Toronto, Ontario (February 15, 2023) 

The McCall MacBain Foundation is seeking a highly driven emerging professional to join our team as a Research & Grants Officer, with a particular focus on our work in Climate Change & Environment. We are one of Canada’s leading climate funders, and also fund initiatives globally.

As a Research & Grants Officer, you will ensure that we are up to date on evidence and trends that relate to our strategy. You will help us identify key opportunities and levers to accelerate climate action, and key partners for our work. You will also help us manage our relationships with our remarkable grantees – this includes learning alongside them, sharing their work and insights through various communications channels, and supporting them to ensure their work has the greatest possible impact. The Research & Grants Officer will also contribute to work in our other two areas of strategic focus: Education and Youth Well-being and Mental Health.

Working with a small, motivated team in a warm, open office in downtown Toronto, the Research & Grants Officers will report to the VP Philanthropy & Organizational Learning and will collaborate closely with all team members.

The Foundation

The McCall MacBain Foundation is an international philanthropic foundation whose mission is to improve the welfare of humanity by providing scholarships and other educational opportunities that nurture transformational leadership, and by investing in evidence-based strategies to address climate change, preserve our natural environment, and improve health outcomes.

We believe in the power of education, and scholarships in particular, to transform lives and in turn transform our communities to be fairer, healthier, and more prosperous for all. We believe that climate change is the single most pressing problem facing our planet and that we must all do our part to address it. And we believe in an evidence-based approach to supporting youth mental health and well-being.

The Candidate

You are passionate and energetic, and looking to direct your talents to causes you care deeply about. You have dedicated some of your energies – whether through academics, work experience, or extra-curriculars – to work on Climate Change.  When you read about our work and our grantees, you want to learn more about what they do, how, why, and with what impact. You’re excited to reach out to organizations whose work looks interesting and that we could learn from and perhaps even support.

You have great written communications skills. Whether you’re writing a briefing document or a tweet, you are clear and compelling.

You have some additional skillsets or are excited to grow them (you don’t need to be good at or interested in all of these things, but please do tell us which of them resonates most for you):

• You are organized, detail oriented, and like to run things with precision and effectiveness. You are excited at the prospect of running events – developing agendas, preparing materials, arranging for venues, logistics, etc.
• You are interested in collecting and making sense of quantitative and qualitative data to tell stories of impact. You would be excited to continue building out our systems for tracking the impact of our grantees, to improving those systems, and to taking the data and translating it into stories that share our work, the work of our grantees, and our lessons learned with relevant stakeholders.
• You love telling stories through visual communications. Whether it’s websites, powerpoint presentations, or an Instagram post, you enjoy thinking about how to convey ideas through powerful infographics, images, or even just organizing information in a visually compelling way.

Most of all, you are excited to join a team that you can learn from and contribute to and with whom you can achieve shared goals. Our work is growing – this is a place where you can grow, too.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Develop a deep understanding of trends, research, and ongoing initiatives in the area of Climate Change, and in particular on the Foundation’s areas of focus
• Identify and research potential grantees whose work we might support through our strategic funds
• Manage the timely flow of our grants cycle, from receiving grant proposals, to making grant recommendations to our Board, to finalizing grant agreements with grantees, and supporting their work through regular engagement
• Communicate with grantees, including setting up meetings, preparing agendas and briefing materials, capturing action items from meetings and ensuring timely follow up
• Keep up to date with the work of grantees including through social media tracking; keep our team up to date through regular verbal and written briefings
• Identify opportunities to share the work of our grantees through our own social media and communications channels
• Support the Foundation’s role in various funder and sector-based communities
• Organize events and meetings with community members, government, non-profit organizations, political leaders, and others
• Prepare written communications for Board documents, newsletters, and other internal and external media

Job Requirements

The ideal candidate is a self-starter and will be an energetic team member. More specifically, we are looking for:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated analytical skills and ability to prepare clear and concise reports
• Demonstrated ability to establish and manage relationships with diverse stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to work on diverse projects and activities simultaneously
• Strong planning, organization, and coordination skills
• Must have extreme attention to detail
• Be agile, creative
• Exercise sound judgement and discretion in all aspects of work and professional relationships, including managing confidential information
• Demonstrated ability to work under pressure, and to meet deadlines
• Ability to give and take constructive feedback
• Sense of humour
• Curiosity and desire to learn
• Bilingualism (English/French) is an asset
• Experience with Salesforce or another CRM software is an asset

Education

• Post-secondary degree, master’s degree an asset

Eligibility

Employees must be legally authorized to work in Canada. For the health and safety of our team, employees must also be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to access the office.

Salary

Base salary of $55,000-65,000 based on experience, plus a performance-based bonus, matched RRSP contribution, and a comprehensive benefits package including health and dental.

Closing

Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. We will review applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

To Apply

To apply for this position, please forward your CV and personalized cover letter to the attention of Alex Conliffe at hiring@headlandsinstitute.ca. Your cover letter should highlight what aspects of the role and the Foundation’s work is of most interest to you. Applications that do not include this information will not be screened. Your cover letter should be no more than one page in length.

We thank you for your interest in this position. Please note that we will only contact those invited to interview.