About This Role
The Grants Manager will join the Development team to advance the organization's mission through strategic institutional fundraising. This role involves shaping the institutional fundraising strategy, developing competitive funding opportunities, managing a portfolio of grants, and building strong relationships with funders.
Responsibilities
- Build and drive the institutional funding pipeline
- Develop and manage a multi-year pipeline of foundation, corporate, and public funding opportunities
- Research and identify prospective funders whose priorities align with programs and strategic goals
- Assess opportunities based on strategic fit, potential funding, organizational capacity, and likelihood of success
- Partner with the Chief Development & Communications Officer to cultivate funder relationships and strengthen institutional fundraising strategy
- Monitor pipeline activity, upcoming opportunities, renewal risks, and funding gaps and provide recommendations to leadership
- Lead the development of grant proposals, letters of inquiry, applications, and other funding requests
- Work with program and Finance staff to develop strong narratives, outcomes, and budgets
- Coordinate information and feedback from multiple departments and keep proposal development moving toward deadlines
- Ensure proposals are accurate, competitive, strategically aligned, and responsive to funder requirements
- Help program teams translate their work into clear, measurable, funder-ready outcomes
- Serve as the primary internal steward for an assigned portfolio of institutional grants
- Manage grants from award through reporting, renewal, and close-out
- Maintain grant calendars, deadlines, deliverables, and reporting requirements
- Coordinate narrative and financial reporting with program and Finance teams
- Monitor grant health and identify potential compliance, operational, or performance concerns early
- Ensure DBEDC fulfills its commitments to funders and maintains strong post-award practices
- Support funder stewardship and renewal efforts through thoughtful, timely communication and follow-up
- Maintain strong institutional knowledge of funder priorities, relationships, requirements, and funding history
- Coordinate cross-functional input to develop proposals that accurately reflect organizational priorities, program activities, outcomes, and funding needs
- Facilitate conversations to assess whether prospective funding opportunities are strategically aligned and operationally feasible before commitments are made
- Translate funder requirements into clear expectations, timelines, deliverables, and action items for internal partners
