Partnerships Manager

DonorsChoose engages the public in public schools by giving people a simple, accountable, and personal way to address educational inequity. In this clip, board member Stephen Colbert tells our story.

To date, teachers at 83% of all the public schools in America have posted classroom project requests on our site. Projects range from paper and markers for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital. More than 4 million “citizen philanthropists” have supported such projects, channeling books, field trips, technology, and other resources to more than 40 million students nationwide. In all, we’ve generated $1 billion for learning experiences designed by our country’s most dedicated public school teachers.

GOOD Magazine highlighted us as one of 30 Places We Want to Work, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Through its dedicated team and culture, DonorsChoose earned recognition as the #1 "Best Nonprofit to Work For" by the Nonprofit Times.

About the Partnerships Team

Our team raises funds for teachers and students by designing and executing philanthropic partnerships with corporations and foundations. This year, we aim to raise $42M for public school classrooms through creative, collaborative partnerships with our institutional donors. We especially focus on partnerships that address racial and socioeconomic inequity in education by reaching our Equity Focus Schools -- those where 50%+ of students identify as Black, Latino, or Native American and 50%+ of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. (More about our partnerships.)

About the Role

As Partnerships Manager, you’ll work on relationships with companies and foundations who partner at the $100,000-$250,000 level, drive meaningful business and impact outcomes for those partners, and grow support for classrooms over time.  

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
  • Write and compile compelling emails, proposals, and grants, and to prepare for partner meetings.
  • 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 join our equity focus.
  • Learn our team’s approaches to business-to-business sales and fundraising, and use them to seek opportunities for growth and deeper commitment from your portfolio of 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. 
• Manage best-in-class partner campaigns
  • Work directly with corporate and foundation partners and lead cross-functional teams to meet partner goals, impact milestones, and organizational priorities 
  • Deliver excellent operational outcomes for streamlined partner campaigns 
  • Analyze and present data and stories to illustrate partners’ impact
  • Own and maintain partnership records, continuously updating key details and logging emails, calls, and meeting notes in Salesforce
• Contribute to team
  • All team members share best practices around project management, campaign execution and sales and partnership strategies, along with supporting teammates when needed
  • Support the development of documentation, tools, and systems to scalably manage the $100k-$250k portfolio as it continues to grow.
  • You’ll also play a key role in our evolution to more directly address racial inequity in education through our partnerships. 

Who You Are

• 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 you’re excited to learn more and engage partners with our equity focus. 
• You enjoy making someone’s day. It could be exceeding their expectations on a business commitment. Or it might be something small, like sending them an article you read that made you think of them. You ask great questions and are a close-listener because you care what people think, and you like to learn from them. 
• You have strong project management skills and a history of leading projects or campaigns that involved multiple stakeholders and lots of moving pieces. 
• You’re process-oriented, skilled at juggling multiple projects simultaneously and are excited about building processes that ensure efficiency and centralized management of 100+ partnerships. 
• You’re a fast learner who is detail-oriented and extremely organized. A robust Google doc, new project planning tools, and Salesforce tasks/reports make you want to jump for joy.
• You are self-motivated with a problem-solving, solution-focused philosophy. You find the “yes” in every situation, you work to provide an incredible experience to anyone you support, and you love finding the best way for all parties to achieve their objectives.
• You share our core values of relentlessness, user focus, flexibility, ingenuity, teamwork, and transparency, with a dash of humility and fun.
• Nice to have but not required: experience assisting with fundraising, sales, customer success and/or revenue-driving work. You know what it takes to consult with partners on their goals and can inspire a partner to commit funding to an initiative. 

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation for this role is competitive with equivalent roles at other nonprofits of our size. 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, FL, GA, IL, IN, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OR, TX, or WI.

DonorsChoose is a fully vaccinated workplace and all new employees, regardless of their work location, will be asked to share proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 within two weeks of their hire date or request an exemption from this policy due to a disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice.

To Apply

Please submit your resume online and answer the application questions. A cover letter is optional and may be addressed to Tonisha Nicholls, VP 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.