Senior Grantmaking & Impact Strategist

Paylocity; Cleveland (OH); On-site; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

The Cleveland Foundation seeks a Senior Program Officer for Immediate Impact and Grantmaking to strengthen grantmaking by bringing rigor, analysis, and clarity to decisions.

You will manage a portfolio of grants, support day-to-day grantmaking, perform due diligence, monitor performance, and coordinate with colleagues across Grantmaking, Philanthropy, Finance, and other departments to advance effective grantmaking.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 7 years of related experience in grantmaking or a similar role, including executive or senior leadership in the non-profit sector, demonstrating evidence of mastery of managing increasingly complex projects.
• Demonstrated passion and knowledge for Cleveland, philanthropy and community impact, with experience managing a portfolio of donors, clients, or customers.
• Proven ability to build strategic, lasting relationships with donors, community leaders, and professional advisors.
• Experience fostering teamwork and collaboration across departments and diverse communities.
• Strong communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with a high level of integrity and professionalism.

Responsibilities

• Support the Foundation’s Immediate Impact grantmaking function, ensuring the investments are timely, rigorous, and aligned with the Impact Agenda and organizational priorities.
• Acts as a responsive, strategic, well-respected and public-facing partner to non-profits who are seeking grants, exercising excellent communication skills and relationship building.
• Delivers on key operational areas, including grant intake and portfolio assignments, reviewing grantmaking write-ups for rigor and clarity, ensures that grant reporting and metrics reporting is accurate and timely, and preparing board content in partnership with Grants Management.
• Manages a portfolio of Immediate Impact grantees around a variety of issue areas and disciplines related to the Cleveland community’s wellbeing, critical needs and stabilization.
• Acts as a senior problem-solver for complex or sensitive grant requests, bringing structure, judgment, and clear framing to ambiguous, high-risk, or high-stakes decisions.
• Contributes to building a high-performing, disciplined, and learning-oriented grantmaking department by modeling strong judgment, thoughtful due diligence, resonant leadership, and respectful partner engagement.
• Interprets and synthesizes grantmaking activity across immediate and long-term portfolios to identify patterns, themes, lessons, and tensions that inform leadership judgment and future decision making (sensemaking).
• Partners with the Philanthropic Services team to introduce high-impact grantees to donors.
• Helps refine, document, and socialize grantmaking guidelines, thresholds, and decision frameworks to improve transparency, consistency, and internal alignment across the department.
• Prepare and present clear, compelling, and decision ready materials for foundation leadership, the Board and Board committees, including translating complex grantmaking information into concise narratives that support effective governance and strategic decision making.
• Collaborate and coordinate across the impact team (including program and philanthropy), along with finance, communications, and operations to align immediate impact investments with available tools and resources.
• Other duties as assigned by the Vice President, Grantmaking.

Skills

Judgment

Communication

Commitment to Excellence

Teamwork & Collaboration

Adaptability

Problem-Solving

Strategy

Partnership

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree (preferred)

Tools

CRM systems

Microsoft Office

Online collaboration tools

Job description

The Cleveland Foundation seeks a Senior Program Officer for Immediate Impact and Grantmaking to strengthen grantmaking by bringing rigor, analysis, and clarity to decisions.

You will manage a portfolio of grants, support day-to-day grantmaking, perform due diligence, monitor performance, and coordinate with colleagues across Grantmaking, Philanthropy, Finance, and other departments to advance effective grantmaking.