Grants Specialist

At this time, we are only accepting internal Water Mission employee applications for this position.

Who is Water Mission?

Water Mission is a nonprofit Christian engineering organization that designs, builds, and implements safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas. Guided by love, excellence, and integrity, we are driven to share clean, safe water and God’s love with all. To date, we have served more than 7 million people in 57 countries. 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 Grants Specialist manages small and large-scale corporate and institutional partnerships in a growing and diversifying Global Partnerships portfolio to help Water Mission achieve its funding goals. This role is the point person for all stages of the grant cycle, from prospecting through completion reporting, leveraging technology to create and sustain best practices for grant management. This includes developing high-quality proposals, ensuring compliance with rules and regulations, donor reporting, grants information management, and capacity-building efforts. The position is also responsible for providing regular support and guidance to project cycle management.

The Grants Specialist position reports to the Senior Director, Global Partnerships, and works closely with Partnerships Directors and other staff in the Partnerships and Communications (P&C) department. This is a full-time, remote position with East Coast or Central Time zone preferred.

A successful Grants Specialist will:

• Maintain a strong Christian witness to colleagues, donors, volunteers, and the public.

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

• Effectively communicate the mission and scope of Water Mission to various audiences.

• Develop and maintain up-to-date and in-depth knowledge of donor and government policies and support implementing teams to ensure full compliance.

• Develop and maintain a grant and request for proposals (RFP) pipeline system to track potential opportunities and align them with annual fundraising and partnership goals and targets.

• Organize and facilitate grant opening, review, and closing meetings.

• Lead donor reporting processes by coordinating, compiling, editing, and providing feedback to ensure the development of high-quality narratives and timely submissions.

• Plan and coordinate the development of high-quality funding proposals, including narratives, budgets, budget narratives, work plans, and other required annexes.

• Support the GP team in identifying new funding opportunities in line with the Water Mission strategy, including regular mapping of relevant donors, researching donor priorities and interests, and monitoring calls for proposals and proposal/grant cycles at donor level.

• Support the development, updating, and implementation of the GP fundraising strategy and donor engagement plan.

• Streamline and coordinate grants management processes, ensuring the effective kick-off, review, amendment, reporting, and closeout of all grants.

• Work closely with the Project Accountant and Programs Managers to monitor progress on spending and activities across all grants through monthly reviews of budgets and activity reports. Help facilitate timely implementation and spend-down of budgets by identifying areas of potential over/underspending and mitigation measures.

• Maintain up-to-date and in-depth knowledge of donor rules and regulations and support implementing teams to ensure full compliance.

• Draft, review, and provide support in the negotiation of grant agreements, teaming agreements, and memoranda of understanding.

• Lead donor reporting processes by coordinating, compiling, editing, and providing feedback to ensure the development of high-quality narratives and timely submissions.

What is required?

• Personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior.
• Alignment with Water Mission’s Statement of Faith and core values of Love, Excellence, and Integrity.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• 3-5 years of relevant experience in grant management/coordination, program development, fundraising in humanitarian settings compiling donor proposals, modification requests, and reports.
• Practical experience in working with USAID/BHA, UNICEF, UNHCR, and/or other institutional donors, and private foundations preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize large workloads, consistently meet deadlines, and adapt in a complex and challenging work environment.
• Demonstrate ability to think creatively and practically to improve the quality of projects.
• Excellent communication, coordination, influencing, and interpersonal skills, with an ability to represent Water Mission effectively and professionally with donors, partners, and stakeholders.
• Ability to develop scope of work and budgets and monitor spending against budgets.
• Experience in project management/coordination with strong proficiency and experience working with PM tools/software, like Smartsheet preferred.
• Fluent in written and spoken English.
• Fluency in a second language is preferred.
• Ability to work within a multi-cultural/diverse team.
• Ability to work effectively and efficiently both independently and in teams.
• Excellent organizational and analytical skills with high attention to detail.
• Demonstrated advanced knowledge of MS Excel, including pivot tables.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, including presentation skills.
• Experience with grant management software, Razor’s Edge, Canva, and mWater are a plus.
• Ability to thrive in a highly fluid environment and respond to changing requests.
• Commitment to the values and mission of the organization and ending the global water crisis.
• Home internet bandwidth strong enough to support video conferencing and other job-related responsibilities.
• Legal authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship.