Program Manager

Program Manager

Location: Hybrid; California-based, with a strong preference for the San Francisco Bay Area
Status: Full-time, Exempt
Reports to: Program Director
Salary Range: $76,800–$115,200

About the Center for Care Innovations
The Center for Care Innovations (CCI) is a nonprofit organization working to transform the health care safety net. Our mission is to spark, seed, and spread innovations that strengthen the health and wellbeing of historically underinvested communities.

For more than 25 years, CCI has worked alongside safety net organizations to navigate a changing health care landscape, test new approaches, strengthen organizations and leaders, and help promising ideas spread across the field. Rooted in California, we partner with community health centers, public hospitals, community-based organizations, managed care plans, public agencies, and philanthropy.

Our work spans capacity-building initiatives, advising and consulting, and ecosystem development: running intensive learning collaboratives and accelerators, providing tailored advising and research, and hosting cross-sector gatherings. These bring people together to tackle some of the health care safety net's most pressing challenges.

For more information, please see the www.careinnovations.org.

About the Program Manager Role
CCI is looking for a collaborative, curious, and organized Program Manager to design and lead initiatives that help health care safety net organizations improve care and advance health equity. This is a great role for someone who enjoys moving between strategy and implementation, turning big ideas into actionable initiatives, building strong relationships, making sense of data and complex information, facilitating engaging learning experiences, and keeping complex work moving forward.

We're looking for someone who understands the health care safety net ecosystem and brings deeper experience in at least one part of it. This is a highly relational and outward-facing role, working with health care organizations, funders, partners, and other stakeholders in both virtual and in-person settings.

What You'll Do

• Design initiatives that respond to real-world challenges. Work with CCI colleagues and partners to translate ideas into actionable initiatives through landscape research, stakeholder interviews, work planning, and the development of content and learning experiences. Depending on the initiative, you may draw on approaches such as human-centered design, quality improvement, and other methods for supporting organizational and systems change.
• Lead initiatives through implementation. Manage the day-to-day work of multiple initiatives, including timelines, deliverables, budgets, team roles, consultants, and grant requirements. Anticipate challenges, solve problems, coordinate work across teams, and help teams adjust as the work evolves.
• Build and steward strong relationships. Develop trusted relationships with key stakeholders, bringing a responsive, collaborative, equity-centered, and service-oriented approach to the work.
• Create engaging learning experiences. Design and confidently facilitate virtual and in-person convenings, workshops, meetings, and other learning experiences. Prepare speakers and partners, develop agendas and activities, present content, facilitate conversations, and create welcoming spaces where participants can learn from one another and put new ideas into practice.
• Use data to learn, improve, and communicate impact. Gather, analyze, and interpret quantitative and qualitative data to understand how initiatives are progressing, identify opportunities for improvement, and inform decision-making. Translate findings and complex information into clear insights and recommendations for internal teams, participants, partners, and funders.
• Manage grants, contracts, and funder relationships. Manage initiative budgets, track spending, contribute to narrative and data-driven funder reports, and communicate clearly with funders about progress, learning, challenges, and results. Support the identification and management of faculty, coaches, consultants, and other partners.

You Might Be a Great Fit If You...

• Have at least five years of experience managing complex initiatives, ideally in health care, public health, nonprofit, community-based, or related settings.
• Have a master's degree in public health, public policy, health care administration, nonprofit management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Bring a strong understanding of the health care safety net ecosystem, with deeper knowledge or experience in at least one area, such as Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans, or other California safety net organizations.
• Have experience running or supporting learning collaboratives, accelerators, technical assistance initiatives, or other capacity-building efforts.
• Are an excellent manager who can translate broad goals into clear work plans, timelines, roles, and deliverables and keep complex work moving forward.
• Are skilled at developing and maintaining trusted relationships with partners and stakeholders.
• Are a confident and engaging communicator who can present, facilitate, and translate complex information clearly for a range of audiences, including funders and external partners, both virtually and in person.
• Have strong quantitative and qualitative data analysis skills and can use data to inform decision-making, learning, and communication.
• Are comfortable navigating ambiguity, solving problems, experimenting with new approaches, and adjusting course as you learn.
• Bring a commitment to advancing health equity and improving care for historically underinvested communities.

