Senior Grant Writer

The Senior Grant Writer leads proposal writing and grant reporting efforts for Impact Justice’s small-but-mighty Development team. You will work with and across program teams leading innovative projects in criminal justice reform–like a reentry housing innovation, an AmeriCorps program designed for formerly incarcerated leaders, and creative approaches to improving food in prison. You’ll craft and refine proposals for well-aligned funders and funding opportunities and manage a grants calendar of proposal and reporting deadlines.

You are a confident, fast writer who knows their way around a grants calendar. The opportunity to write about a wide range of innovative criminal justice reform programs is exciting to you, and you know how to ask the right questions in order to craft compelling, clear proposal language. You’re not too precious about your drafts; you appreciate edits, and your top priority is landing on the most engaging, compelling, effective narrative you can. You can juggle multiple balls without any dropping and maximize efficiency without sacrificing quality. You can anticipate problems or decision-points and elevate those rather than waiting to be told or asked, and you aren’t comfortable letting even small errors slide. You’re comfortable working with multiple different leaders and are at ease being flexible and adaptable.

The anticipated start date for this position is May 2026. You will report to IJ’s Director of Development. Your core responsibilities will be:

We are also committed to ethical, nuanced approaches to AI use in writing and fundraising and are currently exploring various options to support our development work. This will be an area of exploration and growth for Impact Justice’s Development team, led by the Director of Development. The successful candidate for this position will be comfortable with, or have experience with, large language models such as Claude and Chat GPT.

Experience Level
Successful candidates typically have 5+ years of professional experience, of which at least 3 years should have included a focus on nonprofit grant writing. Your previous experience managing the types of tasks and projects that drive fundraising success and are relevant to this role are more important to us than years of experience alone.

Consistent with our compensation philosophy, our starting salaries are established to represent strong compensation in the marketplace and to maintain internal equity. The starting salary for this position is fixed at $82,002, with annual increases defined by the current collective bargaining agreement. This is a bargaining unit position with Impact Justice United represented by OPEIU International. The benefits that come with working at Impact Justice include medical, dental, and FSA plans, significant vacation and wellness leave, and immediate vesting in our 401K with a generous match. This is a full-time, salaried position.

This is a full-time, salaried position. The candidate should be located in one of our office locations: Oakland, CA; Washington, DC; or Los Angeles, CA. The Senior Grant Writer will work under a hybrid schedule with at least two in-office days per week. Periodic deviations to the regular hybrid schedule may be required due to program needs. We are not considering remote staff for this position.

If this all sounds like a good fit for you, please send your resume and a one-page cover letter explaining why you are particularly interested in the role and why we should be particularly interested in you!

We plan on making decisions on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply the better.

Hiring Process
Elements of the Impact Justice hiring process may include phone screen
interviews, candidate exercises (written or presentations), Zoom interviews, in person interviews, and reference checks. Candidates are welcome to ask for alternative arrangements in the process if needed (for example, conducting an interview via phone rather than Zoom), Impact Justice will do our best to accommodate reasonable requests. Please communicate any alternative arrangements requested to the hiring manager.

Equal Opportunity Employment
Impact Justice provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race/ethnicity, color, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, religion, national origin, age, criminal history, or disability.