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Partnerships Manager - Our Place
Snow Foundation
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What if the work you’re best at - holding relationships, running complexity, making things land - helped shape a stronger for-purpose ecosystem across Canberra?
Why us?
Help us drive impact in:
The opportunity:
Why you might love this opp:
The Snow Foundation is a family philanthropic foundation deeply committed to place, country and community. Their purpose is to create lasting social change by building strong communities and forging fair systems.
Now they’re looking for a Partnerships Manager. Could it be you?
🍃Place-based philanthropy in action: In the Canberra region, Snow Foundation is on the ground - backing local organisations, convening partners and strengthening leadership where communities need it most. Through collaborative grant rounds and capacity-building programs, they simplify access to funding, encourage shared approaches and help community-led ideas grow. The work is practical and relational - building capability, alignment and momentum across the region.
🌍 Impact in action: Three funders. One shared grant round. Since 2022, the Canberra Foundations Collaborative has backed 191 community-led projects and invested $4.3M+ locally - streamlining access to funding and strengthening collaboration across the region, with Snow Foundation convening in a way few others can.
🥜 In a nutshell: This role is the engine room of Our Place - where relationships, programs and decisions get turned into action. As Partnerships Manager, you keep partners aligned, programs ticking along, and insight from the ground shaping what happens next. You bring momentum without noise, keep complexity in check, and make sure commitments don’t just sound good - they hold up in practice.
🌟 Where relationships meet delivery: One day you’re in conversation with partners; the next you’re deep in delivery - coordinating a grant round, aligning timelines and tracking progress as work unfolds. You’ll juggle multiple workstreams and shared accountability with confidence, keeping commitments tight and navigating complexity in work that carries responsibility to partners, communities, and the integrity of the Foundation.
🥤What you’ll bring: We know strong partnership leaders come from many paths. You might have built your experience in philanthropy, community, social enterprise or lean teams where you owned delivery, not just relationships. What matters is your understanding of the Canberra for-purpose landscape, your ability to juggle moving parts, and ability to manage programs & partnerships progress with integrity and sound judgement.
🕶 Your style: Calm under pressure and confident without noise, you bring steady judgement to complex work. You’re as comfortable listening deeply in community settings as you are switching gears to drive structure and delivery back in the office. An action taker that’s outcome-focused, you work autonomously and adjust your pace as needed - bringing just enough structure to keep work moving without losing the trust, warmth and credibility this role depends on.
🤝 A culture you’ll feel: Snow Foundation is a high-trust, high-performing team known for thoughtful collaboration and strong follow-through. People work closely, share openly, and take responsibility for delivering what’s been agreed - with care, rigour and respect for community. In this role, you’ll report to the Head of Partnerships - Our Place and work alongside partners and colleagues across the Foundation, contributing to a culture where trust is built through clarity, accountability and consistency.
⚡ The detail: Canberra-based, in-office five days per week (with the option to work four days). Salary aligned with market rates and discussed based on experience. Full, ongoing working rights in Australia are required.
What's involved:
The balance of work will shift over time but to start:
〰️ 50% Our Place programs & grant delivery: Hold the flow of the Our Place portfolio - the grant rounds, programs and decisions that keep place-based philanthropy moving from intention to action. You’ll steer the Canberra Foundations Collaborative alongside partner foundations, guide leadership and capacity-building programs like Lead the Way, and stay across grant partnerships from start to finish. Timelines stay aligned, decisions keep moving, and learning doesn’t get lost along the way. You bring a steady hand to complex programs - spotting risks early, keeping quality high, and making sure commitments to partners are honoured with care and consistency.
〰️ 35% Partnerships & ecosystem stewardship: Be out in the ecosystem - building trust, staying close to community, and keeping a live sense of what’s emerging across the region. You’ll notice where collaboration could unlock more impact, bring the right people together at the right moment, and help partnerships take shape with clarity and shared understanding. This is long-game work: relational, grounded, and focused on strengthening connection, capability and collective impact across the ecosystem.
〰️ 15% Governance, reporting & organisational contribution: Keep the foundations steady. You’ll help shape clear updates and materials for committees, board and internal stakeholders, and work closely with finance and communications to keep grants, budgets, reporting and messaging on track. You’ll also feed insight from the Our Place work back into the Foundation - helping sharpen practice, learning and decision-making over time.
Key criteria:
🤝 Trusted relationship-builder: You’ve built credibility through how you show up - present, thoughtful and consistent. Partners and colleagues have experienced you as steady and respectful, even in complex or sensitive conversations. You can demonstrate how you’ve listened carefully, responded with care, and held boundaries without losing warmth to achieve community impact.
🧭 Judgement-led operator: You’ve been the person making day-to-day calls when things didn’t go to plan - balancing risk, relationships and delivery in real time. You’ve handled trade-offs, escalated when needed, and kept work moving without hiding behind process or waiting for perfect information.
🧠 Disciplined program lead: You’ve coordinated multi-step projects, programs or partnerships - managing timelines, stakeholders, approvals and dependencies at once. You’ve kept details tight, progress visible, and momentum going from planning through to delivery, with a track record of closing the loop.
🌐 Ecosystem thinker & natural convenor: You know the community landscape well - noticing where things are aligning, drifting or missing altogether. You’ve demonstrated you can facilitate meaningful connections, surface shared challenges, and help ideas travel across organisations. You convene with a light touch, creating space for collaboration to take hold and momentum to build.
🌱 Community and impact-minded: You’re motivated by work that strengthens organisations and communities for the long haul. You bring care and accountability in equal measure, and can demonstrate how you’ve balanced pace with responsibility when working in mission-driven contexts.
🔄 Adaptable, curious and reflective: You’ve worked in environments where priorities shifted, pilots evolved, or programs needed adjustment mid-flight. You’ve tested approaches, taken feedback seriously, and changed course when needed - improving how things run without losing sight of the bigger purpose.
How to apply:
If any of the above resonated with you but you don’t tick every box:
👒 🧢 🎩 You should throw your hat in the ring, whatever those years of experience look like in your personal impact journey. We’d love to hear from you!
Interested?
1. Create a profile (or complete yours if you already have one) on Ripple Opportunities.
2. Submit an application by clicking on the job listing and ‘apply’.
3. Please submit your resume and a cover letter (ideally PDF) that briefly outlines what is motivating you to apply for the role and how your experience could be applied in this context. We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early.
A detailed position description is available for download on the listing page (once logged in).
Your written application (max 1,000 words) should include:
- What’s motivating you to apply for this role?
- A brief overview of your previous experience and how it applies in this context.
- A specific experience you’ve had that’s directly related to this role (e.g leading the delivery of a project or program within an NFP). What was the objective, what strategy and tactics did you implement, what results did you achieve and what did you learn from this?
- What’s something we don’t know about you that could help you thrive in this role?
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