Senior Grants Manager (Pre & Post Award)

Columbia University in the City of New York; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 69,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Columbia University in New York seeks an experienced grants administrator responsible for end-to-end pre-award and post-award management. You will prepare proposals, budgets, and Just-in-Time materials while ensuring compliance with federal, university, and sponsor policies.

You will oversee complex grant portfolios, coordinating with Principal Investigators, Sponsored Projects Finance, and central offices to monitor spending, reports, and closeouts.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; preferably in a technical, scientific, or financial field.
• 3–5 years of grants pre-award experience and 3–5 years post-award / financial analysis experience.
• Experience with NIH grants and knowledge of related policies.

Responsibilities

• Manage pre-award processes, budgets, and proposal preparation within deadlines.
• Oversee post-award activities, including reporting and compliance with sponsor policies.
• Prepare and review grant and subcontract documents, liaise with PIs and central offices.
• Develop and maintain grant dashboards and reports for portfolio oversight.

Skills

Detail oriented

Analytical skills

Budgeting knowledge

Communication skills

Multi-tasking

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building: Morningside
• Salary Range: $69,300 - $94,500

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.

Position Summary

Reporting to the Associate Director of Research Finance and Operations, the incumbent is responsible for all aspects of pre-award and post-award grant administration. In close cooperation with faculty, manages preparation of grant proposals, conducting the full range of activities required to prepare, submit and manage grant proposals to federal and state government, foundations and corporate sponsors; determining format and requirements of proposals for content and ensuring compliance with the federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements. Provide a dedicated professional level sponsored funds management with specific responsibility for pre-award and post-award functions. This role functions at an intermediate level, with responsibility for independent management of simple to complex grants/contracts, including those from NIH, NSF, DOD, foundations, industry, and other sponsors. Ensure compliance in all areas related to grant and contract management, including federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements, internal protocols and operating procedures, conflicts of interest.

Responsibilities

Pre-award (40%):

Pro-actively manages the pre-award process for the department. Provide planning, instruction, preparation assistance and support related to grant application procedures. Develop and review budgets and related justification for appropriateness and completeness of content. Ensures that all applicable direct and indirect costs have been applied. Provide groundwork for subcontract negotiations as needed. Maintains up-to-date list of planned grant submissions. Works with Principal Investigators to prepare complete grant proposal packages by established deadlines. Assists Pis in all aspects of pre-award grants management to ensure timeliness, accuracy, and compliance. Assembles and reviews grant proposals, contract proposals, outgoing sub-awards and other related documents. Ensures completeness and compliance with federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements. Coordinates proposal budget preparation, review of proposal against sponsor and University requirements, obtaining departmental approvals, submission to SPA and submission to sponsoring agencies, often within tight timeframes. Prepares Just-in-Time and other pre-award information as needed. Serves as departmental point of contact and knowledge resource on grant proposal matters. Prepares, updates proposal guidelines, forms and checklists to facilitate pre-award process. Provides Pis with updates on government and University grant policies and procedures.

Post-award (40%):

Pro-actively manages all post-award aspects of the departmental external and internal grants portfolio, working closely with the department finance and payroll personnel, lab personnel, Sponsored Projects Finance. Conduct complex award management activities and provide oversight to other employees, including monitoring and managing accounts, audits, evaluations and reporting. Reviews Notices of Award, award terms and conditions, variances between the proposals and awards. Sets up awards, project budgets and fiscal year budgets, personnel effort allocation. Regularly monitors expenses, obligated balances, variance between actual expenses and budgets, grant expense eligibility, A/P and purchasing transactions. Reviews effort/ payroll allocations on grants against the budgets; coordinates effort, payroll allocation updates as needed. Develops and monitors comprehensive post-award reports and a dashboard of grant portfolios for departmental Pls. Prepares quarterly grants attestations, performs grant financial analysis to identify and forecast trends in spending and potential shortfalls or overdrafts, recommending strategies to effectively manage spending patterns and mitigate business risk. Reviews and resolves all open commitments and overdrafts, re-budgeting when necessary, completing project close outs, and performing general financial reconciliations. Supports annual effort reporting process. Liaises with central offices, collaborates with other CU faculty and departments, works closely to ensure all financial activities on projects are within the University, Government and sponsor policies and procedures. Maintains all pertinent records, files and documents. Assists Pis with annual effort certification. Provides grant audit support as needed. Ensure that post-award commitments and responsibilities are completed, projects reviewed and reconciled for closeouts, cost transfers processed as needed for grant close-outs.

Subcontracts (5%):

Initiates and oversees the process of preparing and processing sub-contracts, works with PI's to ensure sub-recipient financial monitoring. Works with Investigators, Administrators and Columbia University central administrative offices to prepare and process sub-contracts. Responsible for receipt of subcontract award documents, closeout documents, invoicing and final account closeout.

Reporting (10%):

Develops financial, personnel and other reports to facilitate all pre- and post-award activities. Assists Pis with preparing and submitting progress reports, including developing projected budget for next budget periods, initiate reports in ERA Commons, ensures submission of the Conflict of Interest and other research compliance, review all finalized report documents. Responsible for financial planning, monitoring and preparation of reports regarding the department research and grant activity and effort reporting. Maintains up-to-date standard information packages for the department PI's such as Other Support, Biosketches, Facilities and Resources; lab space / research infrastructure usage. Conduct complex award management activities and provide oversight to other employees, including monitoring and managing accounts, audits, evaluations and reporting.

Perform other duties, as assigned (5%)

Minimum Qualifications

Education. Bachelor's degree required; preferably in a technical, scientific, or financial field.

Experience. Must have at least three years to five years of grants pre-award experience. Must have at least three years of grants post-award or financial analysis / reporting experience. The pre-award experience must include hands-on grant proposal submission experience with NIH grants. The ideal candidate will possess firm understanding of NIH and Columbia Sponsored Projects and financial policies. Must have an advanced level experience developing complex spreadsheets.

Knowledge of accounting and budgeting policies and practices required. Ability to make independent judgments and to act on decisions on a daily basis. Ability to work with flexibility on several tasks simultaneously and to meet various concurrent deadlines. Knowledge of external Federal policies (such as Uniform Guidance), guidelines/procedures for grants and contracts, including NIH, NSF, DOD and other government and private funding mechanisms, proposal submission platforms such as InfoEd, ASSIST, Fastlane, Grants.gov.

Skills. Must be detail oriented with excellent quantitative, analytical, organizational, interpersonal, oral and written communication and computer skills. Ability to work independently in a dynamic environment with changing priorities and multiple responsibilities required. Proven ability to multi-task and meet multiple deadlines is required. Ability to work effectively with faculty, staff, other departments while providing strong attention to detail. Ability to work discretely with confidential information. Must be customer service - focused, pro-active and a self-starter; capable of working with a diverse constituency, being flexible and maintain positive attitude while meeting strict deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

Thorough knowledge and understanding of Columbia University accounting, financial reporting system and related fiscal policies preferred.

Experience in a higher education institution with engineering or medical research background.

Master's degree preferred. Experience with human subjects research / IRB protocols preferred

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.