Grants and Compliance Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Mission: MANNA’s mission is to involve, educate, and unite people in the work of ending hunger in Western North Carolina 

Vision: A hunger-free Western North Carolina

MANNA embraces a philosophy that recognizes and values diversity by creating an environment of mutual respect, transparency, and sharing of different opinions and ideas. MANNA’s goal is to attract, develop, retain, and promote a talented and diverse workforce in a culture where all employees will contribute to their fullest potential. The celebration of inclusivity and diversity is essential to helping MANNA achieve its mission to involve, educate, and unite all people in the work of ending hunger in Western North Carolina.

Compensation: Salaried, Exempt.  $66,289 - $73,635  annually based on credentials, experience, and education.

Schedule: Typical schedule is Monday - Friday 8:00AM - 4:00PM. Flexible schedule required, including some evenings and weekends as needed. In instances of a federal, state or locally declared emergency or order, MANNA FoodBank is typically considered an essential service and emergency responder; all employees may be called upon to perform regular or emergent duties. 

Working Conditions: This position will be performed in an office setting with an option for occasional teleworking. 

Travel : Minimal, but routine travel may be required within the service area. Current driver’s license required; copy of current auto insurance; and clean MVR required. 

Why You'll Love Working at MANNA, because we want to take care of you too. 

Here's how we show up for our team: 

Your Health

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with low premiums
• $2,000 Post-Deductible Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) when you enroll in medical
• $1,500 annual MANNA-paid contribution to your Health Savings Account (HSA) option
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options
• Accident and Critical Illness insurance
• Free, confidential Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Your Time

• 136 hours of paid time off in your first year (that's 17 days!), and unused time rolls over
• 8 paid holidays, plus 1 week paid Winter Break in December 2026
• 8 weeks of paid Parental Leave
• Flexible schedules for eligible roles
• Paid breaks and lunch

Your Future

• 401(k) retirement plan with a 3% MANNA-paid match
• Annual compensation review, plus merit increases tied to your performance review
• MANNA-paid life insurance up to $50,000
• MANNA-paid short-term and long-term disability insurance

Position Summary: MANNA FoodBank seeks a strategic, collaborative, and highly organized Grants and Compliance Manager to sustain and grow an institutional funding portfolio of approximately $5.5M annually. Reporting to the Director of Philanthropic Engagement, the Manager leads the full grant lifecycle for larger and more complex foundation, corporate, government, Feeding America, and other institutional grants, from prospect research through proposal development, compliance, reporting, renewal, and closeout. The role works in close partnership with the Corporate Engagement Manager and is supported by an Institutional Giving Coordinator who handles stewardship, records, calendars, and administrative functions. Beyond writing proposals and managing renewals, the Manager is responsible for building a strong pipeline and bringing new, well-qualified funding opportunities forward. The Manager engages Program, Finance, Development, and Senior Leadership colleagues early, translates complex funder requirements into clear action plans, and builds shared ownership of grant obligations across the organization. The successful candidate is an exceptional writer and relationship builder with a record of securing significant grants and creating practical systems that help teams meet grant commitments together.

Supervision of other Persons/Positions: Institutional Giving Coordinator and internal or external volunteers assigned.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Institutional Funding Strategy and Prospecting

· Build and manage a diversified institutional funding pipeline supporting an approximately $5.5M annual grant portfolio, tracking prospects, active opportunities, submissions, awards, and renewals.

· Conduct proactive research to identify new foundations, corporate, government, and other institutional funding opportunities, assessing funder priorities, eligibility, giving history, timing, and strategic fit.

· Develop prospect profiles, relationship maps, and cultivation and solicitation strategies for priority funders in collaboration with development leadership and program staff.

· Lead a go/no-go review process that weighs mission alignment, competitiveness, program readiness, financial feasibility, compliance and reporting burden, and staff capacity.

· Monitor funding trends and communicate emerging opportunities, shifts in funder priorities, and risks to leadership and colleagues.

Proposal Development and Funder Relationships

· Serve as primary writer and project manager for larger, more complex, or compliance-intensive proposals, LOIs, applications, renewals, and reports.

