Overview

Australian Progress is looking for a Partnerships Manager/Executive Assistant to support the executive team and contribute to achieving our ambitious strategic priorities.

You will play a pivotal role in the team by enabling effective stakeholder management across our various partners including philanthropy, sponsors, and nonprofit partners.

You know your way around a spreadsheet, love working in a collaborative team environment, have a strong grasp of the written word, and are highly organised.

Key details:

• 12-month fixed-term role, ideally starting in November 2024. Potential for this role to become permanent
• $90,000-$100,000 (pro rata if part time) plus 11.5% superannuation, depending upon experience
• Full time (1.0 FTE), option to negotiate 0.8 FTE or 0.9 FTE
• Nationally-focused role, where working from home/remote work is possible

About Australian Progress

Our vision is for a more just, equitable, and sustainable society, underpinned by an engaged democracy and civil society.

We build the capacity of social change organisations and movements to advocate and win by:

• Transforming the skills of community leaders - equipping them with cutting-edge leadership and advocacy skills.
• Fostering community and connections - building relationships, sharing knowledge and inspiring courage in those we bring together.
• Driving shared action - catalysing new ideas, funding, research and strategic support.

Our strategic framework enables us to be both proactive and nimble:

• Foundational: Building the skills and connections of social change organisations and movements. We provide convening and training spaces for thousands of social changemakers and leaders, that are adaptive to emergent and strategic priorities. We run a range of programs such as the Progress Fellowship, Capacity Building Hub, Global Study Tour, FWD+Organise conference, Common Threads summit, a range of short trainings, and more.
• Strategic: Catalysing innovation and shared action in 3-4 strategic areas to uplift the advocacy sector in partnership with philanthropy. We are:
  • Building the advocacy capability and funds for First Nations organisations and movements.
  • Supporting organisations to shape media narratives and shift their messaging to build community support and win policy change.
  • Respond to growing polarisation, division, and misinformation by reinvigorating and innovating approaches to community and digital organising.
• Emergent: Responding to new threats, opportunities, and community needs and innovation for advocacy.

Our values are:

• Equity and justice – We actively centre voices of impacted communities and explicitly oppose racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and queerphobia. We commit to holding ourselves accountable, welcoming feedback and learning and changing our approach when we get things wrong.
• Courage – We’re courageous and ambitious. We boldly pursue our vision for systemic change and celebrate wins along the way. We embrace challenging conversations and perspectives and actively speak out against structural injustice – encouraging others to do the same.
• Generosity – We generously share our time, knowledge and resources, and value the time and dignity of those working alongside us to realise our shared vision. We treat others with respect and compassion, and work actively to improve the safety and inclusivity of learning and collaboration spaces we convene.
• Collective power – We value diverse roles in our movement, respect different theories of change and believe deeply that together, we’re more than the sum of our parts. We nurture connections and collaboration, to build intersectional, people-powered movements and campaigns.

About the role and responsibilities

The Partnerships Manager / Executive Assistant will support the Executive leadership team at Australian Progress through the project management of our stakeholder and partner relationships. This involves supporting the team to engage and communicate with stakeholders across the breadth of our organisational priorities. You may manage up to one staff member, volunteer, or contractor.

Key responsibilities:

1. Philanthropic partnerships and fundraising support:

• Support leadership team to implement and project manage the philanthropic fundraising strategy including preparing content for grant applications and partnership proposals, project acquittals, and regular updates to donors, sponsors, and partners.
• Engage in proactive identification and outreach to existing and potential funders and sponsors.
• Implement fundraising systems and project management, including drafting agreements, proposals, and other documentation, scheduling meetings, booking travel, keeping records of agreements and partnerships, prompting agreement renewals, managing donor stewardship, etc.

2. Executive assistant strategic project support:

• Provide executive assistant support to the leadership team to enable our strategic projects and core work, particularly in relation to key partners and stakeholders, including maintaining a register of live and historic partnerships, drafting or editing copy, mail merges, maintaining accurate databases, establishing and implementing processes and procedures, creating invoices, and other administrative assistance.
• Support managing relationships with event sponsors and partners, including preparing proposal documents, drafting emails, managing delivery of sponsor benefits, sending invites, tracking RSVPs, and logistics support as required.
• Support the Events and Trainings and Communications teams to collate speaker bios and photos, and write and distribute communications regarding guest speakers for trainings and events e.g. speaker and program announcements.
• Support with speaker briefing ahead of major events and trainings.
• Other reasonable executive assistant duties as delegated from time to time.

3. Strategic partnership management:

• Administer partnerships-based systems, including drafting, reviewing, and maintaining records of MOUs, proposals, and other documentation; scheduling meetings and booking travel, etc.
• Engage in proactive identification and outreach to existing and potential partners and speakers, under the direction of project managers.
• Project manage non-profit and sponsorship partnerships, including developing and implementing project plans with measurable goals, budget, timeline, activities, outcomes, and evaluation.

About you

Our ideal applicant will bring experience in stakeholder engagement and ideally existing relationships within the sector, excellent written and verbal communication, and a flexible and adaptive approach to project and task management.

We strive to apply a justice lens to all our work and strongly encourage First Nations people, people of colour, people with disability, refugees and asylum seekers, people from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, and LGBTQIA+ people to apply.

We encourage you to apply even if you don’t have all of the relevant skills and experience.

Key selection criteria:

• Strong communication skills and experience – confident communicator and an experienced writer, able to craft compelling and persuasive narratives that demonstrate stories of impact.
• Project management skills – ability to manage and deliver small to medium projects, including implementing evaluation systems.
• Digital literacy – knowledge of and experience using databases, online systems and tools (e.g., Google Drive), and general computer functions.
• Values alignment – demonstrated interest in our mission and alignment with our organisational values
• Organised and efficient – able to plan and prioritise effectively, and deliver a large volume of diverse tasks.
• Relationship skills – able to build rapport easily with people and experience working collaboratively and cooperatively with others to achieve work plans and goals.

Desired attributes:

• Knowledge of advocacy – experience in and confidence telling the story of best practice campaigning and advocacy.
• Philanthropy engagement experience –understanding of andexperience working with philanthropy including drafting grants and acquittals.
• Adaptability – a high degree of flexibility and ability to adapt to changing internal and external contexts.

Remuneration and conditions

The salary offered for this role is $90,000 - $100,000 (pro rata) plus 11.5% superannuation. The salary will be determined on the level of experience you bring and the level of responsibility you take in leading this work.

Australian Progress in the final stages of implementing our first Enterprise Agreement. Conditions include:

• 3.5% annual salary increase on 1 July.
• 16 weeks paid parental leave for primary and secondary parents, and continued superannuation payments.
• 4 weeks annual leave and 8 RDOs per year pro rata, with a shut down period over summer and option to buy-back additional annual leave.
• Values aligned policies including 4 weeks gender affirmation leave, 4 weeks family violence leave, and 2 weeks cultural leave for First Nations staff.
• 15 days of personal leave annually.

Additional information

• The role will be offered as a 12 month contract, with the likelihood of permanency subject to funding.
• Australian Progress team members are based predominantly in Melbourne and NSW. We will consider applications from candidates around Australia, and are open to hiring someone interested in a long term remote work arrangement.
• Interstate travel will be required for major events and planning days.

next steps

Please click Apply Now to submit your application.

For further information, or a confidential conversation about the role, please contact Kirsty on [email protected], using the subject line: Partnerships Manager / Executive Assistant - Flexible Location enquiry via EthicalJobs.

A position description is attached.