Grants Manager

Acumen is seeking a Grants Manager based in Toronto to lead end-to-end grant management for a five-year, USD 80M donor-funded program, ensuring full compliance, accurate financial tracking, and effective coordination across global teams. They will be accountable for producing timely, high-quality narrative and financial reports, proactively flagging any issues in processes, data, or deliverables. This role serves as a central connector across program, finance, and Development and Partnerships teams to support successful program implementation. 

About Acumen
Acumen is a global force of entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists, and social innovators working together to build a world based on dignity. We were founded by Jacqueline Novogratz on the radical idea that business, when cultivated with moral imagination, can break the cycle of poverty. We invest in transformational companies, build sustainable markets, and prepare leaders with the tools they need to create a more just and inclusive future. Since 2001, we have scaled companies and shaped markets in some of the hardest-to-reach communities on the planet, impacting over half-a-billion lives. To learn more visit acumen.org.

About the Role
Acumen is hiring a Grants Manager that will contribute to delivering high quality programming of a five-year, donor funded program valued at approximately USD 80M. The program will provide support to ~400 early stage social enterprises in the African green economy that are creating and improving dignified work opportunities for women and youth. Based in Toronto, Canada, this role will ensure effective grant management including meeting all compliance and financial requirements in Canada, timely and high quality quarterly reporting, and internal and external communication. They will report to the Program Lead (based in East or West Africa) with a dotted line reporting to the Development & Partnerships team, and will ensure program teams are fully informed of relevant donor compliance regulations and procedures, manage donor and other external reporting, and coordinate any grant revisions, as needed. They will also support donor communication by ensuring effective channels of internal and external communications relating to grants are established and respected. This role is contingent on funding approval and availability. 

Key Responsibilities include : 

Program Operations & Administration

• Provide operational and project management support for programmatic activities, including documentation, deliverable tracking, meeting coordination, preparing agendas, recording minutes, and managing follow-ups.
• Track milestones, deadlines, and donor contract obligations, proactively flagging issues and supporting timely resolution.
• Manage grant check-ins with project stakeholders per agreement terms and coordinate logistics for meetings, travel, and events.
• Assist the Program Lead in meeting all grant requirements.
• Ensure organized recordkeeping and maintain documentation systems in compliance with donor standards and requirements.

Financial & Compliance Support

• Work closely with the Program Finance Manager to maintain and update internal budgeting tools and coordinate clear communication with regional teams on budget allocations.
• Collect, review, and organize expense documentation (invoices, receipts) to ensure compliance with donor and audit requirements.
• Assist in reviewing financial templates and reports prior to donor submission, ensuring accuracy and alignment with internal records.
• Coordinate with budget holders to ensure funds are correctly allocated and financial data remains up to date.
• Support documentation and sharing of lessons learned, tools, and best practices to strengthen internal learning and adaptive management.
• Promote effective use of internal systems and tools to support communication and document workflows.

Partnership & Stakeholder Management

• Build strong relationships with teams across regions involved in program implementation.
• Coordinate with Partnerships Lead on any due diligence assessments, with the support of Finance and Legal teams where needed,  when and as required by Acumen and the donor. 
• Support Partnerships Lead on organizational assessments of Partners as per Acumen’s procedures.
• In coordination with the Program Lead, Legal, and Finance draft local Partner Agreements/MoUs with relevant Annexes and take through signing processes.
• Contribute to partner capacity building as required and identified in partner assessment. 
• Support and advise Acumen colleagues with queries related to donor compliance on this project.
• In collaboration with relevant teams, contribute to the development of any program assets and other relevant information pieces for donor visits/meetings.
• Draft and organize briefing notes and other materials for external meetings.
• Maintain up-to-date relationship management (SalesForce) records and contact history with partners and stakeholders.
• Coordinate follow-ups and documentation with partners post-meeting or events.

Donor Reporting and Monitoring 

• Lead coordination, drafting, and finalization of donor reports, ensuring high quality and alignment between narrative and financial reporting.
• Monitor financial performance, highlighting potential under- or over-spend and following up with finance and budget holders.
• Track grant payment schedules and coordinate with the finance team to ensure timely requests and disbursements.
• Work with budget holders, program teams, and finance to compile accurate program data throughout the project lifecycle.
• Coordinate data collection timelines with country teams and workstream leads.
• Support the Impact Management Lead with formatting and documentation of results frameworks, log frames, and data inputs for reporting.

Skills & Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of relevant work experience managing complex, grant funded, multi-year projects;  
• Direct experience with major international, corporate donors, foundations and non profit organisations
• Exceptional organizational skills, including time and project management, and ability to meet deadlines 
• Strong project and grant reporting experience with knowledge of systems leading project and grant reporting systems (e.g., Salesforce, Asana, etc.) and  programme management qualifications equivalent to PRINCE/ PRINCE 2
• Excellent oral and written communication skills for diverse stakeholders across regions and at varying levels of accountabilities.
• Experience in managing and understanding results frameworks, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) systems, logframes and learning agendas.
• Prior regional, in-country experience working in East and West Africa, preferred
• Willingness to travel according to grant requirements and work across time zones (US/UK/Africa). 
• Authorized to work in Canada, based in Toronto
• Self reflective and aligned with Acumen’s values

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