Senior Manager| Manager, Cultivation, Philanthropic Partnerships at Healthy Learners

POSITION OVERVIEW

As Healthy Learners prepares to enter an exciting period of growth, we are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Manager (also open to Senior Manager level) to join our Philanthropic Partnerships team. The Manager/Senior Manager will focus on identifying and cultivating new institutional donor relationships for our organization. 

The Manager / Sr Manager will primarily focus on pursuing new funder prospects. 

• Managers will focus primarily on research and internal communications, preparing senior leaders to engage externally. 
• Senior Managers will demonstrate an ability to lead the full scope of work behind new donor engagement, including successfully leading introductory donor-facing comms. 

You might be a great fit for either position if:

• You love prospect research. You understand what fundraising teams need to know – and you are resourceful in getting that info to inform organizational decision-making. 
• You enjoy prepping for donor conversations – whether you’re leading them or you’re briefing a colleague. You think in talking points and are a whiz are putting together compelling slide decks.
• You think proposals are fun (yes, fun)! You like being the quarterback behind a proposal process – and you’ve been through enough proposals to know how to manage your emotions and stay focused when things don’t go according to plan. 
• You feel centered after revisiting your pipeline tool every day. You get excited when you add new prospects to the list.
• You are a pro at planning your time – but also appreciate that in a fast-paced environment, priorities are constantly in flux. You love being a part of a high-performing team, and you’re flexible and always willing to pitch in to help others. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

New Funder Cultivation 

• Conduct prospect research to identify and qualify new foundation funding opportunities.
• Prepare briefing documents and backgrounders for senior leadership ahead of donor meetings.
• Maintain an accurate pipeline of institutional prospects. Track relevant next steps and milestones.
• Senior Manager level: serve as first point of contact for new donor engagement, mostly via introductory calls. 

Proposal Development

• Working with our team’s Writer, draft high-quality, tailored grant proposals that align with foundation priorities and organizational impact. Incorporate feedback from colleagues, working on iterative drafts 
• Manage proposal teams – coordinating inputs from program, finance, and M&E teams to ensure accurate and compelling content. Develop outlines, calendars and other tools to help teams stay on track.
• Jump in to assist with any other aspects of proposal development as needed.

Fundraising Team Effectiveness

• Ensure data integrity and generate reports for internal use
• Take leadership on departmental initiatives as we continue to build our organizational fundraising muscle
• Help out with anything else that comes up! We are a team that pitches in to support one another during busy times. 

IN AN AVERAGE WEEK, YOU MIGHT:

• Obsess over how you can get on a prospect’s radar – mapping out who you know that might know contacts there, and perusing your colleagues’ LinkedIn profiles to see what your strongest connection might be.
• Go down a few rabbit holes when researching donor prospects. You think philanthropy is fascinating – and you like documenting and sharing what you learn. 
• Put together 2 pitch decks for team review, each tailored to different donor audiences. Creating persuasive slide decks comes naturally. 
• Create a proposal outline. You enjoy thinking through how to best make a case for support, and working with others to refine it. 
• Copyedit a response to a donor inquiry. You read carefully, and like to find ways to better highlight key messages. 
• Create a calendar for a proposal or another team project, thinking through the workflow to get to a finished product, and determining the best sequence and timing given schedules and team availability. Your brain operates in to-do lists and logical sequences. 
• Put together a meeting brief with draft talking points, helping senior leaders be as prepared as possible for an important donor interaction. 
• Help out on an urgent deliverable. You like the feeling of not really knowing what your day is going to look like, and enjoy the rush of focusing on pitching in to help the team deal with an important and urgent task. 

SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS

• The ideal candidate is a strong team player, proactive and works with little direction, displays a can-do attitude, and jumps in wherever needed to get things done. S/he is a clear, precise and confident communicator, with strong verbal and written skills. The ideal candidate will be excited to join a rapidly growing organization. S/he approaches that opportunity with humility, hunger, and a “no job too small” commitment to meeting the needs of the organization. 
• Candidates at the Manager level will have a minimum of 5 years of fundraising experience for social entrepreneurship organizations.  
• Candidates at the Senior Manager level will have a minimum of 8-10 years of fundraising experience for social entrepreneurship organizations focused on health and/or education in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the donor-facing comms nature of this role, this specific experience is essential. 

If you have never been a full-time fundraiser, please do not apply. 

All candidates will bring: 

• Proven experience working with diverse, cross-cultural teams; ability to develop strong working relationships at all levels, especially via virtual means across time zones (online meetings, etc). 
• Strong project management skills. Able to prioritize competing assignments and deliver quality results on a deadline. Must be highly organized and extremely detail-oriented.
• Highly comfortable working in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
• Thrives in a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and collaborative environment that demands and rewards innovation and creativity, with a high bar for commitment and performance.