Grantmaking Manager

M4BL Grantmaking Manager

Location: Remote

Reports to: M4BL Director of Finance & Operations

Salary: $100,000 - $110,000  with full health benefits for employee and dependents, employer-funded retirement plan, remote work stipend, and 28 days of vacation

Movement for Black Lives

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) formed in December of 2014 and was created as a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy, cultural and political wins, convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a shared movement wide strategy. M4BL is an ecosystem of more than 150 Black led organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country that have come together with renewed energy, strategy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda. Our ecosystem is united by core values and politics that seek to build an anti-capitalist, abolitionist and Black queer feminist future. The Movement for Black Lives’ budget has grown significantly to meet the needs of the ecosystem and the urgency of this political and cultural moment. M4BL’s donor base now consists of multi-year commitments from diverse funding streams across major individual donors, corporations, private, public and family foundations, trusts, and other assets. In this phase of our growth, M4BL is looking for new staff members to join an expanding finance and operations team.

Position Summary

As a lead member of the finance and operations team, the Grantmaking Manager facilitates the Movement for Black Lives’ work by (A) overseeing the distribution of grants on behalf of the organization, (B) serving as a liaison between finance and program teams, (C) ensuring compliance with IRS and GAAP rules related to giving, and (D) ensuring that all M4BL grantmaking files and data are secure and appropriately accessible. The M4BL Grantmaking Manager reports to the Director of Finance and Operations.

Essential Areas of Work

• Oversee and continue to robustly build M4BL’s grantmaking program in collaboration with fiscal sponsor and M4BL program staff
• Build compliant and culturally appropriate workflows to ensure excellence in M4BL’s grantmaking programs
• Serve as primary liaison on grantmaking with fiscal sponsor
• Document and continue to refine M4BL’s grantmaking protocols
• Support table and department leads in developing grantmaking strategies to support program goals
• Develop and implement necessary systems, processes, and tools to better support the work of M4BL’s grantmaking program and its ability to share information - both internally and externally.
• Perform basic due diligence on potential grantees using an online grants management system
• Service as a primary liaison between grantees, program staff, and finance team
• Oversee grantmaking data collection, retention, and security

Note: The Movement for Black Lives is committed to responding flexibly to changing circumstances and priorities which means that the expectations of every position are dynamic. This description reflects the assignment of essential functions, but does not proscribe or restrict the tasks that may be assigned.

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Prior experience working with Social Justice Movement organizations
• Experience in building out administrative structures
• Minimum of three years of experience working in the area of grants distribution
• Minimum of two years experience using cloud-based grants management platforms

Knowledge, Skills, and Talents:

• Personal alignment with the M4BL’s vision and values
• Skilled at time management and project coordination
• Skilled at recognizing challenges, identifying potential solutions, and communicating challenges and solutions with multiple team members
• Demonstrable excellence in written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to build consensus and relationships among managers, partners, and staff
• Grounded and flexible with a high degree of integrity, transparency, and collaborative ability
• Able to pay close and consistent attention to details and accuracy
• Understanding of grantmaking practices in a non-profit giving environment
• Strong proficiency with data management, review, analysis, documentation, and reporting
• Ability to work on a virtual team, in particular, and juggle multiple projects at once while proactively communicating with all in a virtual environment
• Demonstrated reliability, flexibility, and self-driven follow-up
• Deep commitment to relationship building, team building, and strategic action

Equal Opportunity Workplace

The Movement for Black Lives in partnership with its fiscal sponsor the Common Counsel Foundation is proud to be an equal employment workplace. We welcome and encourage job applicants who are motivated to work with us in addressing social injustice and those who have personal experience with injustice. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on any of the follow factors; race, color, religion (including religious dress and grooming practices), age, sex/gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and/ or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition (genetic characteristics, cancer or a record or history of cancer), military or veteran status, national origin, ancestry, disability (mental and physical including HIV/AIDS, cancer, and genetic characteristics), and genetic information.