Position Summary
The Innovation & Partnerships Manager will work closely with the Founder / Director of Innovation & Strategic Projects to support the organization’s innovation portfolio and help build a growing network of community partners.
A major focus of this role will be supporting the growth of OYNC, a community resource and opportunity navigation initiative designed to connect youth, families, organizations, providers, schools, and community partners to meaningful resources and opportunities.
This person will help identify potential partners, organize outreach, coordinate follow-up, prepare meeting materials, maintain partner records, support community engagement, and help move strategic projects from concept to execution.
This role is ideal for someone who is organized, people-oriented, professional, technology-comfortable, and able to turn conversations into clear next steps. The right person will enjoy building relationships, supporting mission-driven work, and helping a visionary founder bring innovative ideas to life.
Key Responsibilities
Partnership Development & OYNC Network Building
- Help identify, research, and organize potential OYNC partners, including nonprofits, schools, youth programs, workforce organizations, behavioral health providers, local businesses, faith-based organizations, colleges, public agencies, and community initiatives.
- Support outreach to prospective partners through professional emails, calls, meetings, and follow-up communication.
- Maintain a partner pipeline that tracks prospects, active conversations, next steps, contact information, and relationship status.
- Help onboard partners into the OYNC network by gathering basic information, resource details, service descriptions, contact points, and collaboration opportunities.
- Prepare partner summaries, meeting agendas, follow-up notes, and next-step plans.
- Help coordinate partner meetings, presentations, community events, and pilot opportunities.
- Support the development of partner-facing materials such as one-pagers, flyers, presentations, email templates, and information packets.
- Help ensure partner relationships lead to real action, visibility, referrals, resources, events, or collaboration opportunities.
Innovation Project Support
- Support planning and coordination across innovation projects, including OYNC, youth development initiatives, workforce programs, education/training projects, digital tools, community events, and strategic partnerships.
- Help turn broad ideas and strategy discussions into organized plans, timelines, task lists, and deliverables.
- Track deadlines, follow-ups, project status, responsible parties, and next steps.
- Identify stalled projects, missing information, and opportunities for improved execution.
- Prepare weekly updates for the Founder / Director of Innovation & Strategic Projects.
Community Engagement & Communication
- Represent the organization professionally in communication with partners, stakeholders, vendors, and community contacts.
- Draft professional emails, meeting summaries, project updates, and partner communications.
- Help coordinate community-facing activities that support OYNC and related innovation initiatives.
- Maintain organized records of partner conversations, opportunities, commitments, and follow-up needs.
- Assist with storytelling and visibility around the organization’s innovation and partnership work.
Systems, Organization & Follow-Through
- Maintain organized project files, partner trackers, planning documents, and shared resources.
- Support use of modern productivity tools, spreadsheets, shared drives, forms, project management systems, and digital workflows.
- Create repeatable systems for outreach, meeting preparation, follow-up, partner onboarding, and project tracking.
- Help protect leadership time by organizing information, clarifying priorities, and bringing forward only the decisions that need leadership input.
What the candidate must be strong at
This role needs someone who can do both sides:
Relationship side
They should be able to:
- connect with people naturally
- communicate professionally
- build trust
- explain OYNC clearly
- follow up without being pushy
- represent your organization well
- identify alignment between partners and your mission
Execution side
They should also be able to:
- track details
- maintain a pipeline
- create next steps
- organize meetings
- draft materials
- update systems
- keep projects moving
- avoid letting conversations disappear
The worst fit would be someone who is charismatic but disorganized.
The best fit is someone who is warm, organized, credible, and persistent.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is a relationship-builder and organizer who enjoys connecting with people, developing partnerships, and helping mission-driven projects move forward.
You may be a great fit if you are:
- Comfortable reaching out to new partners and maintaining professional relationships
- Highly organized and able to track multiple conversations at once
- A strong written and verbal communicator
- Comfortable preparing emails, summaries, meeting notes, and project updates
- Good at following up and keeping commitments visible
- Able to turn conversations into clear next steps
- Comfortable working with schools, nonprofits, businesses, providers, public agencies, and community organizations
- Interested in youth development, workforce development, behavioral health, education, technology, and community impact
- Able to work closely with a visionary founder and help bring structure to emerging ideas
- Professional, reliable, proactive, and mission-aligned
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in partnership development, community engagement, business development, outreach, nonprofit programming, education, workforce development, behavioral health, public health, or social impact work
- Experience building or maintaining partner relationships
- Experience coordinating meetings, events, outreach campaigns, or community initiatives
- Experience using spreadsheets, CRMs, project management tools, shared drives, or contact databases
- Experience preparing partner-facing materials, presentations, reports, or email campaigns
- Existing familiarity with Alamance County, local community resources, youth-serving organizations, behavioral health providers, schools, or workforce partners is a plus.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first 90 days, the Innovation & Partnerships Manager will help:
- Create a clear OYNC partner prospect list
- Build and maintain a partner outreach tracker
- Organize existing partner relationships and follow-up needs
- Support outreach to priority community partners
- Prepare OYNC partner materials and meeting documents
- Help schedule and coordinate partner conversations
- Convert meetings into documented next steps
- Identify early pilot partners or launch partners for OYNC
- Create weekly updates on partner development and innovation project progress
Within 6 months, success may include:
- A functioning OYNC partner pipeline
- A growing list of active partner organizations
- Improved visibility for OYNC in the community
- Clear partner onboarding processes
- Stronger follow-up with schools, nonprofits, providers, and community stakeholders
- Better coordination between innovation projects and external opportunities
Pay: $25.00 - $30.00 per hour
Benefits:
Application Question(s):
- How many years of experience do you have in partnership development, community engagement, outreach, project coordination, or program management?
- Have you ever been responsible for building or maintaining relationships with partner organizations?
- Which types of partners have you worked with before?
Schools
Nonprofits
Local businesses
Government/public agencies
Healthcare or behavioral health providers
Colleges/universities
Faith-based organizations
Youth-serving organizations
Other?
- Describe a time you helped build a partnership, coordinate a collaboration, or connect organizations around a shared goal.
- How do you keep track of multiple contacts, follow-ups, meetings, and next steps?
- This role involves supporting innovation projects related to youth development, behavioral health, workforce development, education, community resources, and digital tools. Which of these areas interest you most?
Work Location: In person
