Donor Relations & Grants Manager

Position Summary

The Donor Relations & Grant Manager supports the organization’s philanthropic goals through effective donor stewardship, major gift support, grant management, and development operations. This position manages an assigned portfolio of major donors, coordinates personalized cultivation and stewardship activities, and oversees the grant calendar and portfolio to ensure timely, accurate, and compliant submissions and reports. The position works collaboratively with the Vice President of Philanthropy, fundraising team, program staff, finance, and organizational leadership to strengthen donor relationships, develop compelling funding proposals, identify funding opportunities, and maintain accurate development records.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

• Assist in the cultivation and stewardship of major donors, including personalized engagement, stewardship activities, donor communications, and follow-up, in collaboration with the philanthropy team.
• Collaborate with the fundraising team to develop and implement donor stewardship strategies and individualized stewardship plans for key donors.
• Coordinate donor visit follow-up, including action items, next steps, and communication among fundraising staff and leadership.
• Conduct and coordinate personalized donor acknowledgments, including thank-you calls, emails, handwritten notes, birthday messages, scholarship communications, tribute gift follow-up, and other stewardship touchpoints.
• Monitor donor activity and identify meaningful opportunities for engagement in collaboration with the fundraising team.
• Manage stewardship and re-engagement efforts for LYBUNT and SYBUNT donors, with particular attention to lapsed major donors.
• Support Annual Fund stewardship and other donor engagement initiatives as needed.
• Oversee the organization's grant calendar and grant portfolio, ensuring applications, reports, renewals, and deadlines are clearly assigned, tracked, and monitored.
• Track grant progress and provide reminders, coordination, and support to ensure timely and accurate submissions.
• Draft, edit, and review grant proposals, applications, letters of inquiry, reports, funder updates, and related communications as needed.
• Collaborate with program, finance, and fundraising staff to gather information, outcomes, data, budgets, and supporting documentation required for proposals and reports.
• Work with the fundraising team to identify fundable projects, develop compelling project narratives, assist with grant budgets, and align funding opportunities with organizational priorities.
• Monitor grant requirements, deliverables, and reporting obligations to ensure compliance.
• Coordinate internal review and approval processes for grant applications and reports.
• Ensure highly strategic funding opportunities and proposals requiring significant organizational commitments are reviewed and approved by the Vice President of Philanthropy prior to submission.
• Maintain organized grant files, documentation, correspondence, and submission records.
• Support the integrity and management of major donor and grant records within the CRM, ensuring activities, opportunities, actions, relationships, and related documentation are accurate, complete, and current.
• Monitor major donor and grant records for completeness and accuracy, working proactively with team members to ensure timely data entry and appropriate documentation of fundraising activities.
• Serve as a liaison with the database team to support gift processing, reporting, and tracking functions related to major gifts and grants.
• Review batch transaction reports as a secondary quality-control check, ensuring accuracy and completeness prior to distribution to the finance team.
• Coordinate the scanning, distribution, and retention of batch documentation and related records in accordance with organizational procedures.
• Monitor donor and grant portfolios and prompt team members when actions, opportunities, follow-ups, reports, or other activities have not been entered or completed.
• Assist with development reports, portfolio tracking, donor activity reports, grant tracking, and other information needed to support fundraising strategy, stewardship, and decision-making.
• Help ensure major gift and grant records are current, accurate, complete, and appropriately documented.

Other Duties: Please note this job description is designed to cover typical listing of activities, duties and/or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.