Senior Manager, Grants & Contracts

Senior Manager, Grants & Contracts

Position Location: Flexible

About JFF

Jobs for the Future (JFF) drives transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve economic advancement for all. Seeing that millions of people are unfairly shut out of quality jobs and the chance for a better life, our goal is to align education, workforce, and employment changemakers toward a shared North Star: By 2033, 75 million people facing systemic barriers to advancement will work in quality jobs. To achieve that goal, we design solutions, scale best practices, influence policy and action, and invest in innovation.

With a staff of more than 200 people across the country working remotely and in offices in Boston (headquarters), Washington, DC, and Oakland, California, we operate at the national, state, and local levels, forging deep partnerships with employers, investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and education and workforce development providers to break down barriers and reimagine what’s possible. We’re on a path of ongoing growth and expanding impact. We have an operating budget of $105 million, and we’re funded by dozens of leading government agencies, foundations, and corporations. Learn more about JFF and join us as we build a future that works—for everyone.

About the Position

Reporting to the Senior Director, Government Business Development, the Senior Manager, Grants & Contracts will support JFF’s pursuit and proposal development for mission-aligned federal, state, and/or local grants and contracts (most notably, the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor, and other agencies) as well as institutional and individual funding opportunities, as needed. To ensure that proposals are accurate, competitive, and ultimately successful, the Senior Manager will work closely with other colleagues on the Development Team as well as JFF staff members in program roles who are responsible for executing on these awards.

This role is designed to address critical capacity needs for supporting state and federal contract submissions, including prospecting, opportunity assessment, pre-bid setup and organization, proposal drafting and assembly, and post-award tasks. The work is increasingly proposal operations- and process-heavy, and strong execution capacity in this role will help free senior team leadership to focus on relationships and strategy. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who thrives on being organized, detail oriented, and energized by managing complex, mission-critical projects in a fast-paced government development environment.

What You’ll Do

Project Management of Proposal Process

• Develop proposal templates, proposal elements documents, and timelines.

• Coordinate proposal team meetings to include multiple JFF teams as well as external partners when appropriate.

• Facilitate the request and receipt of resumes and other personnel materials from JFF staff and proposal materials from external partners.

• Coordinate with other JFF departments including Finance for the development of budgets, budget narratives, and budget templates.

• Project manage state and federal contract proposals that are often complex, run on compressed timelines, and require coordination across proposal team members, partners, and functional teams to produce drafts, budgets, letters of commitment, teaming agreements, supplemental documentation, editing, and submission materials.

Contribute to the Overall Effectiveness of JFF’s Development Team

• Develop and/or improve proposal development processes in consultation with the Senior Director.

• Update and create new government proposal templates as needed.

• Manage federal and government proposal/award portals and accounts, including grants.gov, G5, JustGrants, etc., in consultation with the Senior Director.

• Develop and maintain boilerplate language, past performance, and documentation for proposals.

• Assist in monitoring government grant and contract opportunities.

• Support institutional and individual funding opportunities, as needed.

Strengthen Government Development Operations and Execution

• Support prospecting, opportunity assessment, and pre-bid setup and organization for state and federal opportunities.

• Help build strong operational discipline around proposal execution for RFP-driven submissions that require technical understanding of government regulations and processes.

• Contribute to process clarity and execution capacity in a function where the bulk of the work is proposal development and submission.

• Partner with internal colleagues and external contributors to ensure proposal components are complete, well-organized, and submitted on time.