Overview

About Ascend
Ascend is the largest Brooklyn-based public charter school serving nearly 6,000 K-12 students in 16 schools. We exist to serve every student - to help them embody their inherent excellence by providing rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock a life of boundless choice.
Access to education is a social justice issue. As educators, we center justice and live out our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) by ensuring that our students have the skills, tools, and confidence they need to thrive today and in the future. We are proud to have a workforce that mirrors the diversity seen in our students. Working at Ascend provides a community focused on developing an environment of support and belonging. Educators collaborate closely and encourage each other to achieve great outcomes.

Our schools honor, nurture, and challenge the whole child. Ascend fosters critical thinking skills and a love of learning through an inquiry-based learning approach, Responsive Classroom model, and anti-racist education. We are deeply committed to advancing educational equity for all of our students. Students at Ascend benefit from a rich and rigorous liberal arts curriculum that nurtures natural curiosity about the world and guides them to think critically and independently.
Ascend invests in employees by providing competitive compensation, benefits, and ongoing professional development programs. Total compensation includes a generous benefits package with flexibility in healthcare plan choices, including mental healthcare services, and a 403(b) match. Our paid time off includes Wellness Days set aside for employees to focus on their personal care. We also believe in bringing joy to the office, with committees focused on employee programs and events to foster collaboration.
For more information on Ascend Public Charter Schools' model, approach, and core values, please visit our website.

Ascend is looking for a dynamic Grants and Compliance Manager to join our network team. Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ascend's Grants and Compliance Manager will provide oversight of the grants process for the entire network.

This position represents an extraordinary opportunity to continue the ongoing development of the federal and state grants management function for our schools while ensuring overall effectiveness, efficiency, and equity in our overall processes and systems. As Manager, you will oversee the application and financial management for all of our grants.

Responsibilities

• Ensure the grantmaking practice and policies are consistent with Ascend Learnings mission, vision, and values
• Serve as the leader and guide in grantmaking processes and procedures, ensuring engagement and adoption of best practices across program teams and schools
• Serve as the Program Manager for all grants including Title, ESSER, CSP, DYCD, etc. ensuring coordination with organizational program teams to ensure alignment between grant application and program development
• Develop strong understanding of statutory guidelines and permissible use of funds for all grants
• Responsible for the full-cycle grants application process ensuring dynamic templates for each grant type, coordination of requests from other Ascend Learning teams, and extensive quality control to ensure timely and accurate grant submissions
• Research, identification and completion of all public grant applications ensuring compliance with guidelines and policies related to the proposal review and grant process
• Responsible for grant budgets ensuring compliance
• Responsible maintaining government receivables and for seeking reimbursement on any open items
• Partner with Team Finance as well as other departments to track, manage, and analyze grant revenue and expenditures to ensure compliance of all grants
• Manage all reporting and compliance aspects of federal, state, and local grants
• Manage grants calendar ensuring appropriate short and long term planning ensure timely processing
• Create a comprehensive guidebook to grants, detailing application procedures and strategies, policies regarding use of funds, and ongoing compliance updates due to new programming
• Assist with public financial reporting requirements, cross-functional project collaboration with other finance areas, supports Finance Team on special projects as necessary and other duties as assigned

Qualifications

• At least 3-5 years of experience in grants management
• Highly effective project management skills

Reporting relationships and teams

The grants manager will report into the Director of FP&A and serve as a member of Ascend's Finance team.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $70,000-$80,000. Several factors such as candidate's work experience, education/training, job-related skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations may influence base pay offered. This salary range is reflective of a position based in New York City

Diversity at Ascend

Ascend is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, both through our hiring practices and our focus on creating a culture and environment where diverse perspectives, ideas, and identities are valued and integrated into our way of working and educating students. Ascend staff represent a wide diversity of racial, socio-economic, gender, religious, and national identities-opening a window to the entire Ascend community on the richness of humanity. We welcome all applicants who share our mission and vision to join us in our deeply consequential work.