· Partner with Program staff to develop compelling narratives, objectives, outcomes, and evaluation plans, and with Finance to develop compliant budgets, budget narratives, and financial reports.

· Coordinate proposal workflows, including assignments, internal deadlines, approvals, attachments, portal registrations, submissions, and final quality review.

· Maintain strong relationships with current and prospective funders

· Coordinate with the Corporate Engagement Manager to ensure aligned cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of foundation and corporate relationships.

Grant Compliance and Post-Award Management

· Interpret and communicate funder guidelines, award terms, allowable costs, matching, reporting, documentation, and closeout requirements, and conduct pre-submission readiness reviews for significant opportunities.

· Lead the handoff from proposal to implementation, including award summaries, internal action plans, and kickoff meetings that clarify deliverables, deadlines, responsibilities, and escalation paths.

· Establish and maintain practical grant-management tools such as calendars, trackers, compliance checklists, responsibility matrices, and closeout checklists.

· Monitor grant-funded activities, expenditures, and deliverables with Program and Finance staff, identifying and resolving compliance concerns early.

· Coordinate timely, accurate narrative, financial, interim, final, and closeout reports, and support amendments, extensions, budget revisions, monitoring visits, and audits.

· Maintain complete, organized, audit-ready grant files.

Collaboration, Coordination, and Internal Reporting

· Participate actively in Development team planning and facilitate cross-functional grant meetings at key stages of the grant lifecycle.

· Provide direction and quality assurance for the Institutional Giving Coordinator's work on stewardship, records, reporting schedules, and funder communications.

· Maintain accurate records in DonorPerfect and a comprehensive institutional-giving calendar covering prospecting, deadlines, reporting, stewardship, and closeout.

· Prepare regular pipeline, revenue-forecast, grant-status, and compliance and risk reports for leadership, and support continuous improvement of institutional giving practices. 

Qualifications: 

• At least five years of progressively responsible experience in institutional giving, grant writing, foundation relations, grant management, government grants, compliance, nonprofit development, or a related field.
• Bachelor's degree in public administration, nonprofit management, business, or a related field required; An equivalent combination of education and grants management experience will be considered.
• Demonstrated success securing and managing significant institutional funding from private foundations, corporations, government agencies, and/or other institutional grantmakers.
• Demonstrated experience independently identifying, researching, qualifying, and pursuing new institutional funding opportunities, not solely managing established grant renewals.
• Exceptional writing and editing skills, with the ability to transform programmatic, financial, and data-rich information into compelling, clear, and accurate proposals and reports.
• Experience preparing or coordinating complex grant budgets, budget narratives, restricted-fund documentation, and financial reports in partnership with finance staff.
• Demonstrated understanding of grant compliance and post-award administration, including award terms, reporting requirements, restrictions, deliverables, financial documentation, records management, amendments, and closeout
• Experience interpreting funder guidelines and conducting pre-award eligibility, readiness, and compliance research.
• Strong project-management skills and success balancing multiple simultaneous deadlines, stakeholders, opportunities, awards, and reporting requirements.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively and transparently across departments, especially with program, finance, development, and executive colleagues.
• High degree of discretion, sound judgment, initiative, accuracy, and attention to detail.
• Proficiency with CRM, donor-management, grants-management, spreadsheet, presentation, word-processing, and online grant-portal systems; experience with DonorPerfect is strongly preferred.

Physical Demands: The physical demands required are representative of those that must be met by the employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job.

Primary functions require sufficient physical ability and mobility to work in an office setting. This includes: the ability to stand or sit for prolonged periods of time; to occasionally stoop, bend, kneel, crouch, reach, and twist; Exerting up to 25 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects. Use of arm and/or leg controls requires exertion of forces greater than that for sedentary work. 

Functions also require ability to operate office equipment requiring repetitive hand movement and fine coordination including use of a computer keyboard, and to verbally communicate to exchange information. 

Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus; close visual acuity to perform activities including but not limited to preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal, extensive reading.