Senior Grant Writer

The Opportunity

Essie Justice Group (Essie) is building grassroots power to dismantle the US incarceration system, the most egregious creator of racial and gender injustice of our time. We are a loving and powerful community of women with incarcerated loved ones. Our community includes cisgender women, transgender women, formerly incarcerated women, gender-expansive people, elders, and young people.

After ten years of building an active membership across California and beyond, Essie is deepening its base-building and leadership development strategies with the 1 in 4 women with incarcerated loved ones to propel bold decarceration agendas across the nation. We seek to transform the criminal legal system and create a Black feminist future rooted in care, equity, community safety, and liberation. In the midst of significant organizational growth, we are seeking a proactive, impact-driven, and creative Senior Grant Writer to join our team.

As Essie grows, the Senior Grant Writer will take a lead role in managing our grant program operations with a focus on securing funding through well-crafted, strategic grant proposals and building our pipeline. The Senior Grant Writer is a persuasive and clear communicator, adept at presenting strategic, impact-focused data and telling compelling stories that uplift the voices and impact of Essie’s members. This person will manage the grants process from research to writing to stewarding program officer relationships. Motivated by a deep belief in the leadership development and liberation strategies of directly impacted people, the Senior Grant Writer will approach the work with intention, empathy, and consistency, ensuring that all communications reflect Essie's values and mission.

Core Responsibilities

Institutional Grants Management

• Cultivate and manage relationships with existing funders, keeping them informed about Essie’s initiatives and future direction, while working closely with the Executive Director and Director of Communications & Partnerships to coordinate team-wide relationship management.
• Lead efforts to attract new funding partners by crafting compelling, customized grant proposals and reports.
• Articulate Essie’s organizational successes and strategic objectives through clear and persuasive writing in grant applications and progress reports, effectively conveying the organization’s impact and vision.
• Oversee the timely management of all deadlines and workflows associated with Letters of Inquiry (LOIs), grant applications, and funding reports.
• Ensure the collection of necessary internal information from key staff members, maintaining a strong track record of on-time submissions and a high success rate in securing funding.
• Lead the development and maintenance of an effective relationship management system, fostering strong, lasting relationships with current and prospective funders, and enhancing the organization’s capacity to engage with key philanthropic partners.
• Maintain comprehensive, organized digital and hardcopy records for all grants, including leveraging Essie’s Salesforce to track progress and communication with funding partners.
• Conduct ongoing research to identify new funding opportunities, providing recommendations for new funding streams that align with Essie’s mission and priorities.

Donor Relationship Stewardship - Manage and facilitate Essie’s ongoing organizational relationships with individual donors, ensuring that they remain engaged in and inspired by Essie’s work.

• Manage robust donor stewardship and cultivation touchpoints including personal thank yous, digital communications, and personalized outreach for supporting foundations.
• Ensure electronic donor records are current in the development database, including tracking of moves for those within the major gifts portfolio.
• Advise and prepare senior leadership for donor meetings as needed.
• Manage the strategy and coordination of funder visits with the Executive Director and Director of Communications & Partnerships.
• Prepare and distribute materials to communicate with supporters including thank you letters, event reports, and annual reports.

Ideal Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in grant writing with a proven history of successful funding acquisition and relationship-building.
• Highly organized with an attention to detail that ensures successful tracking, management, and engaged donor relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and lead grantmaking initiatives with expertise in coordinating multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Strong organizational and project management skills, including the ability to track and meet deadlines, oversee complex workflows, and collaborate effectively across teams.
• Exceptional writing, editing, and verbal communication skills, with a keen eye for detail and the ability to tailor messaging to diverse audiences.
• A background in, or deep familiarity with, writing about social justice issues, particularly gender justice, racial equity, and criminal justice reform.
• Experience working with Mac operating systems, Google Suite, MS Office Suite (especially Excel and Word), and familiarity with Salesforce or other CRM systems.
• A deep commitment to Essie’s values, including a passion for progressive politics and a demonstrated commitment to advancing gender justice, racial equity, and ending mass incarceration.

Qualities

• A uniquely skilled, empathetic communicator. You are someone who uses your highly developed sense of empathy to tap into what motivates others to act. Because of your belief that everyone benefits from the type of future for which our membership fights, you find ways to make meaningful connections to our work for individuals who may not have had any direct experience with poverty, incarceration, or race, gender, or heteronormative bias. You hold central the humanity of funders, donors, media and other potential Essie partners, while carrying a healthy dose of awareness of the complexities of approaching philanthropy to fund, and media to amplify, movement work.
• Immaculately organized in approach. You understand that coordinating multiple projects with complex data necessitates an efficient process. You feel comfortable creating and utilizing project management systems that ensure deadlines and details aren’t missed.
• Discernment and honesty we can trust. You are a thoughtful team member who acts in alignment with your integrity and are unfailingly trustworthy.
• Committed to evolution. You are committed to continuously deepening and evolving your own understanding of systems of oppression through study, openness, and humility. And, you easily recognize your own relationship to privilege and power, examining and shifting your behaviors as appropriate.
• Uplifting and additive. You see mistakes as opportunities for growth; problems as catalysts for solutions, and inspire others along the journey. You carry a positive approach, can-do attitude, a sense of humor, and authentic kindness wherever you go.

The Position

The Senior Grant Writer is a full-time, salaried, exempt position. This position is supervised by the Director of Communications & Partnerships. The salary for this position is between $80,000- $90,000 depending on experience with full medical, dental, and vision benefits, optional 401(k), a substantial vacation package, and a monthly personal wellness stipend. The position is based in one of Essie’s offices in Oakland or Los Angeles, California. All Essie staff are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with limited exceptions for medical or religious reasons.

To Apply

Please address a personal, specific, and thoughtful cover letter to the “Essie Hiring Committee” and submit along with a resume through our hiring portal (https://essiejusticegroup.bamboohr.com/jobs). Your resume tells us what you can do; your cover letter should tell us who you are and why you want to work with Essie.

Essie Justice Group provides equal employment and advancement opportunities to all staff members. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and skills. Essie does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, immigration status, socioeconomic status, ancestry, age, size, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, familial status, veteran status, disability, AIDS/HIV status, medical condition, prior conviction, arrest history, traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Essie values and specifically seeks applicants who are people with incarcerated loved ones; formerly incarcerated people; people of color; women; queer, transgender, gender expansive and gender fluid people.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, performance assessment, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

About Essie Justice Group

Essie Justice Group is a non profit organization of women with incarcerated loved ones taking on the rampant injustices created by mass incarceration. Our award-winning Healing to Advocacy Model brings women together to heal, build collective power, and drive social change. Essie is Great Place to Work-Certified™ and a recognized leader in Black feminist institution building.

Learn more at www.essiejusticegroup.org.