Senior Associate, Government Partnerships

Acumen is looking for a Senior Associate with account management, research, and analytic skills to support the work of our Development & Partnerships team, specifically on the institutional partnerships team with government partners. This role will be based in New York or London where our teams have a hybrid work agreement

Acumen

Acumen’s mission is to solve problems of poverty and build a world based on dignity. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services help vulnerable and low-income people transform their own lives. To date, Acumen has positively impacted 500+ million lives by investing $184M in 197 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment isn't just about capital; we've been investing in leadership for years, supporting emerging leaders in their own countries and engaging them in extended collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.

About Development & Partnerships

Acumen partners with a number of institutional partners which includes foundations, corporates and leading bilateral and multilateral government institutions to advance our mission to change the way the world tackles poverty. The Development & Partnerships team leads this effort, working with government partners including FCDO, SDC, NORAD, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and others to help support social enterprises and address global challenges of climate and poverty.

About The Role

The Senior Associate will contribute to the Development & Partnerships team by supporting the engagement of Acumen’s current government partnerships, and support development of new partnerships to further Acumen’s strategy and goals. Each of our partnerships involve a range of engagement activities that include project management, communications, event planning, and reporting. We work cross-functionally, engaging closely with Acumen’s programs, communications function, legal and finance to develop and deliver effective funding partnerships.

Specifically, The Senior Associate Will Be Accountable For

• Work with the government partnerships team, including the Director, on managing existing government partnerships and developing new ones. This may include proposal development and grant writing, contracting, reporting, relationship and account management, participation in key events and meetings, and organising high-level donor and ministerial visits, events or requests in coordination with in-country and events teams across Acumen.
• Support tracking the effectiveness of key government partnerships across Acumen. This may include working closely with the Grant Management team and Energy and Agriculture Partnerships teams to ensure a consistent approach to our engagement and relationship management and identifying areas for deeper and more strategic engagement with government partnerships across Acumen.
• Collaborating effectively cross-functionally with finance, legal, communications and regional teams to provide inputs on delivery of grants funded by government partners, including on donor reporting, compliance, grant-based deliverables and dissemination of outputs.
• Evaluating requests for proposals and managing the proposal development process from start to finish and contract negotiations for new business development opportunities with government funders.
• Contributing to ad hoc cross-functional and cross-sector projects (e.g., gender-lens investing, refugee-lens investing, youth employment, green entrepreneurship) funded by government and other institutional partners.
• Conducting an annual assessment of government partnerships and preparing an analysis deck to share partnerships’ strengths and areas of opportunity. Document best practices and provide recommendations for engagement with partners and internal synergies for effective engagement.
• Conducting research on events, conferences, and other potential opportunities for Acumen to share key areas of work with government audiences, which may include supporting the creation of sessions at conferences. Also representing Acumen at external events, conferences and workshops as needed.
• Updating current fundraising and comms collateral as needed to incorporate new messaging for government audiences.
• Be an active member of the Institutional Partnerships cohort and the broader Development and Partnerships team, joining cohort meetings and supporting knowledge sharing within the cohort and the broader D&P team.
  
  

Skills & Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in fundraising, account or project management, ideally working with bilateral or multilateral donors. Grant writing experience is essential and will be a core part of the role.
• Highly organized and detail oriented, able to prioritise and deliver on time.
• Operational skills such as problem solving and project management, including the ability to work and deliver projects independently, proactively, and within deadlines
• Strong written and oral communicator
• Highly collaborative and able to effectively work cross-functionally
• Motivated, self-starter with the ability to proactively anticipate needs before they arise and take action without being asked - notices opportunities to create new systems and procedures when necessary
• Seeks and provides constructive feedback. Effective at communicating barriers up the line and recommending solutions
• Exceptional relationship and interpersonal skills, both with internal and external stakeholders: courtesy, tact, patience, and strong teamwork
• Self reflective and aligned with Acumen values
• Authorized to work in the US or UK
  
  

Deadline

Please submit an application by April 4, 2025. We will begin screens for this role in April, thank you for your patience.

The salary range for this role is $64,000-$74,500 plus a performance-based bonus. Applicants with less than 5 years of experience will be benchmarked at the Associate level between $60,000 to $64,000 plus a performance-based bonus. This range represents the present low and high end of pay range for this role. Actual compensation will vary based on various factors including but not limited to experience. Acumen has equal pay, so pay is determined through comparison to a cohort of employees in the market at the same level of accountability.

Acumen is a non-profit venture capital fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve global poverty. They invest patient capital in businesses, leaders, and ideas that enable the poor to transform their lives.