The role of Senior Manager/Manager, Cultivation, Philanthropic Partnerships at Healthy Learners is crucial for driving the organization's growth by identifying and cultivating new institutional donor relationships. Healthy Learners administers health programs in schools, delivered by teachers, fostering community awareness and stability of medical support among students, educators, parents, and local government. Community buy-in and participation creates a sense of ownership that enables the long-term stability and success of these programs.
The successful candidate will join the Philanthropic Partnerships team during an exciting period of organizational expansion. This role is open to both Manager and Senior Manager levels, with distinct expectations:
- Manager: Focuses primarily on research and internal communications, preparing senior leaders for external engagement.
- Senior Manager: Leads the full scope of work for new donor engagement, including successfully leading introductory donor-facing communications.
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 the first point of contact for new donor engagement, mostly via introductory calls.
Proposal Development
- Working with the 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.
- 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 Healthy Learners continues to build organizational fundraising capacity.
- Assist with anything else that comes up, supporting colleagues during busy times.
A Typical Week Might Include:
- Strategizing how to get on a prospect’s radar – mapping out connections, and leveraging networks.
- Conducting in-depth research on donor prospects, documenting and sharing philanthropic insights.
- Developing 2 pitch decks tailored to different donor audiences.
- Creating a proposal outline, collaborating with others to refine the case for support.
- Copyediting a response to a donor inquiry to better highlight key messages.
- Creating a calendar for a proposal or project, determining the optimal workflow and timing.
- Putting together a meeting brief with draft talking points for senior leaders.
- Helping out on an urgent deliverable, 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, approaching the opportunity with humility, hunger, and a “no job too small” commitment.
Experience Requirements:
- Manager level: Minimum of 5 years of full-time fundraising experience for social entrepreneurship organizations.
- Senior Manager level: Minimum of 8-10 years of full-time fundraising experience for social entrepreneurship organizations focused specifically on health and/or education in sub-Saharan Africa. This specific experience is essential for the Senior Manager level, given the donor-facing communication nature of the role.
Note: Applicants must have previous experience as a full-time fundraiser. If you have never been a full-time fundraiser, please do not apply.
Required Qualifications & Attributes (All candidates will bring):
- BA/BSc/HND qualification.
- 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.
- Ability to thrive in a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and collaborative environment that demands and rewards innovation and creativity, with a high bar for commitment and performance.
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