Associate Manager, Corporate Grants

The Associate Manager, Corporate Grants provides administrative and programmatic support to the Main Street America (MSA) team to execute our largest grantmaking programs, the Backing Small Businesses Grant Program sponsored by American Express Foundation and the Hometown Grants Program sponsored by T-Mobile.  Additionally, the Associate Manager will support the work of the grant making department at MSA, Strategic Projects, by helping to test, build out, and execute new systems and technology integrations to increase our efficiency as our grantmaking grows, as well as ensuring our grant programs have equitable and impactful outcomes.  

The Associate Manager, Corporate Grants will serve as the main contact and coordinator for the Backing Small Businesses Grant Program.  With oversight, the Associate Manager will manage all major components of administering the grant program, including application development, marketing and engagement of strategic community partners to promote the program, application review and scoring, management of the disbursement of all grant funds, and grantee reporting and data compilation.  These responsibilities will require coordinating and working with multiple internal and external program partners.  Strong communication skills are also required to manage the general email inbox and phone and answer questions about the grant program, provide guidance on navigating Main Street America’s application portal, and support applicants with properly completing required financial paperwork. 

The Associate Manager, Corporate Grants will also support the Manager of Strategic Projects in updating application review and grantee reporting processes and software integrations for managing the T-Mobile Hometown Grant Program.  The successful candidate for this position will need to be proficient with a number of software applications to manage both grant programs, including Submittable (Main Street America’s application management platform), DocuSign, AirTable, and the Microsoft Office Suite.   

The Associate Manager needs to be teamwork oriented as the successful candidate will actively collaborate with the Strategic Projects team, corporate funders, grant program reviewers, applicants, and grantees.  The Associate Manager also supports the Strategic Projects department team in scaling their full suite of grantmaking, loan, and technical assistance programs that serve communities throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. In alignment with Main Street America’s comprehensive ‘four-point’ approach to community development, our programs and engagements with grantees span a range of topical areas, including BIPOC community engagement and equity; transportation planning; entrepreneurial ecosystem building; preservation-based revitalization; disaster preparation; placemaking. 

Backing Small Businesses Program Management (70%) 

• Under the supervision of the Director of Strategic Projects and in collaboration with the grantmaking team in the Department, help develop and manage MSA’s approach to executing the Backing Small Businesses Grant Program:   

• Help improve and execute a program management system to successfully complete the 2024 Enhancement Grant round and the 2025 General Grant round of the program, including documenting all management methodologies and software integrations so best practices can be applied to other corporate grant programs.  

• Update all program applications, including eligibility requirements and applicant screening mechanisms. 

• Oversee the application review stage, including assigning applications to reviewers, compiling scores, and getting a set of top scoring applications to the funder for review. 

• Work with the Strategic Projects and Finance teams to set up all grantees as vendors and disburse grant funds. 

• For all applicants, send out grant award and rejection letters.   

• For all grantees, send out subgrant agreements and financial paperwork and oversee the successful execution of those files.  

• Build out and manage a program tracking database in AirTable. 

• Manage the email inbox and a phone line for the program to provide general customer service support, as well as technical guidance related to the application platform and required business and financial paperwork (licenses, W9s, electronic transfer fund forms, etc). 

• Schedule and coordinate virtual meetings for grantees on an as needed basis. 

• Support the Director of Strategic Projects in building out a cohort learning program for 2024 Enhancement Grant winners. 

• Administer all grant reports and compile grantee and impact data.  Support the Director of Strategic Projects and the Development team by generating program reports, PR materials, and impact statistics for funders. 

Hometown Grants Program Management (15%) 

• Under the supervision of the Director of Strategic Projects and in collaboration with the Manager of Strategic Projects, support the successful quarterly execution of Hometown Grant awards to local governments and nonprofits: 

• Serve as backup for managing the general email inbox for the program. 

• Support with the application review stage, including assigning applications to reviewers, compiling scores, and getting a set of top scoring applications to the funder for review. 

• Facilitate virtual meetings for grantees on an as needed basis. 

• Support development of a new reporting and data collection system for the grant program in order to effectively administer interim and final grant reports and get the report data updated and compiled, so impact reports can be run when requested by the funder. 

Other Duties (15%) 

• Other duties as assigned 

Requirements

Qualified candidates MUST HAVE the following experience:

• At least 3 years of professional experience, including experience in community/economic development, small business support, grant making, and/or office administration.  

• Fundamental project-management skills, including project planning, logistics supervision, data tracking, and reporting are a must. Ability to achieve results with moderate supervision.  

• Excellent writing, spelling, grammar, and proofreading skills, as well as strong verbal communication and customer service skills. 

• Experience successfully interacting with culturally diverse audiences, partners and colleagues.

• Ability to prioritize, multi-task efficiently and respond to a high volume of ongoing requests in a timely fashion.  Ability to adapt and be flexible in a dynamic work environment. 

• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite and its cloud variations.  

Extraordinary candidates may have some or all of these NICE TO HAVE qualities:

• Bi-lingual language (English/Spanish)   
• Entrepreneurial spirit and skills 
• Experience with using project management software, like AirTable, and application management platforms, like Submittable, strongly preferred. 
• Experience in the nonprofit sector  

Please note: Regular and reliable attendance is required. 

Women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, people with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Benefits

This is a one-year grant-limited position.

Main Street America is a dynamic, diverse, remote-first team. We hire empathetic managers, create a fulfilling work environment, and provide excellent benefits. We strive to balance achievement, connection and rest through key structures:  

• We all organize our work annually around our six long-term objectives of our strategic plan;  

• We meet in person twice a year at team retreats, and many staff attend our annual conference; and 

• We have more than 25 paid holidays (including the last week of December and the week surrounding the fourth of July), and have meeting-free weeks (“Rejuvenation Weeks”) the last week of August and first week of January for deep focus and planning.  

We keep a 35-hour work week, and most of our team works Monday through Friday during regular business hours. Some positions require additional hours and time outside regular business hours.  

Full-time, regular employees are entitled to:   

• Health Insurance: Our group benefit plans include medical, EAP, dental and vision, life, and disability plans.  

• Paid Sick Leave: Full-time employees accrue sick leave at a rate of 3.23 hours per pay period (maximum accrual at 420 hours). 

• Vacation Accrual: In addition to the more than 25 paid holidays mentioned above, full-time employees begin with two weeks vacation, and accrue vacation at a rate of 4.85 hours per pay period for the first 3 years. At years 3-10, the accrual rate increases to 6 hours, and employees with tenures of more than 10 years accrue at a rate of 6.92 hours per pay period (for a maximum accrual at 210 hours). 

• FMLA: We follow the DC Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides 16 weeks of unpaid leave in blocks or intermittently for family leave (the birth or adoption of a child, or caring for a sick relative) and 16 weeks of unpaid leave in blocks or intermittently for medical leave (recovering from a serious illness) in a 24 month period for any employee employed for at least a year. 

• 401(a) Defined Contribution Retirement Plan: At its discretion, Main Street America makes an employer contribution typically equal to 5% of earned compensation no later than April for the prior calendar year in which you worked at least 1,000 hours. Vesting begins at 20% after two years, and increases until it reaches 100% after five years. 

• 403(b) Individual Retirement Plan: Employee pre-tax contributions are permitted up to IRS limits. For 2024, those are $23,000, plus another $7,500 in catch-up contributions for employees age 50 years and over. 

• Professional Development: At its discretion, Main Street America provides $1,500 in professional development funds to each employee annually, as well as other team-wide professional development trainings.