Grants Manager

Reports To: Director of Resource Development

Work Days and Hours: Full-Time-Exempt, 40 hours a week

Work Location: Hybrid/Onsite

Compensation: $75,000 - $100,000

About Life Pieces To Masterpieces

Life Pieces To Masterpieces (Life Pieces, LPTM) is a high-impact nonprofit in the DC metro area, with national and international recognition. Since 1996, Life Pieces has been dedicated to unlocking the full potential of Black young men and boys living in DC’s Wards 7 and 8, with the goal of developing young leaders who will impact their community and contribute to positive change in the world. LPTM’s intensive out-of-school-time programming fosters young men’s creative, academic, social-emotional, physical and civic development from age 3 through college and beyond. At Life Pieces, they find a safe haven in which to discover and activate their innate creative ability to turn life challenges into opportunities for self-determination, resilience, and success.

Position Overview

Life Pieces To Masterpieces (LPTM) is in search of a Grants Manager. This position will report to and work closely with the Director of Resource Development. The Grants Manager oversees LPTM foundation and government grant strategy and execution. This position is responsible for leading LPTM through the grants process, from prospecting to project management to writing and compliance. The portfolio of grant proposals and reports is currently approximately 125 submissions annually, with foundation and government grants making up a substantial portion of the organization’s annual revenue. This role will help LPTM continue to grow this community of funders.

This position will also work closely with the Data & Evaluation Manager to synthesize impact data from our programs into compelling and accurate reports for grants and general annual reporting to a variety of stakeholders.

The ideal candidate is a strong writer and strong project manager with a genuine interest and care for remaining current on the successes, needs, and goals of LPTM’s daily on-the-ground programming. They communicate effectively across all platforms, understand and implement the detailed work of grant management, and contribute positively to the team as everyone works together to achieve annual revenue goals.

Candidates who have a shared identity and/or lived experience with the young people we serve will be prioritized.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Grant Research and Grant Writing:

• Prospect research to ensure LPTM has a robust pipeline of local, regional, and national grant opportunities to pursue.
• Opportunity vetting to ensure LPTM is deliberate and selective in what it applies for and when. The Grants Manager is evaluative and research-oriented, seeking out and considering information about a Grantmaker’s scope, mission, and existing funding portfolio to weigh LPTM’s fit for a given opportunity at a given time.
• First-draft thinking that will advise the Director of Resource Development and Executive Director on grant application scope and requested amount, enabling high-quality and highly effective proposals that reap substantial financial resources for LPTM.
• High-quality writing that provides the Director of Resource Development with a consistent foundation of dynamic, reader-friendly, and accurate proposal/report narrative free of typos, jargon, and outdated prose.
• Accurate tracking and reporting of scope and expenditures for many simultaneous active grants. The Grants Manager will liaise with the Data and Evaluation Manager, Director of Programs and Education, and Director of Finance and Operations to ensure that all requisite data is tracked and accurately reported to collect data and complete grant narrative and financial reports on schedule.

Operations and Project Management:

• Project management to keep the leadership, development, and program teams current on and prepared for all upcoming applications, reports, and information needs.
• Organizing files and documents, keeping consistently up-to-date files on proposal and report submissions, organizational attachments, grant award letters, reporting templates, deadlines, complimentary stakeholder reports, and other documents/files as requested.
• Maintenance and monitoring of a detailed and comprehensive grants calendar for application and reporting deadlines, status and progress tracking.
• Interaction with finance department for grant budgets, spending reports, and the grants allocation process.
• Management of grant portals/ logins and management of electronic posting of grant applications and reports; uploading narrative, data, and required attachments through online portals as necessary.
• Relationship management in Salesforce to ensure all grant opportunities, contacts and relationship notes, and tasks are current and well-detailed.
• Pipeline management in Salesforce to ensure that all grants have open opportunities that are properly staged and set to close according to the grant calendar and all steps to completing each grant application have been set as tasks and assigned accordingly.
• Design and update a grants progress-to-goal report so that the development dashboard remains current for all grant opportunities and annual budget goals are tracked.
• Revenue tracking of installments of grant funds received in Salesforce

Qualifications

We encourage applications from strong candidates, even if your experience in development does not exactly match with the position description. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you to help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.

• An advocate for elevating underrepresented youth
• 4-6 years of nonprofit grant writing experience
• Experience writing all types of grants, from general operating and to program- specific, and foundation and government
• Experience writing 6 to 7-figure grants
• A born project manager with a knack for working backwards from a deadline to create a work plan for multiple co-occurring projects
• Scrupulously punctual and diligently mindful of deadlines
• accustomed to working on multiple projects with different deadlines simultaneously
• A succinct and directive communicator
• A natural information-sharer so that everyone is always looped in
• A fanatic for follow-up so that you get what you need, when you need it
• A writer by heart and interest who can strategically tailor tone, voice, and style to appeal to a diverse audience of stakeholders for different purposes at different times
• A collegial editor, who can offer specific, encouraging feedback to bring a piece of writing to its best iteration, entirely free of typos, inconsistencies, and outdated information
• A strong self-motivator
• Must pass pre-employment background check

Life Pieces To Masterpieces Dress Code

At LPTM we are striving to not only provide a space of love, security, and expression but to also create community for our Apprentices through how we show up. To that end, all LPTM staff follow a dress code that includes wearing LPTM-provided polo shirts, bottoms that are free of rips or tears, wearing closed-toed shoes, and not having visible tattoos (LPTM can provide sleeves for cover if necessary). The full dress code expectations will be shared and discussed with candidates as part of the interview process.

To Apply

Interested applicants should send an email to

Careers@lifepieces.org with “Grants Manager” in the subject line and include:

• A cover letter that includes:
  • Your mission alignment with our work
  • Your salary requirements
  • Your available start date
• Resume
• A grant LOI (1-2 pages) that has been authored by the candidate from a prior position. You may anonymize the text to remove the nonprofit and/or foundation’s name if needed

Access, Equity, and Inclusion

Life Pieces To Masterpieces provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Life Pieces To Masterpieces complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in Washington, DC.