It's a Plus If You...

• Have experience with human-centered design, particularly applying or teaching human-centered design methods in health care, community, or organizational settings.
• Have experience with quality improvement, change management, systems thinking, Lean/Six Sigma, Liberating Structures, or other approaches to organizational and systems change.
• Have knowledge of or experience with safety net healthcare delivery, including familiarity with clinical quality measures and performance improvement.
• Are bilingual or multilingual, particularly in Spanish and English, and/or bring experience working across cultures and communities.
• Have experience in consulting, advising, training, or other client-facing roles, including developing content or learning experiences for adult learners.

What It's Like to Work at CCI

At CCI, how we work matters as much as what we accomplish. We approach our work with humility and curiosity, encourage experimentation and learning, value deep human connection, and seek out diverse perspectives and experiences. Our values guide how we show up for one another and the communities and organizations we work alongside.

We're a collaborative, matrixed team, and Program Managers work across CCI rather than within a single initiative or issue area.

Location & Travel
CCI has a hybrid work environment. For this role, you must be based in California, with a strong preference for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay Area. CCI currently maintains an office at WeWork in downtown Oakland, which staff can use for individual work, collaboration, and meetings as desired. Employees are expected to come into the office for in-person meetings and team gatherings as requested.

All staff also participate in in-person initiative events, conferences, and CCI-wide team and community-building activities. This role requires travel, primarily within California, approximately 5–8 times per year, which may include overnight travel.

Compensation + Classification
CCI is committed to ensuring that compensation decisions are fair, equitable, and aligned with best practices. Our approach is designed to proactively promote equity and address disparities, rather than relying on individual advocacy or salary negotiation.

CCI maintains a salary structure built around job grades and corresponding salary ranges. Roles are assigned to a grade based on their scope, responsibilities, complexity, and organizational impact. Each grade includes a minimum, midpoint, and maximum reflecting increasing levels of experience and proficiency within the role.

The salary range for this position is $76,800–$115,200 and will target $87,000 for this hire. Starting salaries are determined consistently based on relevant experience and other job-related factors.

Benefits
CCI invests in a comprehensive total rewards package rooted in a whole-person approach. In addition to base salary, CCI offers benefits designed to support employees' health, well-being, financial security, time away from work, and continued professional growth. While CCI reserves the right to amend or terminate any benefits and/or benefits plans with or without notice, current benefits include:

• Comprehensive health benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, and AD&D insurance
• Short- and long-term disability benefits
• Generous paid time off: New employees receive 15 PTO days in their first year, increasing to 20 days beginning in year two and 25 days after eight years of service
• Additional paid time away, including annual wellness time and CCI-wide summer and winter breaks
• Retirement plan with matching employer contributions
• Flexible spending accounts, commuter benefits, and a monthly technology stipend
• Professional development stipend to support continued learning and growth
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and other resources to support employee well-being

Physical Demands
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand, walk, sit, use hands, reach with hands and arms, and talk or hear. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and the ability to adjust focus. Employees must have the ability to attend meetings and perform sitting, listening, and computer work for up to eight hours per day.

Equal Employment Opportunity
The Center for Care Innovations is an equal opportunity employer. CCI recognizes the importance of lived experience as an irreplaceable form of expertise and as a basis for building trust and improving health and well-being with the communities we serve. We welcome and strongly encourage people from historically underinvested communities to apply for this position.

CCI is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants for employment and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender or gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other factor not related to the ability to successfully fulfill the requirements of the position.

Applicants with Disabilities
Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. If you believe you may need a disability accommodation to participate in this application and/or interview process, please contact us at info[at]careinnovations[dot]org.

How to Apply
Please submit your resume and cover letter (optional) through our application portal by October 2nd, 2026.

We anticipate the hiring process will include an initial screening followed by two rounds of interviews, including a case study and team interview. Our goal is for the selected candidate to begin in early 2027.