Research & Grants Officer

About this position

The Opportunity

The McCall MacBain Foundation is seeking two highly driven emerging professionals to join our team as Research & Grants Officers. The Officers will help manage our relationships with grantees doing outstanding work across our three funding areas – Education, Environment & Climate Change, and Health. The Youth Lead will focus on our work in Education and in Youth Well-being and Mental Health. The Climate Lead will focus on our work in Climate Change & Environment. The Officers will stay up to date on evidence, trends, and relevant initiatives in their respective areas of focus as well as on the work that our grantees and potential grantees are doing. The Officers will help us learn from grantees, and share their work and insights through various communications channels and opportunities to bring together grantees and partners.

Working with a small, motivated team in a warm, open office in downtown Toronto, the Research & Grants Officers will report to the VP Philanthropy & Organizational Learning, and will collaborate closely with all team members.

The Foundation

The McCall MacBain Foundation is an international philanthropic foundation whose mission is to improve the welfare of humanity by providing scholarships and other educational opportunities that nurture transformational leadership, and by investing in evidence-based strategies to address climate change, preserve our natural environment, and improve health outcomes.

We believe in the power of education, and scholarships in particular, to transform lives and in turn transform our communities to be fairer, healthier, and more prosperous for all. We believe that climate change is the single most pressing problem facing our planet and that we must all do our part to address it. And we believe in an evidence-based approach to supporting youth mental health and well-being.

The Candidate

You are passionate and energetic, and looking to direct your talents to causes you care deeply about. You have dedicated some of your energies – whether through academics, work experience, or extra-curriculars – either to Youth-related or Climate Change-related work.  When you read about our work and our grantees, you want to learn more about what they do, how, why, and with what impact. You’re excited to seek out other organizations whose work looks interesting and that we could learn from and support.

You have great written communications skills. Whether you’re writing a briefing document or a tweet, you are clear and compelling.

You have some additional skillsets or are excited to grow them (you don’t need to be good at or interested in all of these things, but please do tell us which of them resonates most for you):

• You are organized and details oriented and like to run things with precision and effectiveness. You are excited at the prospect of running events – developing agendas, preparing materials, arranging for venues, logistics, etc.
• You are interested in telling stories of impact. You would be excited to continue building out our systems for tracking the impact of our grantees, and to take that data and translate it into stories that share our work, the work of our grantees, and our lessons learned with relevant stakeholders

Most of all, you are excited to join a team that you can learn from and contribute to and with whom you can achieve shared goals. Our work is growing – this is a place where you can grow, too.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Develop a deep understanding of trends, research, and ongoing initiatives in your area of focus (e.g. Youth or Climate Change) and keep our team updated on your learnings
• Identify and research potential grantees whose work we might support through our strategic funds
• Manage the timely flow of our grants cycle, from receiving grant proposals, to making grant recommendations to our Board, to finalizing grant agreements with grantees, and supporting their work through regular engagement
• Communicate with grantees, including setting up meetings, preparing agendas and briefing materials, capturing action items from meetings and ensuring timely follow up
• Keep up to date with the work of grantees including through social media tracking; keep our team up to date through regular verbal and written briefings
• Identify opportunities to share the work of our grantees through our own social media and communications channels
• Support the Foundation’s role in various funder and sector-based communities
• Organize events and meetings with community members, government, non-profit organizations, political leaders, and others
• Prepare written communications for Board documents, newsletters and other internal and external media

Job Requirements

The ideal candidate is a self-starter and will be an energetic team member. More specifically, we are looking for:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated analytical skills and ability to prepare clear and concise reports
• Demonstrated ability to establish and manage relationships with diverse stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to work on diverse projects and activities simultaneously
• Strong planning, organization, and coordination skills
• Must have extreme attention to detail
• Be agile, creative
• Exercise sound judgement and discretion in all aspects of work and professional relationships, including managing confidential information
• Demonstrated ability to work under pressure, and to meet deadlines
• Ability to give and take constructive feedback
• Sense of humour
• Curiosity and desire to learn
• Bilingualism (English/French) is an asset
• Experience with Salesforce or another CRM software is an asset

Education

• Post-secondary degree, master’s degree an asset

Eligibility

Employees must be legally authorized to work in Canada. For the health and safety of our team, employees must also be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to access the office.

Salary

Base salary of $55,000-65,000 based on experience, plus a performance-based bonus, matched RRSP contribution, and a comprehensive benefits package including health and dental.

Closing

Sunday, November 6, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. We will review applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

To Apply

To apply for this position, please forward your CV and personalized cover letter to the attention of Alex Conliffe at hiring@headlandsinstitute.ca. Your cover letter should identify in a few sentences which position you are most interested in (Youth or Climate Change & Environment Lead and why). It should identify the aspect of our Foundation’s work that is of greatest interest to you. Applications that do not include this information will not be screened. Your cover letter should be no more than one page in length.

We thank you for your interest in this position. Please note that we will only contact those invited to interview.