Proposal Specialist

Street Level Strategy; Sacramento (CA); Hybrid; USD 80,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work schedule

Paid time off

Parental leave

401K match

Medical/dental/vision benefits

Job summary

Street Level Strategy, LLC is a public affairs consulting firm with offices in Pasadena and Sacramento. We are seeking a Proposal Specialist to craft compelling proposals, develop winning narratives, and coordinate with client teams.

The role emphasizes high-quality writing, editing, and timely submission across federal, state, and local opportunities. You will lead content development, ensure compliance with solicitation requirements, and collaborate with design to produce visuals that

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of proposal or grant writing experience.
• Ability to edit and rewrite technical and nontechnical text.
• Strong written communication and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Write high-quality, persuasive proposal content.
• Develop win themes and executive summaries.
• Synthesize technical and policy input into clear narratives.
• Edit for clarity, logic, and argument structure.
• Coordinate with design for graphics and visuals.
• Manage submission schedules and deadlines.
• Hold final documents to editorial standards.

Skills

Proposal writing

Grant writing

Editing

Storytelling

Project coordination

Tools

MS Word

Adobe InDesign

Job description

About Street Level Strategy

Street Level Strategy, LLC is a political and public affairs consulting firm specializing in grassroots mobilization, coalition building, campaign management, marketing, communications, and strategic consulting. Street Level Strategy combines time-tested grassroots engagement strategies with a data-driven, results-first approach to design and execute high-impact programs for clients across various industries and sectors.

Street Level Strategy is a growing firm with a footprint across North America. Our team of over 30 professionals is based in Pasadena, CA, with offices in Sacramento and Berkeley, CA. Clients include political candidates, ballot measures, issue advocacy campaigns, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 corporations across the US and Canada.

We take pride in the diversity of our team – we are bilingual, have women and people of color in high-level leadership positions, and reflect the diversity of the communities we work in.

Street Level is hiring a Proposal Specialist in Pasadena, CA or Sacramento, CA

Position Summary

Street Level Strategy is a growing public affairs firm, with a high volume of proposal opportunities. In this role, you’ll prepare proposals that describe the features and benefits of Street Level’s constantly evolving services. You’ll edit, rewrite, and write technical and nontechnical text as necessary to prepare the most compelling possible proposals that highlight Street Level’s services. You’ll also be responsible for the creation of clear, visually persuasive graphics and for the timely delivery of a clean, error-free final product.

Reporting directly to the Managing Partner and coordinating with Client Team Leads, this role will play a critical part in designing and defining SLS’s business strategy.

This position is ideal for someone who has initiative, flexibility, and dependability to produce documents that reflect Street Level’s commitment to engaging and outreaching to communities.

What You Will Achieve

Pipeline Sourcing & Opportunity Assessment

• Build and develop a pipeline across federal, state, local, and private sources, establishing the tools and routines that surface relevant solicitations early
• Perform detailed analysis of RFI/RFQ/RFP documents — evaluation criteria and applicable state or agency procurement rules — to identify requirements, constraints, and discriminators
• Provide leadership with honest bid/no-bid recommendations, including recommending which RFPS to pursue and have a chance to win
• Draft and submit questions to the contracting officer or procurement contact to resolve ambiguity before the response is built

Capture & Pre- RFP Positioning

• Track priority business pursuits from client team leads, as well as build a tracking mechanism to monitor all public business sites for federal, local, and state RFP’s.
• Develop working knowledge of target local, state, and federal agencies' priorities and procurement history, and translate it into positioning SLS can act on
• Identify and recommend structures that close capability gaps for specific RFP pursuits
• Produce capture plans for the firm's highest-value business pursuits, defining win strategy, discriminators, and gaps to close

Proposal Management & Schedule Ownership

• Own the proposal schedule end to end, with milestones, reviews, and author deadlines
• Coordinate input from teaming partners and subcontractors on the process, ensuring deadlines and milestones are met.

Compliance & Solicitation Discipline

• Build and maintain the compliance matrix or checklist for each submission, ensuring every requirement is addressed,
• Enforce all format constraints — page counts, fonts, margins, volume structure, file naming and size — as hard limits
• Fact-check content and flag technical errors, unsupported claims, and inconsistencies before submission
• Hold final documents to firm editorial standards, drawing on shared editorial support for line-level proofing

Content Development & Narrative

• Write high-quality, responsive, persuasive content that answers what was asked and scores against how it will be evaluated
• Develop win themes and executive summaries that lead with outcomes that position SLS capabilities, services, and skills
• Synthesize complex technical and policy input from subject matter experts into coherent, readable narrative
• Edit and rewrite for clarity, logic, and argument structure, not just correctness
• Identify graphics needs and partner with Design to produce visuals that carry argument rather than decorate the page

Review, Production & Submission

• Run internal review cycles with defined purposes and reviewers, ensuring comments are adjudicated and reconciled rather than accumulated
• Coordinate with the client team on the budget, ensuring it is compliant, complete, and reconciled against the technical volume's stated approach, labor, and assumptions
• Assemble the final compliant package and manage submission through the required portal or channel, with time built in for portal failure
• Ensure the submitted package is complete, correctly assembled, and matches the approved version

Function Building & Continuous Improvement

• Stand up SLS's proposal function from the ground up: templates, style standards, review protocols, and a documented development process
• Build the reusable content library — past performance, resumes, capability boilerplate, graphics — so each pursuit starts from assets rather than a blank page
• Request and document debriefs, track outcomes, and translate customer feedback into changes in how SLS proposes

Who You Are

• You have 3 to 5+ years of experience in proposal or grant writing, preparing documents for publication, writing captions or headlines, and following editorial style guidelines
• You have led or played a central role in leading efforts with multiple senior team members in executing a project from inception to completion.
• You have knowledge of the government or commercial proposal process
• You have proven ability to work under the pressure of long- and short-term deadlines, while balancing both short- and long-term projects
• You are confident in executing and implementing decisions made by leadership
• You have a track record of successfully planning and completing projects with a high degree of attention to detail, in an organized fashion.
• You communicate clearly, document decisions well, and can bring structure without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• You are confident partnering directly with senior leadership and navigating trade-offs.
• Must be able to have predictable and reliable attendance.

Working at Street Level Strategy

Compensation

The pay scale for this position is $80,000–$95,000 per year.

Core Benefits

• 32 days of paid time off: 10 vacation days, 9 sick days, 13 holidays
• Bereavement leave
• Paid parental leave
• Street Level pays 75% contribution toward Medical, Dental, and Vision
• 401K with 4% company match

Perks

• Hybrid in office schedule - 3 days remote and 2 days in office each week.
  
• Firm wide social events including summer outing, winter mountain trip, and annual off-site retreat.

Street Level Strategy, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered regardless of race, creed, color, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, military status, or physical disability.