Senior Partnerships Manager

DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where every student in every community has the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

Since 2000, more than 5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 2 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. Projects range from art supplies to build the set for a school musical, to books and puzzles that affirm students’ identities, to bird seed for an at-home science project. We proudly serve all US public schools, public charter schools, and Head Start centers, and we combat systemic inequity by driving a majority of donations to schools that have been historically underfunded due to economic and racial inequity.

DonorsChoose has been recognized as a best place to work by GOOD Magazine and the Nonprofit Times, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Our dedicated team works from across the United States to bring classroom dreams to life.

About the Corporate & Foundation Partnerships Team

As part of the Community Growth & Impact Team, the Corporate & Foundation Partnerships team raises funds for teachers and students by designing and executing philanthropic partnerships with corporations and foundations, and renewing and growing those partnerships over time. Typically we aim to raise $60M annually through creative, collaborative partnerships with our institutional donors. (More about our partnerships)

About the Role

As Senior Partnerships Manager, you will own relationships with multiple corporate and foundation partners, drive meaningful business and impact outcomes for our partners, and grow classroom support over time. Reporting to the Partnerships Director, you will serve as an additional resource and coach (second chair) to Manager-level peers and their portfolios, as needed.

Our team operates like a customer success team, delivering an excellent experience to our partners and using B2B consultative sales techniques to renew partner donations. We drive the DonorsChoose mission by unlocking partner support to address educational inequity.

In this role you will: 

• Grow and sustain partner support
  • Contribute to our revenue goal by securing fundraising from your portfolio of $250K+ partners.
  • Cultivate deep relationships with your partners. Become the expert on what motivates them, what constraints they might face, how their organizations are structured, and what may be on the horizon to drive retention and increased partner support.
  • Identify opportunities to meet additional business or impact goals for your partners and craft customized pitch ideas to engage each partner and inspire them to support our mission.
  • Learn and iterate on our sponsorship benefits and partnership options, and leverage our data to craft bespoke and impactful pitches.
• Manage and execute best-in-class partner campaigns
  • Work directly with corporate and foundation partners and lead cross-functional project teams to meet partner goals, impact milestones, and organizational priorities.
  • Deliver excellent operational outcomes and creative solutions for partnership deliverables such as connection to schools, employee engagement, media storytelling, and funding logistics.
  • Analyze and present data and stories to illustrate partners’ impact.
• Contribute to team
  • All team members share sales and partnership strategies, support teammates when needed, and identify other opportunities to contribute to the team and organizational culture. 
  • Serve as a resource and coach (second chair) to Manager-level peers for external meetings with relationships in their portfolios, as needed.
  • Own and maintain partnership records, continuously updating key details and logging emails, calls, and meeting notes.
  • You’ll also play a key role in our evolution to more directly address racial inequity in education through our partnerships.

This role may be perfect for you if:

• You’re committed to our mission to support public school teachers and students and energized by sharing that passion with others. You’re passionate about equity and excited to learn more and engage partners with our equity focus. 
• You have at least eight years of experience, including at least three years in a direct fundraising, partnership management, business development, or sales role.
• You have experience mentoring or developing other peers.
• You think like an owner: you’re wildly strategic and are constantly aiming to improve your craft, and to form partnerships.
• You’re deeply curious: you want to know what drives people and organizations, and you ask great questions.
• You’ve thrived in a role where you built relationships in the past and can point to examples of professional relationships you’ve deepened over time. 
• You’re extremely efficient and organized. People are always complimenting your to-do lists, and how you manage to fit so much into the day. You have strong project management and organizational skills and a history of leading projects or campaigns that involved multiple stakeholders and lots of moving pieces. 
• You’re an inventive problem-solver. You love finding solutions to challenges and identifying opportunities to grow and improve.
• You embrace flexibility, ingenuity, teamwork, humility, and transparency and are curious and excited to learn.
• You’re a team player. It’s more important to you that someone gets the win, than that you personally get the credit.

Compensation & Benefits

Our compensation philosophy ensures that we are both externally competitive with tech-forward nonprofits of a similar size and internally fair in our pay practices. The following ranges represent the target offer range given the scope and experience expectations for this role.

• The hiring salary range for this role is $85,000 - $93,000
• We have a hiring salary range of $95,000- $103,000 for specific higher cost of labor locations, which include New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

Once employees are hired, everyone at DonorsChoose is eligible to receive annual performance-based raises as they grow in their role. We are open to a variety of experiences, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced or more senior than this job description as posted. If you don’t check every box listed here, or you know you’d bring additional experience to the table, we hope you’ll submit your application. 

In addition, we offer full-time staff 25 paid vacation days per year and 11 paid holidays, a rich employer-paid individual and family health plan, a matching 401(k) plan (up to 5% of base salary), annual professional development stipend, and casual and flexible work environment. To learn more about what it is like to work for DonorsChoose, visit our careers page.

Hybrid Workplace and Other Details

In this role, you’ll have the option to work a flexible hybrid schedule in our NYC office, or to work fully remotely from CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, ME, MA, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, TX, VA, WA, WI.

Candidates who are not in the NYC area should expect to travel to our NYC office on an as-needed basis, about 4-6 times per year. All work-related travel expenses will be covered by the organization.

DonorsChoose participates in E-Verify. We will provide the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. 

DonorsChoose Core Values

EQUITY
Combating systemic inequity is crucial to a brighter future for all. This reality fuels our ambitions and drives us to persevere.

INGENUITY
Complex problems require innovative solutions. We dream big, get creative, roll up our sleeves, and take action. We believe the best products can change the world.

HUMANITY 
People are the heart of our team and the communities we serve. Our compassion informs our goals and how we work together to achieve them. 

INTEGRITY
We strive to do right. We’re up-front about the facts. We boldly learn and grow from mistakes.

LEARNING
Education is the beating heart of our organization, inside and out. We’re curious. We listen. We know we don’t know everything. 

GRATITUDE
We begin and end with thanks. We take joy in our mission, our communities, and each other.

To Apply

Please submit your resume and answer the application questions online. Since we’re trying to get to know you through our hiring process, we ask that you please refrain from using AI writing tools to craft your response to our application questions. A cover letter is optional and may be addressed to Adam Disler, SVP of Partnerships.

A Final Note

The DonorsChoose team works toward a nation where students in every community have the resources needed for an excellent education. To do this we hire and support a diverse team of the best and the brightest talent available.

We are an organization increasingly representative of the varied races and ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, religious and political beliefs, and abilities that comprise our nation. DonorsChoose focuses on attracting, retaining, and advancing diverse talent because it makes us more effective, high-performing, creative, and resilient.  

If you are passionate about our mission, highly skilled in your field, and looking for a place where you can bring all of yourself to work, we want you.