.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Rochester has made meaningful progress toward improving outcomes for children and families through strong partnerships and a mature cradle-to-career backbone organization in ROC the Future. However, persistent fragmentation across systems continues to limit impact. Key sectors, including housing, public safety, business, and early childhood, are not consistently integrated into a unified decision-making structure, and coordination often depends on informal relationships rather than institutionalized processes. These challenges disproportionately affect Black and Latino children and families, contributing to persistent disparities in educational attainment, economic mobility, and overall well-being.

The City and ROC the Future have established a strong foundation for collaboration, including shared goals, a cradle-to-career framework, and outcome tracking through a public dashboard. ROC the Future convenes over 30 cross-sector partners and leads efforts tied to key milestones such as kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading, and high school graduation. At the same time, city leadership has advanced complementary initiatives, including youth-focused programming, community schools strategies, and data-informed service delivery models. Despite these efforts, stakeholders identified a need for stronger executive-level coordination and clearer accountability mechanisms to translate planning into sustained action.

To address these challenges, the City and ROC the Future seek to establish a Children's Cabinet that formalizes cross-sector leadership and creates a structure for shared strategy, decision-making, and accountability. This effort will build on existing partnerships while strengthening system integration, improving data sharing, and ensuring that community voice and equity considerations are embedded in decision-making processes.

PROJECT APPROACH

During the first 90 days, the FUSE Executive Fellow will conduct an in-depth discovery phase to develop a comprehensive understanding of Rochester's current landscape of cross-sector coordination. The fellow will lead a structured listening tour with key stakeholders, including city leadership, ROC the Future partners, school district representatives, community-based organizations, philanthropy, and business leaders. This process will include engaging both existing conveners and stakeholders not currently at the table to identify gaps in representation and coordination. The fellow will review existing strategies, governance structures, and data systems, including the cradle-to-career dashboard and related initiatives, and assess how decision-making currently occurs across sectors. The fellow will also research best practices from peer cities that have successfully implemented Children's Cabinets or similar governance models. Based on these insights, the fellow will present refined concepts and recommendations for the Children's Cabinet structure for review and approval by City and ROC the Future leadership.

Following the discovery phase, the fellow will design and support the implementation of the Children's Cabinet. This work will include defining the Cabinet's governance structure, membership, and roles; establishing clear decision-making processes and accountability mechanisms; and aligning the Cabinet's priorities with existing initiatives such as ROC the Future's outcome goals and the City's youth-focused strategies. The fellow will facilitate coordination among stakeholders to ensure representation from key sectors, including education, housing, public safety, health, workforce, philanthropy, and business. The fellow will also support the development of shared data practices by identifying opportunities to strengthen data-sharing agreements and to integrate insights from existing systems into Cabinet decision-making.

In parallel, the fellow will help translate the Cabinet's strategic priorities into actionable workflows by aligning existing initiatives, such as literacy efforts, community schools strategies, and out-of-school time programming, under a more coordinated framework. This may include developing tools such as asset maps or shared dashboards to improve visibility into services and outcomes, and supporting pilot efforts that demonstrate how coordinated action can accelerate progress. Throughout implementation, the fellow will work closely with ROC the Future and city partners to ensure alignment with racial equity principles and community-informed approaches.

Toward the end of the first year, FUSE will work closely with the City of Rochester and ROC the Future to refine priorities and develop a detailed scope of work for the second year of the fellowship, ensuring alignment with emerging insights, stakeholder needs, and opportunities to deepen impact.

By the end of the fellowship, Rochester will have an operational Children's Cabinet that strengthens executive-level coordination, aligns cross-sector efforts, and enables more effective, data-driven decision-making. The Cabinet will serve as a sustained governance structure embedded within existing city and partnership systems, with clear ownership, defined processes, and integration into ongoing work such as ROC the Future's outcome teams and the City's data infrastructure. This will position the City and its partners to move from coordination through informal relationships to a more institutionalized, accountable, and impactful system of collaboration.

The FUSE Executive Fellow will be embedded within the City of Rochester, reporting directly to the Project Supervisor and receiving strategic guidance from the Executive Sponsor. The fellow will also maintain a formal dotted-line relationship with ROC the Future, working closely with its leadership to ensure alignment with partnership priorities and ongoing coordination across stakeholders.

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 membership, roles, decision-making processes, and accountability mechanisms, enabling sustained cross-sector coordination at the executive level.
• Cross-Sector Data and Coordination Strategy - Developed a framework for integrating data across partners, including recommendations for data sharing agreements and alignment with existing tools such as the cradle-to-career dashboard, improving transparency and data-informed decision-making.
• Citywide Asset Map and Coordination Tools - Created a comprehensive map of youth- and family-serving programs, including literacy and out-of-school time initiatives, paired with tools or dashboards that improve system navigation, coordination, and impact tracking.
• Implementation Roadmap for Children's Cabinet Priorities - Produced a strategic plan, outlining priority initiatives, aligned stakeholders, timelines, and measurable outcomes to guide coordinated action across sectors.
• Sustainability and Institutionalization Plan - Developed a clear plan for long-term ownership, integration into existing city and ROC the Future structures, and ongoing support for the Children's Cabinet 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 Children's Cabinet from initial implementation to a fully operational, sustained governance body with established meeting cadence, decision-making authority, and active participation from cross-sector leaders. Demonstrated consistent use of shared data and coordinated strategies to drive progress on priority outcomes.
• Demonstrated Impact and Scalable Systems Alignment Model - Produced evidence of improved cross-sector coordination through measurable progress on selected child and family outcomes (e.g., literacy, school readiness, or service access), alongside a refined and documented model for systems alignment that can be sustained locally and replicated or expanded to additional focus areas or jurisdictions.

KEY STAKEHOLDERS

• Executive Sponsor - Dr. Shirley Green, Commissioner of Recreation and Human Services, City of Rochester
• Project Supervisor - Tremain Harris, Youth Leadership Coordinator, City of Rochester
• Place-Based Partners - Brian Lewis, Executive Director, ROC the Future

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.