Foundations Partnership Manager

Common Sense (commonsense.org) is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.

Every day, millions of families turn to Common Sense for trusted advice and unbiased ratings. We offer the largest library of independent, age-based, and educational ratings and reviews for everything your kids want to watch, play, read, and learn. Our movie and TV ratings are available on Target.com, Xfinity, Apple TV, and many other partner platforms helping families make smart media choices. Through our schools program, we provide educators with a curriculum that teaches the essential digital citizenship and literacy skills every student needs to succeed. We also work with policymakers, industry leaders, and concerned parents, caregivers, and teachers to improve the media and education landscape for kids, families, and schools.

The Manager, Foundation Partnerships, will build and manage foundation relationships to support our efforts, particularly our newly formed youth mental health and well-being initiative. The Foundations team is responsible for raising $14M per year, with an existing portfolio of 25 active foundation partners.

EMPLOYMENT TYPE: Full-Time  SALARY RANGE: $85,600–$101,650 REPORTS TO: VP, Foundation Partnerships  LOCATION: San Francisco, CA 

WHAT YOU'LL DO: 

Strategy Development:

• Participate in philanthropic funding strategy discussions.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to develop program briefs, including program goals, impact metrics, and activities.
• Keep abreast of education and parent engagement trends, and bring competitive challenges and new opportunities to the attention of internal stakeholders.
• Research and identify key sources and trends in foundation, corporate, and philanthropic support.

 Foundation Partnerships:

• Develop and manage a grant portfolio of funder relationships, with a focus on securing grants to support our research program and youth mental health and well-being initiative.

Responsibilities Include:

• Outlining strategic objectives and talking points for meetings.
• Conducting phone calls/meetings to present programs and explore potential fit.
• Writing concept papers and grant proposals, developing budgets, and shepherding the process from start to finish.
• Preparing Google slide presentations and other collateral materials.
• Working with program teams to track progress against grant deliverables (outputs, outcomes, budget).
• Coordinating periodic updates and communications to funders.

Research, Pipeline Development, and Moves Management:

• Develop a robust pipeline of new potential funders.
• Track potential funders through our moves management system on Salesforce.
• Produce in-depth, well-written backgrounders on prospective donors, and update backgrounders on existing portfolios annually or as needed.

WHAT YOU BRING:

• A bachelor's degree and 4+ years of experience in a nonprofit setting, ideally one with a focus on youth inclusion, mental health, or social and emotional learning.
• Previous experience in grant writing/fundraising, strategy, and program development.
• Proactive capacity for stewarding funders to build strong and lasting relationships.
• Superior writing and communication skills. Ability to identify alignment between foundation strategic priorities and Common Sense funding needs to structure compelling proposals and stories of impact.
• A high degree of self-motivation, self-direction, and ingenuity in a highly entrepreneurial environment.
• A collaborative mindset. You have a knack for working effectively across teams.
• Excellent presentation and public speaking skills.
• Strong research and analytical skills, and familiarity with the full suite of Google tools.
• Experience using databases and CRM platforms, preferably Salesforce.
• Ability and willingness to travel.

WHAT WE OFFER:

• Work with passionate professionals.
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits: medical, dental, vision, and fitness.
• Matching 401(k).
• Work-life balance.
• The opportunity to make a difference in the lives of kids and families!

Common Sense values the diversity of its employees and is an equal opportunity employer. For more information on our values, please visit our statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Common Sense will consider employment-qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. However, job offers are made on the condition that the applicant subsequently passes a criminal background check. If the background check indicates a prior criminal conviction, we will conduct an individualized assessment to determine whether the conviction should result in denial of employment.