Development Manager

Sep 4

Anticipated Start Date: asap

Description

The Storytelling, Partnerships, and Opportunities Team (SPOT) is Transcend’s revenue team: we support Transcend’s annual revenue goal through partnership cultivation, philanthropic fundraising, government grants, and aligned and strategic marketing and communications.

Transcend’s Development function focuses on all aspects of private fundraising across both institutional funders and high-net worth individuals, with a focus on both flexible funding for Transcend and project-specific fundraising support across the organization. We’re excited to add a Development Manager to the SPOT team. This critical individual contributor role is key in helping deepen our impact by coordinating our efforts to secure flexible, national funding that powers our mission.

Responsibilities

At any given time, the role will work across the following workstreams:

Fundraising Execution: ~50% Support the tactical execution of our fundraising strategy across key funding areas like national foundations, high-net-worth individuals (HNWI), and philanthropic advisors.

This includes:

Drafting and submitting high-quality reports, proposals, and concept notes for all flexible/national funders
Preparing logistics for funder meetings by drafting meeting agendas, materials, and following up with next steps
Coordinating outreach for new flexible/national funder prospects, including network mapping and preparing outreach materials
Contributing as a thought partner to the team’s fundraising strategy—bringing insight, ideas, and a learning orientation to how we grow and sustain our funder relationships.

Team Coordination: ~30% Drive strong coordination, systems-building, and communication across the Development team to ensure we are taking consistent, proactive, and coordinated actions with all funders and philanthropic advisors.

This includes:

Maintain master funder database in Salesforce and Notion with up-to-date contact information, giving history, funder goals/strategies, and next steps for full funder pipeline
Assign and track completion of all funder follow-ups and deliverables across team members; escalate delays or bottlenecks
Design, coordinate, and facilitate new Development team meetings to align on recent and upcoming funder actions, assign follow-ups, and surface strategic decisions.
You will own both the facilitation of this meeting and the development of systems that strengthen coordination and collaboration across our funder pipeline
Ensure all team members have visibility into relevant funder activities across portfolios to identify collaboration opportunities Owning logistics and agenda-setting for existing weekly
Development check-ins, and participating in all key team routines (e.g., Dev meetings, SPOT standups, RM meetings, and quarterly/trimesterly SPOT + portfolio gatherings)

Prospect Research: ~5–10% Help expand our funder pipeline by identifying and researching potential new funders.

This includes:

Conducting monthly or quarterly prospect research aligned to specific needs – either portfolio-specific or topic-specific Responding to ad hoc research needs based on names surfaced through meetings or networks
Synthesizing research into clear, actionable insights to inform outreach strategy
The remainder ~10-15% of the role’s allocation is dedicated to org-wide collaboration, community-building spaces, and learning and development opportunities.

Requirements

You are a coordinator, executor, and collaborator who thrives on making big things happen behind the scenes. You have outstanding project management and love to keep track of all of the details. You love building systems that center people, make complex work more seamless, and help a mission-driven team thrive. To all of this, you also bring the following knowledge, skills, and orientations:

A wholehearted dedication to Transcend’s mission to build and spread extraordinary learning environments for all A values-driven approach that centers trust and collaboration across a wide range of teammates
Flexibility, curiosity, and a deep hunger for feedback—you’re excited to learn, grow, and adapt
A collaborative spirit and team-first mindset—you enjoy working across functions and roles to move work forward and make each other better Exceptional project and operations management skills—you’re organized, proactive, and able to juggle multiple workstreams without letting anything slip through the cracks
The ability to coordinate and galvanize a group—ensuring clarity of roles, assigning tasks, and keeping momentum across diverse teammates
Clear, persuasive, and high-quality writing skills
A systems mindset—you can connect strategy to execution, build and improve team-wide processes, and bring thoughtful structure to ambiguity
Comfort and fluency with tech tools like Salesforce, Notion, and G-Suite to keep information flowing and collaboration running smoothly
Research chops—you’re able to lean in on prospect research by surfacing new funder prospects, synthesizing what you learn into actionable insights, and staying attuned to the broader philanthropic landscape
You care deeply about people and believe that strong relationships are at the core of the work

Salary Range and Employee Benefits

We are an experienced team focused on extraordinary learning for all. We welcome candidates who are passionate about ensuring that all students thrive. We are also committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package and offer medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We take pride in our collaborative environment, exceptional team, and shared commitment to principled, impactful work.

Salary: $64,800–$100,000 depending on location. -- it includes bottom of range at 90% and top of range at 100%

*As a national team, we apply a cost-of-labor adjustment by adjusting salaries into 3 geographical bands (geo-band) in order to offer competitive compensation for all employees across the US. These geo-bands help us tailor compensation appropriately based on the specific location of each teammate.

How to Apply for this Job

Apply Now

About the Organization

Our work with school communities and the larger ecosystem is guided by five fundamental beliefs.

ALL children have infinite potential.
To realize this potential, we must reimagine “schooling” as we know it.
The work is most successful when pursued through a rigorous, community-driven R&D process grounded in equity.
While never easy, innovation is absolutely possible.
Accelerating progress requires strong local leadership, surrounded by a conducive ecosystem.

WOC is not responsible for the content of job postings.