Global Partnerships Support Specialist

Who is Water Mission?

Water Mission is a Christian engineering nonprofit that builds sustainable, safe water solutions for people in developing countries, refugee camps, and disaster areas. Since 2001, Water Mission has served more than 8 million people in 59 countries, sharing safe water and the message of God’s love. Water Mission’s global headquarters is in North Charleston, SC, and the organization has more than 450 staff members based in Africa; Asia; North, South, and Central America; and the Caribbean. Charity Navigator has awarded Water Mission its top four-star rating 15 years in a row, a distinction shared by only 1% of the charities rated by the organization. Working at Water Mission is as much a calling as it is a career, and we are searching for people with the courage, passion, and drive to help us change the world. Read more about our Statement of Faith and Christian Mission.

What is the opportunity?

The Partnerships Support Specialist will play a crucial role within the Global Partnerships (GP) team to help Water Mission achieve its funding goals. The Partnerships Support Specialist will spend approximately 50% of his or her time supporting the GP team’s operations and effectiveness. The role also includes a 40% focus on support activities related to partner engagement, including assisting the Senior Director and other Partnership Directors in direct partner engagement, prospect research, and making initial discovery contacts. The final element of this role is 10% general administrative support, including scheduling meetings, supporting presentation and agenda development, and coordinating logistics as needed for the team.

The GP team, which includes Corporate and Institutional Partnerships Directors, has distinct strategies to develop impactful relationships with Water Mission’s corporate and institutional (government, United Nations, NGO) partners. The Partnerships Support Specialist reports to the Senior Director of Global Partnerships. This is a full-time, remote position based in Charleston, SC, or from the East Coast of the United States in the Eastern Time Zone. It will require travel in the United States and international travel to remote locations in developing countries.

A successful Global Partnerships Support Specialist will:

General Duties

• Maintain a strong Christian witness to colleagues, partners, volunteers, the public, and those we serve.

• Engage and participate in prayer before and after team meetings.

• Lead and participate in biblically based staff devotions.

• Maintain high-level knowledge of Water Mission’s organizational objectives, programmatic strategies, projects, and activities.

• Effectively communicate about the global water crisis and Water Mission’s solutions, vision, mission, and values to various audiences.

50% GP Operational Support:

Support the GP team's operations to maximize effectiveness within the organization. This includes both (1) process design and maintenance plus (2) project management of targeted efforts.

• Process Design and Maintenance: Assist the Senior Director’s efforts to develop and optimize team operations. This includes workflows, processes, information access and flow, organizational integration, culture development, and more.

  • Reporting: Set up and maintain dashboard reports for the management team and Partnership Directors reflecting ongoing activities and outcomes. Ensure information is captured that reflects the team’s efforts versus its goals.
  • Dashboards & Metrics: Work with internal stakeholders to develop dashboard reports showing the team’s progress toward performance metrics. This includes the use of Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge software.
  • Proposal Development: Support the Partnerships Directors in processes related to proposal development, including grant proposals, funding applications, and concept notes. Help coordinate data collection, accurate messaging, proposal design, and final review.  Assist the team with scheduling proposal development and tracking.
  • Impact Reporting: Support the Partnership Directors as they develop impact reports for corporate and institutional donors. This includes scheduling the reports when the gift is committed and tracking Programs’ implementation against the grant. It also includes developing reports with beneficiary impact, financial performance, variance commentary, and impact stories and photos. Coordinate design, review process, and delivery.
  • Revenue Tracking: Work with Partnership Directors to ensure accurate tracking of revenue forecasts, receiving, and gift designations in Raiser’s Edge and other tools as needed.

• Project Management: Assist with projects that develop the GP team’s operational environment.

  • Systems & Processes: Develop SOPs and business processes that improve team effectiveness and integration within the organization, including utilization of Smartsheet software.
  • Training & Support: Work with colleagues to ensure effective use of the systems, including Raiser’s Edge software. Help guide team implementation and change management.
  • Internal Liaison: Work closely with internal stakeholders within and across divisions, including Finance, Information Technology, and more.

40% Partner Engagement Support:

Support the Senior Director and Corporate/Institutional Partnerships Directors to advance corporate and institutional partnerships.

• Partner Engagement
  • Work directly with partners on specific tasks based on assignments from the Senior Director.
  • Assist with events and host visitors to Charleston headquarters.
  • Support in getting partnership agreements signed.
• Partner Coordination
  • Facilitate internal communication on corporate partnerships that involve multiple stakeholders. These include charitable giving, employee engagement, marketing support, gift-in-kind, vision trips, and more.
• Prospect Vetting
  • Online research to vet leads and discover new potential partners.
  • Initial engagement conversations with potential partner leads.

10% General Administration

• Team meetings: Schedule meetings and work with department leadership to plan agendas and assign facilitators. Meetings are planned weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.
• Support Senior Director: Support Senior Global Partnership Director on action items and preparing documents, reports, and presentations.
• Event support: Coordinate travel logistics for events.

What is required?

• Personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

• Alignment with Water Mission’s Statement of Faith and core values of Love, Excellence, and Integrity.

• Bachelor’s degree required.

• At least five years of work experience, with two or more years of experience interfacing with external constituents. Experience in nonprofit preferred.

• Strong aptitude for process design, production efficiency, and ongoing systems maintenance.

• Skilled in effective relationship building across internal teams and externally.

• Ability to effectively navigate throughout an organization and corporate partner landscape.

• Superior organizational skills, work quality, and attention to detail.

• Experience working with donor database platforms (Raiser’s Edge experience preferred) and with project management software (Smartsheet experience preferred).

• Ability to thrive in a highly fluid environment and respond to changing requests.

• Ability to travel  2-3 times domestically and once internationally per year, with trips lasting roughly one week at a time. International trips require riding in long car rides on rough terrain and standing for extended periods of time in hot weather.

• Legal authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship.

• Home internet bandwidth strong enough to support video conferencing and other job-related responsibilities is required.

• Commitment to the values and mission of the organization and ending the global water crisis.