Senior Manager; Strategic Partnerships

Employment type: Full-time; 12 months

Classification: Exempt

Location: Remote

Average Salary: $95,000 + Up to $30K in Performance Bonuses

About Children’s Literacy Initiative:
Founded in Philadelphia in 1988, Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI) is a national 501c3 working to advance equity in public education in the U.S. by ensuring Black and Latinx children achieve reading success by the end of third grade. CLI accomplishes this through job-embedded coaching and professional development, seminars and workshops, and providing the books and materials teachers and children need along their early literacy journeys.

Learning to read has significance beyond building skills – it is an act of liberation. By helping educators learn and apply high-impact, culturally sustaining instructional strategies and nurturing dynamic professional learning communities, CLI is building lasting capacity in teachers and principals to advance equity in education

Position Summary

The CLI Senior Manager; Strategic Partnerships focuses on prospect research, lead generation, and outreach engagement to grow CLI’s business development and philanthropic pipelines. This role plays a critical part in identifying, engaging, and qualifying potential partners while supporting strategic networking efforts.

Responsibilities:

- Prospect Research & Lead Generation

• Identify and conduct prospective partner research, identifying new client districts and funding opportunities.
• Generate leads and build client and partner relationships by visiting clients, attending conferences and industry events, and discussing our services with potential clients
• Lead pre-contract collection of context information and collaborative planning with current and potential partners
• Project manage the completion of basic proposals for school, district, and state-level projects, including facilitating proposal planning sessions
• Contribute to the authorship of large proposals in response to district and state-level RFPs
• Maintain an updated database of potential philanthropic and district leads.
• Manage and optimize CLI’s CRM (HubSpot) to track efforts towards revenue generation.

- Outreach & Engagement

• Conduct email and LinkedIn outreach to new client districts and prospective donors.
• Develop tailored engagement strategies to increase response rates.

- Lead Qualification & Scheduling

• Assess and qualify prospective partners, determining alignment with CLI’s mission and services.
• Schedule introductory meetings with senior leadership for high-potential leads.

- Networking & Event Support

• Assist in coordinating CLI’s presence at networking events, conferences, and webinars.
• Help plan and execute client and donor engagement strategies at key industry events.

- Promotional & Outreach Activities

• Collaborate with Marketing & Partnerships to support promotional campaigns.
• Coordinate advertising, sponsorship activities, and collateral distribution for visibility in both client and donor networks.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 5+ years of experience building and maintaining strong partnerships and client relationships in the K-12 education sector, ideally with systems leaders
• Strong communication and relationship-building skills
• Understanding of business development and sales pipelines
• Ability to research and analyze potential opportunities
• Organizational skills to track multiple leads and conversations
• Experience developing proposals and presentations for K-12 education sector projects
• Experience managing multiple projects and the ability to handle competing deadlines
• Experience working across multiple teams and influencing stakeholders
• Ability to adapt and respond quickly to changing landscapes and work well under pressure
• Attention to detail
• An “all hands-on deck” colleague who is willing to dig into the details
• A creative, solution-oriented problem-solver
• A bachelor’s degree