Work schedule: Exempt, full time
Location: Denver (hybrid of remote and in-person work)
Deadline for submission: February 13, 2023

About Conservation Colorado
For over 50 years, we’ve worked with communities statewide to ensure that our quality of life and our environment are protected. We work to elect pro-conservation leaders to public office and then hold our decision makers accountable to move Colorado forward in protecting our environment. Our work to protect Colorado’s climate, air, lands, water, and communities reflects our commitment to racial and social justice, particularly by ensuring that policy victories are shared by all Coloradans including Black, Latino, other people of color and other frontline communities

We achieve these goals by organizing people and electing conservation-minded policymakers. We work closely with policy leaders, activists, businesses, and other organizations, and have built a reputation as one of the leading conservation advocacy organizations in the region. Within the organization, we aim to create a workplace culture of policies and practices that demonstrate how we value equity and inclusion.

What You’ll Do
As the Foundation Relations Manager, you will be responsible for the development of all grant materials by coordinating team members across the organization (including the CEO, advocacy and policy staff, organizing, and finance). In this role, you’ll manage our institutional fundraising program and oversee our portfolio of institutional donors. This role can evolve over time, but you will have these areas of responsibility:

Funder relations

• Develop goals and strategies for each funder within a portfolio of 60-70 of Conservation Colorado’s most valuable donors. Maintain regular personal contact with these donors in order to build a relationship that will benefit both the funder and the organization’s fundraising goals.
• Maintain an on-going Moves Management process working with the Vice President of Fundraising and CEO to develop efficient and effective relationships with funders and prospects.
• Keep meticulous track of the information learned about Conservation Colorado funders in the organization’s database.
• Coordinate funder meetings and the exchange of information between funders and Conservation Colorado staff.
• Work to increase the knowledge of our funders on racial justice and our work on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Coordinate foundation prospect identification, research, communications, and cultivation. Regularly analyze the progress of foundations fundraising, including keeping close track of any deviations between expected revenue and actual revenue.

Proposal development and execution

• Work with executive staff, programmatic staff, and the Vice President of Fundraising to effectively synthesize program work, goals, and metrics, and craft high-level messaging and framing for our funders and key programs.
• Write high-impact grant proposals, letters of inquiry, memoranda, reports, and other collateral materials as needed.
• Ensure that proposals and reports elevate our work with historically disenfranchised groups who have been pushed or left out of the democratic process or environmental movement, particularly low-income communities and communities of color.
• Work with the Operations and Finance team to keep track of grant commitments and payments.

Grants management and administration

• Process and enter all proposals, reports, grant agreements, and other grant documentation in the database and elsewhere as appropriate.
• Manage an annual grant calendar and update an organization-wide grants reference document that lists all active grants.
• Working with the Finance team, format budgets, proposals, and additional materials for funders (such as staff and board bios, press hit/media reports, photos) to ensure a professional, consistent look.

In addition to your regular responsibilities, all staff are expected to participate at some level in organizational priorities including helping in certain fundraising efforts, taking part in our election-related activities, and committing to our organizational efforts around equity & inclusivity.

Qualifications
To be successful in this role, you will have the ability to effectively cultivate and solicit foundation support. More specifically, we’re looking for:

• 5+ years of fundraising experience, with a strong preference for experience successfully soliciting, securing, and stewarding gifts from foundations.
• Excellent communication (written, verbal, listening) skills with an emphasis on the ability to persuasively write and synthesize information from many sources into a distilled, effective proposal or report.
• A strong project management background, with a demonstrated ability to strategically prioritize, meet deadlines, and manage multiple projects with limited oversight needed, and the ability to manage up & work well with the CEO and Vice President of Fundraising.
• Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to cultivate strong, genuine relationships with funders and colleagues, particularly experience building relationships across lines of difference.
• A commitment to our mission, with an appreciation for an organizational culture that is oriented to an advocacy-based environmental mission that centers equity, justice, and a theory of change that focuses on elections, policy, and organizing.

This position does not have an undergraduate education requirement. Spanish/English bilingual is a skill we value, but it is not a requirement. This is a full-time job, but there can be some flexibility in the exact schedule.

Compensation and Benefits:

The full-time salary range for this role is between $68,000-$82,000 based on a wage analysis across the organization and new staff rarely starting at the top of the range.

We provide high-quality, zero-deductible health insurance and a strong benefits package that includes a SIMPLE IRA retirement plan with a match, at least 28 days of vacation & holidays as well as 6 physical & mental wellness days in your first year, and parental leave and a sabbatical program. This job offers an opportunity to engage people to find solutions to some of the most important environmental issues in Colorado and work with a great team that is committed to a better, more equitable future. It will be challenging, inspiring, and sometimes frustrating, but you’ll be making a big difference. Please note that as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, Conservation Colorado employees are not eligible to participate in the Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

We are committed to building a more diverse and inclusive organization and conservation movement to fully represent and engage all Coloradans and to build as powerful a movement as we can. Recruiting staff that better reflects Colorado is a priority and we encourage applicants from all cultures, race, ethnicity, geographies, political affiliation, sexual orientations, gender identities, and all other identities represented in Colorado or protected by law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

To Apply

If this job truly speaks to you, please click here to submit an application, including a cover letter addressed to Andrea Pacheco, a résumé, and your answers answer a few short questions. If you need accommodation or assistance with our online application process, please tell us how we can help by emailing jobs@conservationco.org or by calling us at 303.333.7846.