Partnerships Associate

About CDI

The Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) is a non-partisan, non-profit dedicated to equipping the next generation of Americans with the skills to communicate and collaborate across lines of difference. We work with U.S. colleges and universities by providing co-curricular programming for students, professional development for faculty and staff, and strategic guidance to leadership. Our goal is to foster constructive dialogue at every level of the institution and to create the conditions for lasting organizational change. CDI was co-founded by psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the bestselling author of The Righteous Mind and The Anxious Generation .

About the Role

Every new campus partnership extends CDI's mission to more students, faculty, and leaders. The Partnerships Associate helps make that growth possible by identifying prospective higher education partners and generating qualified meetings that bring CDI's work to more colleges and universities.

This is a learn-and-grow role for someone early in their career, energized by outreach and motivated by mission. Reporting to the SVP of Partnerships, you'll partner with the Senior Manager of Demand Generation to turn marketing interest into active conversations, and with the wider Partnerships team to learn how to research, prioritize, and engage prospective institutions.

We see this as a launch pad. As you build your skills and track record, this role offers a clear path toward more senior business development and Partnerships positions, with growing ownership and scope over time.

Responsibilities

Outreach & Prospecting

• Execute personalized outbound outreach (email, phone, LinkedIn, and other channels) to prospective partner institutions, using approaches you develop together with your manager and the Partnerships team.
• Own timely, personalized follow-up on inbound and marketing-generated leads, converting interest into qualified meetings and early-stage partnership conversations
• Conduct thoughtful research on prospective institutions to understand their priorities, challenges, and likely decision-makers before initiating outreach

Pipeline & Process Management

• Work closely with the Senior Manager of Demand Generation and Partnerships leads to learn and apply account prioritization, territory planning, and targeted outreach strategies.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date records of all outreach activity, engagement history, and pipeline progression in Hubspot, helping ensure strong visibility across the team
• Contribute ideas to strengthen lead follow-up and outreach workflows as you learn the motion.

Performance & Insights

• Meet activity and qualified-meeting goals with the coaching and support of your manager and the team.
• Track outreach results and share what you are learning, including recurring patterns and common objections, with your manager and the Partnerships team.
• Actively build the skills, habits, and higher education knowledge that set you up for a growing role on the Partnerships team.

About You

• Early in your career and eager to grow. You are a recent graduate or have up to roughly two years of professional experience. Internships, co-ops, campus jobs, fellowships, and other outreach-driven experience all count.
• Genuine excitement for outreach and relationship-building, with a willingness to research, personalize, and follow up persistently to start real conversations.
• Organized and dependable, able to manage a high volume of outreach without letting things fall through the cracks.
• A clear, professional communicator in writing and conversation, comfortable engaging a range of people, including senior leaders.
• Resilient and coachable. You are energized rather than discouraged by rejection and targets, and you actively seek out and apply feedback.
• Self-motivated and goal-oriented , comfortable with metrics and energized (not intimidated) by targets.
• Genuinely curious about higher education and motivated by CDI's mission to build skills for constructive dialogue on college campuses.
• A growth mindset, with eagerness to learn the nuances of business development, sales, and the higher education market. Exposure to CRM or sales engagement tools (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce) is a plus; we will train you on the rest.