Strategic Proposal Manager

About Pursuit:

Our mission is to create economic transformation. By training low-income adults to launch and advance careers as software engineers, we help our Fellows go from earning $18,000 to over $90,000 starting salary on average, adding an estimated $2M in lifetime earnings. Pursuit partners with leading companies like Blackstone, USV, Citi, Peloton, and Uber to employ Fellows in career-defining engineering roles and supports them with on-the-job training to ensure potential translates to performance. Since 2013, Pursuit has created ~$1B in total lifetime wage gains, creating lasting economic mobility that spans generations. 

Pursuit’s proven solution is built on two interconnected components: training (which includes community development, Core pre-job training, and Commit on-the-job training) and a financial product (known as Bond). However, growing training alone will not meet the magnitude of need nor solve new societal challenges ahead. The typical expectation is to expand our training to other cities, but this will not come anywhere close to creating good jobs for millions of low-income Americans. Instead, our strategy for scaled impact is to evolve our financial product and create tools for other organizations, jobs, and places. We believe that this will not only create good jobs for millions of low-income Americans but will also generate a new trillion-dollar market directly tied to results in the long term.

About the role:

The Strategic Proposal Manager will be responsible for creating high-quality proposals, impact reports, and additional partner-facing materials focused on direct revenue solicitation. Critical to the proposal process, this role will develop positioning and framing of products, programs, projects, budgets, and outcomes to fit each partner and opportunity. In collaboration with relationship managers—who are primarily responsible for stewarding and communicating with partners—this role will help identify connections for them to make and build coalitions of supporters for cross-sector partnerships. This role sits on the Partnerships and Business Development team, working alongside the External Affairs, Employer Services, and Impact Investment teams to advance existing partnerships and qualify, strategize, and propose new ones. All efforts will be designed to enable Pursuit to meet its revenue goals for 2025 and beyond. This role will be responsible for securing at least $2M in annual revenue, primarily through strategic grants and philanthropic funding.

About you:

You are an expert writer, first and foremost, ideally with experience crafting audience-specific proposals that have won funding, closed sales, or secured partnerships. Your writing is accurate, precise, cohesive, coherent, and persuasive. You work well navigating ambiguity. You ask well-posed questions to clarify concepts and get to the root of a problem. You can organize and structure details so nothing gets lost, every piece fits neatly together, and the overarching purpose or point of a project or argument is well-supported. You appreciate best practices and design processes while remaining adaptable. You are empathetic, diplomatic, and approachable to others. You take the initiative and are eager to support our One Big Team, making an impact across the organization. You have a growth mindset. You are passionate about solving socio-economic problems. You value diversity and make every effort to be inclusive—with teammates, external partners, and our community of Fellows.

Responsibilities:

• Meet or exceed an individual revenue target of $2M annually by identifying, qualifying, and soliciting a variety of funders and opportunities
• Draft, revise, and submit strategic proposals, pitch decks, and other materials
• Develop concepts and strategies to pitch philanthropic campaigns, Pursuit’s employer model, social impact job bond, and Fellowship offerings to current strategic partners and prospects
• Help evaluate funding opportunities by creating or expanding on qualifying notes, working collaboratively to assess our fit and what it would take to win
• Identify key stakeholders and support coalition-building efforts to support proposals
• Work with the CEO, VP of Development and other relationship managers to understand partner objectives and fit key messages to specific audiences
• Collaborate with PBD, Business Operations, External Relations, and other teams to align cross-functional efforts, especially when acting as the lead proposal writer and/or project manager
• Support CEO, VP of Development, and other relationship managers in external partner meetings and contribute to those meetings as needed
• Support efforts to become the social impact organization of choice in NYC

Requirements:

• Excellent writing skills
• Draft, revise, edit, and proof language for a variety of formats and word counts
• Succinctly summarize and comprehensively explain complex issues or ideas
• Adapt your writing tone and style to match Pursuit’s voice and different audiences
• Quickly iterate on various concept notes, outlines, drafts, and revisions
• Seek feedback and quickly adjust to incorporate it
• Critical thinking
• Grasp, explain, and connect the various pieces of our integrated model—e.g. community development, job training, sustainable program financing, and hiring partnerships
• Evaluate and address the needs and interests of the various stakeholders in our many-sided marketplace—e.g. Fellows, community partners/nonprofits, government officials, employer partners, philanthropic funders, impact investors, etc.
• Research, analysis, and strategy
• Identify opportunities and qualify them with research and network analysis
• Map relationships to determine how best to inform and cultivate support for opportunities
• Brief team and work collaboratively to strategize
• Project management
• Help update and maintain pipelines of projects and prioritize against multiple deadlines
• Collaborate cross-functionally and create project plans
• Adapt as needed to shifting priorities

Nice to have:

• 3+ years work experience with writing-intensive roles in fundraising, partnerships, client-facing strategy, or business development
• Experience building proposal budgets
• Understanding of nonprofits, social impact missions, or social entrepreneurship
• Experience using Salesforce or other CRMs to manage accounts and opportunities

Where you’ll work: 

• On-site, 3-4 days per week in our Long Island City Office. Remote Fridays!
• We are working on updating our office policy, and some roles may require 4+ days on site per week. 

Writing Sample Required in All Applications, please 

Ideally, this sample demonstrates a successful proposal or pitch to an external partner or funder. However, we are open to reviewing what you believe is your best work.

Salary & Benefits:

The salary range for this role is $85,000-100,000 base, plus incentive compensation based on team and organizational goals.

The compensation range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted.  If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.

Pursuit offers: 

• Great culture where transparency, respect, teamwork, and kindness are valued
• Competitive compensation in base, plus bonus and a full benefits package
• 401k Match
• Unlimited PTO and an all-Pursuit summer break the last week of August and a week-long holiday the last week of December
• Flexible, hybrid work schedule with catered lunches once a week and delicious snacks
• An opportunity to work at the intersection of tech and social impact, and make a direct impact on the communities of those we serve.

Pursuit values diversity: 

Our team has a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and we value the richness that diversity brings to our organization. We welcome new perspectives and affirm that all employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, age, familial or marital status, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuit is an equal opportunity employer.

We encourage applicants who meet many (but not all) of the job requirements to apply. While we strive to be clear about what this role entails and our criteria for evaluating candidates, we see beyond resumes and traditional credentials. As with our Fellows, we aim to provide growth opportunities for those with potential.