Senior Manager of WASH Partnerships

Accountabilities

• Manage a portfolio of institutional funding partners and prospects, serving as the primary relationship manager for assigned accounts and cultivating strong, long-term partnerships.

• Support the institutional funding pipeline by identifying, qualifying, cultivating, and stewarding prospective donors whose priorities align with organizational strategy.

• Coordinate grant proposal development across departments, ensuring submissions are timely, high-quality, well-positioned, and aligned with donor requirements and organizational priorities.

• Develop and contribute to donor engagement and stewardship strategies that strengthen relationships and create opportunities for future funding.

• Maintain accurate information on grant opportunities, commitments, and projected revenue to support organizational forecasting, fundraising planning, and decision-making.

• Conduct research on donors, foundations, institutions, and prospective partners to identify new funding and collaboration opportunities within the WASH sector.

• Review grant reports and support compliance with donor requirements throughout the full grant lifecycle.

• Collaborate with program, finance, communications, and leadership teams to ensure proposals, agreements, reporting, and partnership activities meet both organizational and donor expectations.

• Maintain accurate grant, donor, and partnership information within CRM and project management systems.

• Build and maintain relationships with peer organizations, research institutions, foundations, professional networks, and other stakeholders across the global WASH ecosystem.

• Represent the organization at WASH conferences, webinars, sector events, collaborative initiatives, and other external engagements.

• Identify and develop strategic partnerships that strengthen both programmatic impact and fundraising opportunities.

• Contribute to thought leadership through publications, presentations, blogs, external content, and other sector-facing materials that communicate evidence, learning, and impact.

• Coordinate with communications, programs, and technical teams to translate organizational research, evidence, and learning into compelling external narratives.

• Support presentations and briefing materials for donor meetings, sector events, and partnership engagements.

• Promote the sharing of research, best practices, lessons learned, and programmatic insights across relevant networks and contribute to organizational knowledge management.

• Participate in organizational planning, fundraising discussions, departmental initiatives, and internal process improvement efforts related to grants management and partnership development.

• Mentor junior team members or interns when assigned and contribute to broader organizational priorities as needed.

Requirements:

• Bring relevant professional experience in institutional fundraising, grant management, development, partnership management, international development, or a closely related field.

• Demonstrate the ability to manage institutional donor relationships and funding pipelines, including prospect research, qualification, cultivation, proposal development, stewardship, and reporting.

• Have strong proposal development and grant coordination skills, with the ability to work across multiple departments and manage complex submissions against deadlines.

• Possess excellent relationship-building and communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively with donors, foundations, peer organizations, research institutions, sector networks, and internal stakeholders.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the global WASH sector, international development, public health, sustainability, or related fields, with a genuine interest in advancing sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

• Be comfortable representing an organization externally through conferences, webinars, presentations, publications, collaborative initiatives, and other sector engagements.

• Possess strong research and analytical capabilities, including the ability to identify funding trends, assess prospective partners, and translate market or sector intelligence into actionable opportunities.

• Demonstrate strong organizational skills and attention to detail when managing donor information, grant commitments, reporting requirements, proposals, and multiple concurrent priorities.

• Be comfortable working collaboratively across programs, finance, communications, technical, and leadership functions to align funding opportunities with organizational priorities.

• Demonstrate the ability to contribute to thought leadership, knowledge management, organizational learning, and external communications.

• Bring a proactive, adaptable, and solutions-oriented approach, with the ability to work independently while contributing effectively within a collaborative team environment.

• Be willing to travel for up to approximately 6 weeks per year for donor engagement, sector representation, partnership development, and internal planning meetings.

Benefits:

• Competitive annual salary of $75,000–$85,000 USD.

• Full-time remote opportunity based in the United States.

• Opportunity to manage strategic institutional partnerships and contribute directly to sustainable funding growth.

• Meaningful work supporting global water, sanitation, and hygiene initiatives and broader public health and development outcomes.

• Opportunity to build relationships across the global WASH ecosystem, including foundations, research institutions, peer organizations, and sector networks.

• Exposure to international sector events, conferences, collaborative initiatives, and thought leadership opportunities.

• Cross-functional collaboration with program, finance, communications, technical, and leadership teams.

• Opportunity to contribute to organizational learning, knowledge management, and the development of evidence-based sector practices.

• Approximately six weeks of annual travel for donor engagement, partnership development, sector representation, and internal planning.