Development Manager

Start Date: Immediate

Role Type: Full time

Location: Flexible within the Continental United States

Travel: ~10% time. Willingness to travel approximately 1x/quarter

Who We Are:

Transcend's mission is to support communities to create and spread extraordinary, equitable learning environments. Founded in 2015, Transcend has partnered with over 200 schools and 50 systems which collectively serve nearly 500,000 students in 30 states across the country. As a research and development (R&D) hub for the education field, Transcend provides schools and systems with research-backed, community-driven models and capacity so they can make significant leaps to reimagine the future of education. Transcend is a nonprofit that operates with a fully remote, nationwide team; currently with 105 teammates and growing.

For more information, visit our website; follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter, check out this podcast featuring our two co-founders on Class Disrupted, or read this recent article that illuminates the need for this work.

The Opportunity:

In increasingly large numbers, communities across the nation are recognizing the limitations and profound inequities of the 100 year-old, one-size-fits-all industrial design of school. The compounding crises of the past couple of years have revealed the need for reinvention toward extraordinary, equitable learning environments that enable all young people to thrive. As a result, Transcend has grown significantly and is partnering with more and more communities to support their work to redesign school.

The Development Manager has a fantastic opportunity to advance the trajectory of our mission by helping us to grow our resources and partnerships with external stakeholders (existing and yet-to-be-discovered!). You will use your superb writing and project management skills to create and manage relationships with supporters, build Transcend's presence in the field, and grow our capacity to build the future of education in this country. You will work closely with the centralized development team and with school design portfolio teams, as well as many others across the Transcend team.

This role will be fully focused on securing and stewarding philanthropic resources for the Whole Child Portfolio within Transcend for the first ~12-18 months; leveraging our first-ever federal grant for innovation and bringing in much needed additional resources for the project. In this period, this role will work most closely with Senior Advisor Katie Bowen and Project Director Nikki Darden on the Whole Child Portfolio team, as well as members of the centralized Development team. Over time, sensitive to Transcend's strategic and programmatic needs, this role may shift to support other portfolios and fundraising needs.

Who You Are:

You are deeply compelled by the need to create better learning opportunities for all young people, and want to use your many talents in service of this! You have excellent time management skills and can simultaneously manage several projects over a variety of realms. You're able to effectively handle small details while keeping a strategic understanding of the overall bigger picture.

You thrive on applying your compelling writing skills and strong project management acumen toward advancing Transcend's mission. You believe deeply in the power of education to change lives, and can't wait to contribute to the movement of reinventing school in America.

In this role, you will get to:

Research, cultivate, and steward prospective donors: both foundations and high net-worth individuals:

• Work directly with our program teams to identify, cultivate, and fundraise from local, regional, and/or national foundations, high net-worth individuals (HNWIs), and corporate funders

• Recommend and develop systems and processes to identify and cultivate HNWIs and foundations
• Lead research, prep, and cultivation of potential donors
• Steward current donors and brainstorm new ways to increase their engagement
• Plan and help execute donor engagement and cultivation events.
• Steward existing funders to help them stay connected and enthusiastic about the work, and enduring in their financial support

Lead and manage development operations for the prospects and grantors you manage:

• Write and polish compelling grant applications, updates, and report materials for grants
• Own fundraising data entry, coordination, and tracking (e.g., Salesforce and database tracking, drafting notes and reports)
• Source and support the creation of collateral (videos, images, anecdotes) highlighting the impact and insights from innovative learning models

And in doing so, leverage your:

• Passion for Transcend's mission and alignment with ourcore values
• Prior experience in development within the non-profit sphere
• Detail orientation and project-management skills: use your superior organizational skills to manage multiple workstreams, ensure grants and donor communication are polished and high quality, and drive toward deadlines
• Exceptionally clear, persuasive, and efficient writing skills– in prose, slides, and other creative methods
• Flexibility and enthusiasm - to build positive relationships, take a service orientation to colleagues, readily stretches high and low, doing whatever it takes to get the job done in an environment of ambiguity, resource constraints, and rapid shifts that befit a scrappy, start-up
• Hunger for feedback based on a personal commitment to excellence and constant learning and fast iteration – in order to arrive at the best possible product

Perks and Benefits:

Transcend is committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package. Transcend offers medical, dental and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We're also proud of our values-grounded, equity-focused, and fun (!) work environment, incredible colleagues, and a dedication to our purposeful work and to one another.

Join Us!

Transcend is an equal opportunity employer. We are building a diverse team, and we encourage candidates from historically under-represented groups to apply.