Grant Manager

The Wolf River Conservancy, a nationally accredited land trust founded in 1985 as a grassroots advocacy organization, is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the Wolf River and its watershed as a sustainable natural resource. Through the cooperation of landowners and the generosity of the local community, the WRC has protected 20,000 acres of sensitive wetlands, which provide habitats for a variety of plants, trees, grasses, and flowers and a rich wildlife population.

Lands have been protected through direct purchases, donations, and conservation easements.

The Grants Manager is a highly organized, relationship-focused professional responsible for managing the Wolf River Conservancy’s grant program throughout the full grant lifecycle, including prospect research, proposal development, award administration, reporting, renewal, and closeout. The Grants Manager serves as the central coordinator for grant activity across the organization, ensuring that opportunities align with organizational priorities, submissions and reports are completed on time, grant requirements are communicated clearly, and funder relationships are stewarded with professionalism and care.

The Grants Manager owns the coordination and administration of the grant process; department leaders are responsible for providing accurate program information, outcomes, budgets, expenditures, and supporting documentation within established internal deadlines.

• Serve as the central point of coordination and accountability for the organization’s grant portfolio.
• Manage the grant calendar, submission schedule, reporting deadlines, renewal dates, and closeout requirements.
• Coordinate the full grant lifecycle, including prospect qualification, applications, agreement review, awards, amendments, reporting, renewals, and closeout.
• Facilitate grant kickoff meetings to communicate budgets, deliverables, restrictions, documentation requirements, and internal responsibilities.
• Maintain accurate grant records, revenue projections, probability-weighted pipeline forecasts, and renewal timelines.
• Produce monthly grant revenue, pipeline, and compliance reports for organizational leadership.
• Develop, document, and continuously improve grant-management workflows and internal controls.

• Draft, coordinate, and submit competitive grant proposals, letters of inquiry, corporate funding requests, and post-award reports.
• Translate organizational priorities and program information into clear, persuasive, funder-focused narratives.
• Obtain program descriptions, measurable outcomes, budgets, timelines, and supporting materials from Lands, Outreach, Finance, and other departments.
• Coordinate internal review and approval of proposals and budgets before submission.
• Maintain a current library of organizational information, program narratives, outcomes, statistics, attachments, and standard proposal language.

• Review grant agreements and communicate all financial, programmatic, recognition, and reporting requirements to responsible staff.
• Monitor compliance with grant agreements in partnership with Finance and program leads.
• Track grant expenditures against approved budgets and coordinate budget modifications when necessary.
• Coordinate the collection of receipts, invoices, performance data, photographs, and other required documentation.
• Identify potential reporting, spending, or compliance issues early and coordinate corrective action with leadership.
• Maintain complete, accurate, and audit-ready grant files.

• Research and qualify public, private, corporate, and foundation funding opportunities aligned with organizational priorities.
• Evaluate opportunities based on mission alignment, eligibility, competitiveness, funding potential, restrictions, and staff capacity.
• Support development of the annual grants strategy, revenue goals, and pipeline…