Senior Manager of Partnerships and Advocacy; NMEF

Posted on June 11, 2020

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) champions efforts that prioritize community goals that challenge racial inequities and advance excellent, student-centered public education for all New England youth.

As the largest philanthropy in New England dedicated exclusively to education, we work to ensure that all youth have access to excellent and equitable public education that prepares them to succeed and thrive in community. Our new grantmaking strategy, announced in early 2020, centers on racial equity in public education and includes grant funds for:

• Supporting Organizations Led By People of Color;
• Amplifying Youth Voice;
• Building Movements and Networks;
• Strengthening State and National Coalitions; and
• Championing Student-Centered Learning.

In addition to our grantmaking, we are committed to using our voice, privilege, and power to advance and advocate for racial equity in our education system and to identify, call out, and dismantle the systems and policies that have led to a disproportionate number of negative outcomes for people of color. In all of our work, we have committed to a race-equity-focused and community-centered approach.

We commit to actively engaging with the communities we serve, and those most impacted, regarding solutions, investments, and resources for their community.

Headquartered in Quincy, MA, our team is comprised of mission-driven professionals who share a commitment to putting youth and communities at the forefront, operating with a racial equity lens, building collaborative relationships, supporting community-driven change, and continuing to learn, adapt, and improve.

The Senior Manager of Partnerships and Advocacy (Senior Manager) is a new role, designed to help us create and implement our vision for engagement and partnerships at the local, state, regional, and national levels. As we move forward with our new organizational mission, vision, values, and grantmaking strategy, our growing engagement, partnerships, and advocacy portfolio reflects our increased focus on taking a community-centered stance and using our position to amplify work that is being done to advance racial equity in education.

The incoming Senior Manager will report to and partner with the Director of Engagement and Partnerships and work closely with the Communications team—to identify and prioritize opportunities for NMEF's external engagement, and they will support staff, leadership, and board members in their involvement with these activities, ensuring that our involvement is well-executed, evaluated, and fully-realized. The Senior Manager will also directly build, nurture, and monitor working relationships with key partners to ensure innovative, impactful partnership and advocacy initiatives and platforms.

Specifically, the Senior Manager will:

• Work closely with the Director of Engagement and Partnerships to recommend, shape, and carry out a shared vision for engagement, partnerships, and advocacy that will amplify NMEF's mission, vision, and values
• Support NMEF in building and nurturing strategic partnerships at the local, regional, and national level
• Develop ideas for programmatic efforts and provide leadership to implement them, including campaign support, policy advocacy, capacity building, grantmaking, and movement building
• Monitor state and local education policy activity, including legislation, ballot initiatives, and referenda related to campaigns supported by the Foundation
• Maintain a high level of knowledge of the most effective strategies and current thinking around advocacy, partnerships, and engagement work in the education and social change fields and lead staff and board in incorporating this information into their work
• Partner with Communications colleagues to align activities across communications, advocacy, and partnerships
• Support staff, grantees, and other partners in identifying and executing partnerships and advocacy efforts that are aligned with NMEF and grantee goals and outcomes
• Work with the learning, research, and evaluation team to monitor…