Teach For India
Position Summary
The Mission of the Development team is to build lifelong champions of the cause and to acquire financial support for the movement. As one of the most external-facing teams, we build high-impact sustainable partnerships and strong champions for the movement through various engagement avenues and immersions with our students, Fellows, Staff, and our Board. The Development team has repurposed fundraising efforts by building strategic partnerships, newer channels of giving, and strong teams and systems resilient to future threats.
Manager, Partnerships and Engagement will be responsible for 100% renewals for a portfolio of existing funders and drive donor reporting and donor engagements.
Team Overview
Teach For India embarks on a bold vision – to create a pipeline of 50,000 leaders by 2032 on the path to developing their own leadership and working towards educational equity in India. This ambitious growth needs to be supported by financial resources which the Development team will help secure in addition to building partnerships that go beyond providing only financial support to fuel this growth.
Development is one of the critical backbones of the organizations as the organization is completely dependent on donations in its current form. The team raises funds from various sources - Corporate CSR will continue to be our mainstay for the immediate and medium-term. We will also be exploring HNIs as our next bet while will continue to cultivate Foundations as our medium-term priority. Over the past year, we have also piloted two online campaigns, and are looking to continue with such campaigns on a yearly basis.
The opportunity - What’s in it for you?
Being a team that works mostly with external stakeholders, our work takes us through a huge learning curve both professionally and personally on relationship management strategies and networking in the sector. We work directly with the Senior Leadership of TFI and our partners are the finest in their respective sectors.
The skill sets - communication, building relationships, data analysis, representation, comfort with systems like Salesforce, etc. - acquired in the role are transferable skills in any domain/sector or for higher education.
Responsibilities
As a Manager, Partnerships and Engagement, you will:
- Serve as the primary relationship manager for long-term and high-potential donors (CSR, Foundations, and Individuals) in the West region and grow existing partnerships through superior engagement, donor delight, branding opportunities, impactful reporting, and regulatory requirements.
- Develop a renewal strategy for maximizing grant/donation sizes to scale Teach For India programs and initiatives in the next decade.
- Execute strong donor reporting requirements via effective impact monitoring and evaluation systems. This would include collecting and analysing data, editing stories from the Fellows, and drafting visually compelling reports.
- Support the Senior Manager and Vertical Head with board engagement and leveraging the leadership team to cultivate donor champions.
Build and sustain operational excellence, at scale:
- Maintaining up-to-date and accurate data on donors in our online CRM system (Salesforce) and driving rigorous usage across regions for renewal/upgrade projections and data-driven insights.
- Adherence to MOU commitments, governance structures and policies like Child Protection Policy, field-trip policies, and educate the team and donors for compliance.
- Ensure quality control in all donor-related systems and processes - Impact Reporting, Stewardship, Audits, Finance, Knowledge management, and due diligence.
Engage with multiple stakeholders:
- Work closely with the Regional Development Lead for planning and strategizing yearly fundraising goals and operations plan, team hiring, and step-backs.
- Work with the Communications and Finance teams for budgeting and to ensure reporting commitments are met, partner with other Vertical Heads and teams (e.g. Alumni Impact, HR, Training & Impact) to maximize Teach For India’s external positioning to support the development goals.
As a Manager at Teach For India
- Contributing to the team goals and priorities beyond individual goals and priorities.
- Serving as an ambassador of the Teach For India brand and an advocate for our work and for educational equity in our country through both internal and external communication after committing time in our classrooms to understand our work more deeply.
- Supporting key organizational areas such as Recruitment, Selection, Fundraising, Volunteering, and Movement Building.
Minimum Qualifications, Experiences and Expectations
- Graduate/Postgraduate in any field
- 3-5 years of relevant work experience in client-facing roles (business development or fundraising)
- Excellent written and verbal communication (Demonstrated excellent written communication by way of proposal or grant writing)
- Strong project management skills (Experience in managing multiple complex projects)
- Commitment to excellence, accuracy and attention to detail
- Experience in driving operations in high-pressure, goal-driven environments
- Experience in collaborating effectively with a broad range of individuals and groups
- Experiences and examples of having taken initiative in the past
