About us
Kiva is a global nonprofit, founded in 2005, with a mission to expand financial access and help underserved communities thrive. Kiva unlocks capital for borrowers through crowdfunded loans supported by individuals around the world. Lenders on Kiva can start with as little as $25 to support causes that matter most to them, whether that’s gender equity and support for women, refugees, climate change, small businesses, agriculture, and more. Since our founding, over two million people have invested over $2 billion in real dreams and real opportunity, spanning more than 100 countries and over 5 million borrowers.
As we work toward our mission, Kiva invests in building and retaining a global team of talent to add to our values-driven and digital-first culture. Our organization is supported by over 700 volunteers and 130+ full time employees dispersed around the world, as well as within team hubs located in San Francisco, Nairobi, Bogota, and Bangkok. Kiva’s team is growing as we pursue exciting new opportunities to scale our impact and create a financially inclusive world.
Role overview
The Associate, Strategic Partnerships, plays a critical role in advancing Kiva’s fundraising and partnership operations. This role supports the full philanthropic partnership lifecycle—from researching and qualifying new corporate, foundation, and individual prospects, to developing high-quality outreach materials and proposals, to supporting effective post-gift stewardship. Working closely with Strategic Partnerships leadership and cross-functional teams, the Associate helps turn opportunity into execution, ensuring ideas, relationships, and funding pathways move forward efficiently and thoughtfully.
In addition to front-end business development support, this role strengthens the operational foundation of the Strategic Partnerships team. The Associate supports strong systems, clean data, and clear reporting across tools like Salesforce and Asana, while identifying opportunities to improve workflows and introduce smarter, more scalable ways of working. This role is well suited for someone who enjoys combining relationship-driven work with operational rigor and wants to build deep expertise in partnerships and fundraising operations.
At this time, we can only consider applicants with authorization to work in the United States on a permanent, full-time basis; unfortunately, we cannot provide visa sponsorship.
Key responsibilities include
Business Development Support (50%)
- Research, scope, and qualify new partnership opportunities aligned with Kiva’s Corporate Social Impact and Impact Philanthropy strategies, contributing to a healthy, prioritized pipeline.
- Conduct prospect research across multiple channels—including LinkedIn, conferences, industry scans, and inbound inquiries—to identify high-potential corporate, foundation, and individual partners.
- Draft, organize, and refine high-quality written materials—including outreach emails, proposals, pitch decks, one-pagers, and briefing documents—that support fundraising meetings and external engagements.
- Support the development of funding proposals and grant materials in collaboration with Relationship Managers and Impact team members, writing and synthesizing content that translates programmatic priorities into compelling partner narratives.
- Serve as the first point of contact for inbound partnership leads, assessing fit and identifying appropriate partnership pathways within Kiva.
- Lead or support speaker and conference submissions that elevate awareness of Kiva’s partnership work and thought leadership.
Partner & Donor Stewardship (15%)
- Support Relationship Managers with ongoing partner and donor stewardship, including operational communications, funding logistics (e.g., checks, wire instructions, deposits), and due-diligence coordination.
- Independently manage engagement for select smaller partners and donors, including coordinating contracts with Legal, confirming deliverables, and identifying opportunities to deepen or grow partnerships.
- Lead grant reporting as needed, managing timelines and coordinating inputs across Impact, Finance, and Strategic Partnerships to ensure reports are accurate, timely, and aligned with partner expectations.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Process Enablement (15%)
- Act as a collaborative connector across teams—including Managed Lending, Impact, Finance, Legal, Product, Community Support, and Marketing—to support smooth partnership execution.
- Organize, facilitate, and document select Strategic Partnerships and cross-functional meetings, ensuring clear agendas, notes, and follow-through.
- Support team-wide planning, coordination, and logistics, contributing to a well-organized and inclusive team culture.
- Partner with the Senior Manager to improve workflows, clarify ownership, and develop SOPs, templates, and shared resources that strengthen collaboration.
Data, Systems & Operational Excellence (20%)
- Partner with the Senior Manager to operationalize Strategic Partnerships systems and data strategy, with Salesforce serving as the team’s primary source of truth.
- Own execution of assigned CRM workflows, reporting, and process improvements, contributing insights and recommendations to ongoing system evolution.
- Drive consistent CRM adoption and data quality through documentation, best-practice reinforcement, and support for behavior change over time.
- Improve operational efficiency by streamlining workflows across systems (e.g., Salesforce, Confluence, Asana, Slack, Airtable) and identifying opportunities for refinement, automation, and AI-enabled improvements.
Who You Are
You’re energized by the intersection of relationships and rigor. You enjoy the craft of business development—researching prospects, shaping the right angle for a pitch, tailoring messages, and ensuring strong follow-through. You’re a strong writer who takes pride in producing clear, compelling materials, whether that’s a proposal section, a grant report, a partner email, or a leadership brief.
You’re also someone who enjoys taking ownership of work end-to-end. You’re comfortable managing projects with multiple stakeholders, keeping timelines on track, coordinating inputs, and seeing initiatives through from start to finish. You’re curious, proactive, and comfortable navigating ambiguity—seeking out context and resources, asking thoughtful questions when needed, and continuously looking for ways to improve how work gets done. You thrive in collaborative environments and are motivated by Kiva’s mission and the opportunity to help build thoughtful, well-executed partnerships.
Required qualifications:
- You bring 3+ years of experience in business development, partnerships, fundraising, sales, or client services, with increasing responsibility and comfort managing your work independently within a collaborative environment.
- You have experience supporting a business development or fundraising cycle, including researching prospects, drafting outreach, developing decks or one-pagers, tracking pipelines, and coordinating follow-ups.
- You demonstrate strong ownership and initiative, proactively identifying issues or opportunities, independently seeking out information to fill knowledge gaps, and exercising sound judgment to move work forward and keep workstreams on track in evolving or ambiguous environments.
- You enjoy research and know how to use tools such as LinkedIn, conference platforms, industry news, wealth screening, and internal data to identify and qualify good-fit prospects.
- You bring strong attention to detail and care about accuracy, consistency, and quality in data, materials, and communications.
- You’re able to synthesize multiple inputs into clear, well-written briefs, summaries, proposals, or presentation materials that highlight what matters most and support partner conversations or decision-making.
- You build productive working relationships and collaborate effectively across teams, communicating clearly and professionally with both internal stakeholders and external partners.
- You’re comfortable working in systems and processes, including maintaining clean records, following established workflows, and proactively contributing ideas to improve documentation, adoption, and ways of working.
- You approach your work with curiosity and a growth mindset, actively seeking feedback, learning new skills, and looking for ways to improve how work gets done.
- You hold a Bachelor’s degree in a related field or bring equivalent professional experience.
- You feel a strong alignment with Kiva’s mission and values.
Kiva’s Values
- Impact first: This is why we exist. This is the drumbeat we march to. every day.
- Extreme ownership: Own it; you, your relationships, your impact. Insist that others support you and hold you accountable.
- Be curious and bold: Never stop learning. Question assumptions. Take risks and dream big.
- Inclusion. Equity. Diversity.: Without reservation or caveat. In our hiring, in our workplace and in our impact in the world.
- Honor and integrity: Do the most right thing in the most right way.
- Love and kindness always: Say what you mean. Mean what you say. And don't say it mean. Clarity, courage, kindness.
What we offer:
A diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other is an integral part of Kiva's culture. We actively welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and a great place to work. Join us and help us achieve our mission!
We will only accept applications directly from candidates. Kiva will not be responsible for any recruiting agency fees, absent a formal agreement.