Associate Director, Partnerships & Community Engagement

Chicago Scholars Foundation; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 95,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Chicago Scholars seeks an Associate Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement in Chicago to build and manage a portfolio of community and civic partners. You will translate relationships into funding, opportunities, and programming for Scholars, while strengthening reporting, stewardship systems, and collaboration across teams.

You will lead cross-functional projects, coordinate MOUs and renewals, and represent the organization at events, while leveraging Salesforce to track engagement

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and professional experience.
• 5–7 years of progressive experience in partnerships, community engagement, external affairs, or related areas.
• Ability to participate in occasional evening or weekend events.
• Ability to meet Chicago Scholars’ location and residency expectations.
• Experience using Salesforce or another CRM to maintain records and dashboards.

Responsibilities

• Develop and manage a portfolio of community, nonprofit, philanthropic, civic, government, and other partners.
• Identify partnerships that generate funding, in-kind resources, referrals, programming, advocacy, visibility, and opportunities for Scholars.
• Create engagement and stewardship strategies to deepen relationships and value over time.
• Maintain a partner pipeline, conduct outreach, and qualify opportunities.
• Draft proposals, presentations, value propositions, and engagement plans with internal stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Development on donor cultivation, sponsorship strategies, and proposals.
• Segment partnerships by mission alignment, Scholar impact, and growth potential.
• Recommend when partnerships should be deepened, maintained, reimagined, or concluded.
• Maintain partnership information, commitments, contacts, and next steps.
• Develop dashboards and reports capturing engagement, renewals, opportunities, risks, and relationship health.
• Translate partnership data into actionable insights for leadership.
• Support adoption of partnership processes and documentation across teams.
• Manage MOUs and renewal workflows, storage, and CRM documentation.
• Coordinate cross-functional handoffs and surface risks early.
• Lead the annual Ticket to the Future event and Leadership Hub operations.

Skills

External relationships

Project management

Salesforce CRM

Strategic partnerships

Communication

Fundraising

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Chicago Scholars seeks an Associate Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement in Chicago to build and manage a portfolio of community and civic partners. You will translate relationships into funding, opportunities, and programming for Scholars, while strengthening reporting, stewardship systems, and collaboration across teams.

You will lead cross-functional projects, coordinate MOUs and renewals, and represent the organization at events, while leveraging Salesforce to track engagement