Senior Manager, Foundation Partnerships

Impact Starts at UNICEF Canada

JOIN OUR TEAM AS SENIOR MANAGER, FOUNDATION PARTNERSHIPS

Do you thrive on cultivating and growing partnerships that advance ambitious fundraising and impact goals?

Join UNICEF Canada – one of Canada’s most respected and historic charities – and be part of a high-impact, mission-driven team working across Canada and globally to create a better world for children.

We are seeking a talented individual for the role of Senior Manager, Foundation Partnerships.

Position Details

The Opportunity

The Senior Manager, Foundation Partnerships will provide the coordination, grant management, and partnership communications required to support a major institutional foundation partnership. Serving as a central point of contact, this role will ensure alignment across internal and external stakeholders, effective management of key dates and deliverables, and clear, timely communication across UNICEF Canada, Global Foundations team, Country Offices, and Regional Offices.

The successful candidate is a highly organized relationship-builder who can manage complex coordination across multiple teams, maintain strong systems for follow-up, and support high-quality stewardship and reporting for a valued institutional foundation partner.

Reporting to the Executive Vice President, Development, this position will strengthen the operational infrastructure, collaboration, and communications needed to support a high-value institutional foundation partnership, helping to advance UNICEF’s mission for children through exceptional partnership management and execution.

Key Accountabilities

Partnership Coordination (40%)

• Facilitate monthly/quarterly stakeholder meetings, updates, and follow-ups among UNICEF Canada, Global teams, Country Offices and Regional Offices to capture status updates across the internal network.
• Develop and maintain meeting agendas, actions, briefing notes, timelines, and shared coordination tools to support effective partnership management and decision-making.
• Track and monitor partnership commitments, grant deliverables, dependencies, &reporting requirements, proactively identifying and escalating risks, gaps, or delays that may impact partnership objectives.
• Facilitate effective information flow and alignment between teams to ensure that partnership priorities, program updates, and donor requirements are understood and acted upon.
• Serve as a central coordination point for scheduling, document sharing, and internal preparation for partner-facing engagements, including the Partnership Council meetings with the external partner.

Grant Management and Tracking (20%)

• Oversee grant management processes, including detailed milestone tracking, reporting deadlines, approvals, payment schedules, and key partnership deliverables.
• Support Director, International Programs & Emergencies with UNICEF Canada’s oversight of programmatic reporting by tracking timelines, milestone reminders, and ensuring deliverables are provided on schedule.
• Coordinate with relevant internal and global stakeholders to collect accurate program, financial, and impact information for donor reporting, stewardship and decision-making.
• Monitor progress against agreed grant requirements and escalate risks or delays in a timely manner.
• Maintain organized records of grant-related documents, correspondence, reporting inputs, and partner commitments in Raiser’s Edge, UNISON, and Asana.

Partner Communications & Stewardship (40%)

• Lead coordination of partnership communications across UNICEF Canada, Global teams and Country Offices to ensure messaging is consistent, timely, and aligned with partnership objectives.
• Draft, review, and coordinate updates, briefing materials, meeting notes, and partner-facing correspondence as needed.
• Coordinate the development of program updates and stewardship materials that reflect partner priorities and UNICEF’s programmatic work.
• Ensure consistency of messaging and partnerships of communications planning across the various grants.
• Provide an oversite of overall partnership communications strategies, ensuing alignment with donor expectations and organizational priorities.
• Maintain visibility on upcoming communications needs and ensure relevant teams have adequate time and information to contribute.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated 5-7 years of experience in partnership management, project management, grant management, government communications and relations, international development, or a related field.
• Strong organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple timelines, stakeholders, deliverables, and competing priorities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize information and prepare clear materials for different audiences.
• Experience leading and influencing cross-functional, geographically dispersed, or matrixed teams to achieve shared objectives.
• Strong attention to detail, with the ability to establish and maintain effective systems, processes, and documentation.

• Ability to exercise sound judgment, discretion, and diplomacy when working with internal teams and external partners.
• Experience with institutional donors, foundations, grants, or international programs is an asset.
• Proficiency with project management, CRM, and collaboration tools, including Asana, MS Office, Raiser’s Edge and Salesforce.

Key Competencies

• Highly organized and proactive, with strong follow-through.
• Collaborative and relationship-oriented, with the ability to work across teams and geographies.
• Clear and concise communicator.
• Strong judgement and risk management capability.
• Strategic thinker with a demonstrated ability to drive execution and results. 
• Comfortable managing ambiguity and bringing structure to complex partnerships.
• Detail-oriented while maintaining awareness of broader partnership goals.
• Solutions focused, diplomatic, and responsive.

An Employer of Choice: What We Offer

UNICEF Canada is where diverse talent & passion come together to create extraordinary impact for every child. We are committed to being an employer of choice and building a culture that is inclusive, ambitious, compassionate, and high impact.

Members of the UNICEF Canada team have access to the following employee benefits:

Our Commitment to Inclusive Workplaces & Recruitment

UNICEF Canada is an inclusive workplace and is committed to championing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Requests for accommodation can be made at any stage of the recruitment process.

At UNICEF Canada, we believe strongly in personal connections, and our hiring process is human driven. We do not use AI or automated systems to review applications or conduct interviews. Each candidate is evaluated by our experienced team to ensure a fair and thoughtful hiring experience.

How to Apply

Please submit your resume and cover letter as one document to careers@unicef.ca by Friday, September, 2026. Please reference “Senior Manager, Foundation Partnerships” in the subject heading.

UNICEF Canada thanks all applicants for their interest in this opportunity, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted. Consistent with our Child Safeguarding Policy, all successful candidates must receive clearance by a police background check (including a vulnerable sector screen).