Education Resource Strategies, Associate Director of Partnerships & Development

ORGANIZATION

Education Resource Strategies (ERS) is a national non-profit that empowers school system leaders to make transformative shifts in resources, structures, and practices so that all students — especially those with the greatest learning needs and those furthest from opportunity — attend a school where they can learn and thrive. We partner with district teams, expand leaders’ knowledge and skills, and share lessons and tools with the field. At ERS, we embrace teamwork and innovation to influence sustainable, equitable change in some of the country’s largest school districts. If you want to join a team of talented and committed professionals within a mission-driven and collaborative culture, this is the place for you.

Since 2004, we’ve worked hand-in-hand with more than 100 school system leaders and several states on data (analysis and benchmarking), design (strategy, resource trade-offs, and consensus-building), and implementation (planning and monitoring). Our work focuses on the larger picture: how resources work together to create high-performing systems.

Our district and state partners view ERS as a national authority on school system strategy and resource use and a trusted advisor and partner. We participate in the transformation struggle, create insights with our district partners, and build consensus to develop individualized, actionable recommendations.

Please visit our website to learn more about our work, impact, team, and core values: www.erstrategies.org.

OPPORTUNITY

At this critical inflection point for K -12 education following the pandemic, this position is a unique opportunity for a professional to leverage their skills in development, strategy, and relationship building to help us accelerate our impact.

ERS receives national philanthropic support from leading foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. This funding enables us to share our learnings and tools with the field to build an understanding of school system transformation, strategic resource allocation, and organizational capacity. To continue our successful fundraising work, we must invest in strong relationships with our current funders and develop relationships with new philanthropic partners. We must also continue to work with our philanthropic partners to understand better and address the best opportunities for school system transformation.

This position will report to the ERS Partner who oversees Field Building. The position offers the opportunity to build from a strong base to help define the next stage of our fundraising efforts and build a systematic foundation partnership strategy. This position will lead a small but energetic, high-performing Funder Partnerships team, collaborate with ERS’s full leadership team, work directly with ERS’s CEO on a regular basis, and partner with program officers at major national foundations who are on the cutting edge of investing in education equity and excellence.

RESPONSIBILITIES

This person will:

• Collaborate with the ERS Leadership Team and ERS team members across the organization to cultivate strong relationships with leading foundations and develop winning grant proposals that reflect ERS’s funding priorities while engaging in best practices in financial stewardship and funder relations.
• Evolve and implement ERS’s fundraising strategy in collaboration with the rest of the Funder Partnerships Team, which includes the CEO, Partner, and Specialist. Serve as a thought leader and strategic partner to the ERS Leadership Team to support the growth of the organization’s funding base.
• Conduct funder relationship management activities, including phone calls, correspondence, and meetings with program officers, foundation trustees, and their representatives, engaging key ERS team members as appropriate.
• Lead the Funder Partnerships Team’s efforts to build and sustain a philanthropy culture and create an elevated understanding of fundraising. This includes helping to develop tools and resources, such as grant management dashboards and stakeholder engagement reports, for the ERS Leadership Team, ERS Board, and other internal ERS audiences.
• Oversee the grant application and reporting processes in collaboration with finance and other stakeholders, including, but not limited to, proposal and report writing, budget development, quality assurance, and timely submission. This includes sometimes executing this work directly and periodically overseeing the work of the Partnerships Specialist, who manages the grant reporting/administration process and supports the grant proposal development process.

To fulfill these responsibilities, the ideal candidate will possess:

• Bachelor’s degree (required).
• A minimum of five years of fundraising experience, including three years of grant proposal development.
• Experience in developing, evolving, or stewarding fundraising strategy.
• Experience in grant writing for large (>$1 million, multiyear) grants and funder relationships for national foundations.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including synthesizing complex material and effectively communicating ERS’s work to our target audience.
• Superior project management and organizational skills, interpersonal skills, flexibility, and the ability to prioritize and handle multiple tasks effectively and efficiently.
• Demonstrated passion for and commitment to ERS’s mission and values.
• Experience in grant writing and proposal development with Federal agencies or for corporate philanthropy preferred. Direct experience with school and system redesign or education preferred.

This position offers a competitive hiring salary range of $140,000-$170,000. ERS benefits package includes health insurance, dental insurance, vision, paid holidays, retirement program employer match, long-term disability, and life insurance.

Opportunity for impact: ERS works with some of the country's largest, most influential, and most innovative districts to transform their practices. Your work will change the lives of thousands of students.

The position is based in our Watertown, MA office. Our hybrid work policy extends flexibility to team members, facilitates collaboration/learning, and reinforces an organizational culture of togetherness. We operationalize this by expecting team members to be in the Watertown, MA office at least three consistent days each week, with the option to add more remote days or weeks occasionally.

Search Process Timeline:

• Candidate cultivation and screening: Ongoing
  • Phone Interviews: September 19th- October 17th
• Semifinalist Invitations sent to candidates: October 20th
  • Semifinalist Interviews: Week of October 30th
• Finalist invitation sent to candidates: November 7th
  • Finalist interviews: November 14th and 15th
  • Top Finalist(s) Conversation: November 20th
  • Reference checks: November 20th - 23rd

Commitment to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Belonging

As an organization, we still have so much to learn about the continuing impact of systemic racism and oppression. We also acknowledge that we must look inward to actualize ERS’s mission best. Therefore, we strive to develop an equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist organization rooted in belonging for all team members.

ERS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, ancestry, pregnancy, or military service.

We value diverse teams and the unique talents each member brings. In that light, we encourage candidates with life experiences similar to those of the children, teachers, and leaders in the districts we serve to apply. #LI-NE1