Strategic Partnerships Director (Philanthropic & Corporate) with EdTech Product Management Background
Remote
Fundraising /
Full-Time /
Remote
Quill.org is hiring an individual with prior experience in edtech product management who has made or is interested in a career transition into a strategic partnerships role, focused on developing corporate and philanthropic partners. The role, as a Strategic Partnerships Director, is a unique, high-visibility position reporting directly to the CEO, Peter Gault.
Quill.org is an AI-powered education nonprofit that helps millions of students become stronger readers, writers, and critical thinkers. We have been developing our own AI models since 2018, enabling us to build cutting-edge learning tools and provide them entirely for free through philanthropic partners and a freemium enterprise SaaS business model. While this is not a product management role, as a former edtech product manager, your prior skillsets in product development, business, and data experience will make you well positioned to champion Quill’s innovative product development initiatives, enabling Quill to secure funding from mission-aligned philanthropic and corporate partners.
About Quill.org
Our mission to help students become stronger writers, readers, and critical thinkers focuses particularly on supporting the 30 million K-12 students in the United States from low-income backgrounds who face significant challenges with writing proficiency. We firmly believe that writing is a fundamental skill essential for learning, effective communication, and accessing future opportunities.
We achieve our mission by providing free, research-based literacy tools powered by artificial intelligence. Our platform is used by over 11 million students and hundreds of thousands of teachers in more than 40,000 schools across the U.S.. Quill offers a suite of interactive activities—including Quill Connect, Quill Grammar, Quill Diagnostic, Quill Lessons, Quill Proofreader, and Quill Reading for Evidence—that provide students with instant, targeted feedback on their writing. This AI-driven approach helps students revise their work effectively, accelerates skill development, and saves valuable teacher time.
We are a small, ambitious, and dedicated team committed to making a significant educational impact. Our work is supported by leading philanthropic organizations, including the Robin Hood Foundation, Google.org, the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Siegel Family Endowment, and the Gates Foundation. At Quill, our culture and values emphasize kindness, integrity, service to others, embracing differences, fostering a growth mindset, empowering individuals, communicating intentionally, and building with conviction.
The Opportunity - Role Overview
Quill.org seeks a highly motivated and versatile Strategic Partnerships leader to join our team. The role sits at the critical intersection of our philanthropic and corporate partners, the engineering, product, partnerships, and curriculum teams building Quill, our nonprofit education and research collaborators, and the schools and district we work with and serve. You will work directly with education and philanthropy leaders, such as working on initiatives with leaders from the Gates Foundation, Google.org, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
You will be instrumental in leveraging your prior product and data experience to build strong partnerships and proposals that advance Quill’s mission, scale our impact, and deepen the student learning experience. Through these partnerships, your work will have a direct impact on Quill.org's ability to scale its reach and deepen its impact on student literacy nationwide. This is an exceptional opportunity to play a pivotal role in a mission-driven, growing non-profit organization, influencing strategy and impact from a central vantage point.
Context for the Product Management Background
As a product-led nonprofit, Quill’s strategic partnerships with philanthropic partners tend to center on specific product initiatives, such as as building new AI-powered tools, developing learning scaffolds for Multi-Lingual Learners, or creating a new curricular offering aligned to a core HQIM curriculum. As a result, the Strategic Partnerships lead at Quill requires a background in product strategy to help build and align our product roadmap with the priorities of our partners. Additionally, the majority of our funding comes through written proposals, and the experience of developing detailed product specs is directly applicable to constructing these proposals. Finally, data plays an important role in securing and renewing partnerships, and a product manager’s data skills, such as from using analytics tools and SQL queries, enables the lead to incorporate that data to communicate the progress on the partnership.
Key Responsibilities - What You’ll Do
Develop Strategic Partnerships (40%)
You will work with the Executive Director to secure about 10-15 philanthropic and corporate partnerships each year, generating about $5m in philanthropic revenue.
- Identify, cultivate, and solicit new philanthropic and corporate fundraising partnerships through various channels, including direct outreach, grant proposals, conferences, and other networking events. This includes attending major edtech conferences, such as ASU-GSV, ISTE, SXSW Edu, and the NewSchools Summit.
- Lead fundraising meetings with current and potential funding partners, including managing follow-ups and deliverables.
- Collaborate with internal teams and external partners to co-build and implement pilot programs and assess the impact of Quill's grant-funded initiatives.
- Facilitate cross-functional collaboration and communication internally to ensure organizational alignment on grant-funded strategic initiatives.
Construct Strategic Partnerships Proposals & Reports (50%)
- Develop strategic plans and project proposals that takes Quill’s organizational goals, roadmap, and strategy and aligns to the mission and goals of each philanthropic partner.
- Complete reports for partners that communicate all of the progress and achievements for each partnership, using data extensively to provide concrete results.
- In this role, you will produce about one new report or proposal about once every one to two weeks.
- Ensure timely communication and managing report submissions to meet all reporting deadlines.
- Maintain organized records of fundraising, partnerships, communications, and related documentation using appropriate platforms (e.g., Notion, Google Drive, Streak, etc).
Support External Communications and Media Relations (10%)
- Develop and implement communication strategies to enhance organizational visibility and brand reputation among funders and the broader philanthropy sector.
- Manage external communications, including media relations, to secure positive press coverage and amplify Quill's message.
- Leverage online platforms to expand reach and engagement with target audiences in partnership with Quill’s marketing team.
Qualifications - What You'll Need
- Approximately 2-5+ years of experience developing educational products, including building product development pitches, developing product specifications, working with teams to construct those products, and using data to assess the impact of those products.
- For Candidates without explicit product management experience, candidates must have strong data skills (e.g. SQL, formulas in excel), knowledge about AI in education, and training on educational pedagogy, such as the Science of Reading & Writing.
- 0-5+ Years of experience building strategic partnerships/business development/sales. For this role, you do not need to have a background in fundraising, business development, or sales, but candidates with that prior experience will be a strong fit for this role.
- While no prior experience in nonprofit fundraising or strategic partnerships is required, the candidate must be excited and interested in developing a career in strategic partnerships and nonprofit fundraising.
- This role requires exceptional communication skills (written and verbal), with the ability to synthesize complex information and present it effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- This role requires excellent project management skills, including planning, prioritization, managing multiple concurrent projects, and driving them to completion.
- The candidate must have a proactive, self-starting mentality with a strong sense of ownership and the ability to work independently.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience demonstrating analytical rigor and strategic thinking.
Why Join Us?
Make a Tangible Difference: Your work will directly contribute to Quill.org's mission of improving literacy outcomes for millions of students across the United States, particularly those underserved.
High-Impact & Visibility Role: Operate at the heart of the organization, influencing data strategy, operational efficiency, and key projects with direct access to the CEO and leadership team.
Growth and Learning Opportunity: Join a passionate, intelligent, and collaborative team in a dynamic environment that values learning and professional development. Tackle diverse challenges and expand your skillset across data, operations, and strategy.
Competitive Compensation: This role has a salary range of $140k-$200k based on prior experience. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package benchmarked for the non-profit sector.
EEO Statement
Quill is committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants and strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind—regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, genetics, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by law. This commitment applies to every stage of employment, from recruiting and hiring to compensation, promotions, benefits, training, and all other terms and conditions of employment.
$130,000 - $180,000 a year
