Grants and Contracts Manager

The Water Foundation is a nonprofit philanthropy working to support lasting water solutions for communities, economies, and the environment. The Foundation complements strategic grantmaking with creative field-building and engagement with high-level decision makers and community leaders and helps funders identify and act on opportunities to better manage water.

The Water Foundation works in key watersheds across the West, as well as on federal policy, recognizing that water crosses political boundaries and natural places face similar challenges across the country. As a singularly focused water funder, the Water Foundation serves the entire water field, deploying staff expertise to move resources to the groups that can most effectively improve water systems that affect people and nature.

The Water Foundation’s partners span a broad spectrum: conservation organizations, environmental justice groups, agricultural associations, water providers, business groups, and local, tribal, state, and federal agencies.

Inequity and injustice underlie many of the challenges the Water Foundation is working to address, such as the failure to provide clean, safe, and affordable drinking water or access to free-flowing rivers and green space to all communities. The Water Foundation has engaged in a learning initiative to ensure that the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice are embedded and embodied in their individual behavior, institutional operations, and strategic programming.

More information about the Water Foundation can be found erfdn.org.

In 2025, the Water Foundation launched an affiliated 501(c)(4), the Water Action Fund ((Use the "Apply for this Job" box below).) with a mission to ensure access to essential water resources for people and nature by supporting the advancement of local, state, and federal policies that promote public well-being and help U.S. communities prepare for various crises, including natural disasters and other emergencies.

The Water Foundation seeks a Grants and Contracts Manager (Manager) to ensure the effective operations, compliance, and administrative aspects of the Water Foundation’s and Water Action Fund’s outgoing grants and contracts. This role ensures that grants and contracts are processed efficiently, documented accurately, and are in compliance with legal requirements, internal policies, and best practices for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations.

The Manager serves as an administrative point of contact with grantees and consultants ensuring grant applications are complete, responding to inquiries, and providing support for the grants management system. The Manager will also be responsible for ensuring grants and contracts are tracked accurately in the foundation’s financial tracking systems. The Manager reports to the Chief Finance and Operations Officer. This position is exempt and duties include:

• Manage outgoing grants from proposal intake to award, amendments, reporting, and closeout.
• Manage contracts from scope of work intake, amendments, invoice tracking, and closeout.
• Work closely with the Program Team to forecast grantmaking and contract investments for all foundation programs.
• Ensure that grant agreements and contracts are executed legally, appropriately, and efficiently.
• In partnership with the finance and accounting team, provide administrative and financial oversight by ensuring invoices conform to grant or contract terms, and are reviewed, processed, and paid in a timely manner.
• Work with Program Team on project accounting and reconciliation.
• Assist with the creation of quarterly dockets. Research and analyze grant requests; assist with drafting write ups.
• Draft grant agreements and contracts. Perform financial due diligence on potential grantee organizations. Develop templates and formats.
• In coordination with program staff, professionally represent Water Foundation in calls, meetings and correspondence with applicants, grantees, and contractors. Maintain and optimize the grants management system ensuring accurate data entry, and timely workflow routing.

• Track direct and indirect lobbying
• Work…