Chief of Staff, CED LOAN FUND

About The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP)

Our mission

We partner with low-income and working people to build economic and racial equity. We do this by confronting economic abuse and investing in community wealth. We use an ever-evolving set of legal, economic and advocacy tools to challenge and dismantle unjust systems, building quickly towards a world where all people have what they need to live and thrive.

Our organization

The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) is a Colorado-based nonprofit. Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, our organization was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built a deeply integrative approach to eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed.

Our team now serves more than 1,000 people per month, bringing together housing lawyers, economists, data analysts, policy-experts, organizers, and technologists to serve our clients. We have served more than 50,000 low-income Coloradans across 45 counties, distributing over $200 million in emergency assistance. We have also contributed to the passage of major legislation to prevent eviction, stop economic abuse, and make credit and life-saving medication cheaper. CEDP’s model has been cited as a best practice by White House,

HUD, the

Urban Institute, and in the media.

The CED Loan Fund

In 2025, we launched a new entity called CED Loan Fund. CED Loan Fund is dedicated to solving service-delivery challenges for governments and non-profits and increasing access to capital and other basic needs for everyday people. The Fund offers credit and technology products to increase access to social services and affordable housing. It also works alongside CEDP’s Ventures team to incubate and launch new non-profit social enterprises and technologies that challenge extractive entities like check cashers, moving and storage companies, for-profit government service providers, and potentially many others. Finally, the Fund will have a presence at the policymaking table, helping to shape state and local policy around access to credit, housing, and basic needs.

More about the role

We are seeking a Chief of Staff to be a jack of all trades for CED Loan Fund. The CoS will be responsible for growing our lending pipeline, guiding fund operations, leading product development, building our fundraising and investment strategy, and supporting our public policy efforts. In the first year of their position, the Chief of Staff will focus heavily on scaling CEDP’s working capital loan fund to serve non-profits across Colorado. We are looking for an agile leader in the social impact space with lending and/or start-up experience. The ideal candidate would also have a strong background in community banking or financial services, product innovation, and/or fundraising, particularly within the context of community development and economic justice.

Responsibilities

• Fund leadership: Advance long-term strategic investments for CEDP in social services that address the needs of underserved communities, non-profits, and governments, including working capital, affordable housing investments, rapid payment systems, and better banking solutions.
• Data-driven strategic advisor: Act as a strategic advisor to the CEDP Loan Fund leadership team, bringing analytical rigor and subject-matter expertise to core organizational decisions.
• Product development: Help the organization plan and launch a Community Development Financial Institution that proposes to offer working capital loans and other products to support social service providers and low-income and working people.
• Fundraising and investment strategy: Support the long-term sustainability of CEDP through development of pitches, bids, and procurement opportunities for new funding and participate in those fundraising efforts.
• Borrower recruitment: Design and implement borrower outreach strategies to identify partners and community need
• Policy research and coordination: Conduct actionable policy research to support CEDP’s advocacy efforts as it works on laws to protect people from economic abuse and build community wealth
• Daily Operations: Oversee the daily operations of the CED Loan Fund, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and alignment with CEDP's mission.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with CEDP's executive team, including the Co-Founders, Chief Programs Officer, and Chief Financial Officer, to integrate the loan fund's activities with broader organizational goals.
  
  

Position Requirements

While no one candidate will likely have each of the qualifications listed below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:

• 3+ years professional experience in strategic, community banking, lending, fintech impact investing, community development, or start-up roles.
• Demonstrated passion for relationship building, business development, and community outreach.
• Experience building new things and bringing them to market.
• Entrepreneurial and fundraising experience is a major plus.
• Experience supporting and managing up with executive leadership in government, non-profits, or the private sector.
• Analytical modeling prowess-- using Excel and other analytics tools to build models that conceptualize amorphous problems with unclear data inputs.
• A background working with diverse communities and a diverse set of stakeholders
• Demonstrated commitment to challenging systems of inequity.
• A bias towards building and a comfort with strengthening a minimum viable product
• Comfort with ambiguity in a fast-paced, all-hands-on-deck environment.
• Excellent communications skills and the ability to influence leaders through data and presentation, including demonstrated ability to deliver concise leadership level policy and strategy briefs (written and oral) to generate decisions.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to manage complex stakeholder environments.
  
  

Why Us?

• We are a social enterprise with a sustainable business model focused on one of the most important issues in society – keeping people in their homes and improving access to affordable housing.
• Opportunity for local involvement while making a statewide and even a national impact
• Our co-founders have collaborated for 5+ years and are committed to building a company where everyone loves to work.
• Unlimited growth potential within the organization.
• The opportunity to step into a new organization five years after its founding and play a substantial role in its growth.
  
  

Additional Details

• Strong preference for candidates to reside in Colorado or be willing to move, ideally within the greater Denver Metro area.
• The position includes competitive pay, flexible time off, benefits package (including medical, dental, vision), and 401k.
• A base salary of $85,000-110,000 a year if hybrid or in-person, add - plus a $1,000 per year hybrid employee salary adjustment.
• All employees receive a technology stipend of $720 per year.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis but must be received by May 14, 2025
• The estimated time to complete the recruitment process will be by Jun 1, 2025
• As in-person work is sometimes required, all employees at CEDP & CED Law are expected to maintain current vaccination status in keeping with CDC recommendations.

The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) is a Colorado-based nonprofit. Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, our organization was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built a deeply integrative approach to eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed.