Senior Development Manager
Educate!
Senior Development Manager
Educate!
Educational reform partner for youth skills
🌍 Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more young people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined.
At Educate! we're obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent.
Educate! prepares youth in Africa to learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by:
To date, more than 850,000+ young people have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania, driving positive outcomes on income, employment, gender equity, family planning and sexual and reproductive health, and educational attainment.
Educate! is already East Africa’s largest employment and youth skills provider, and we’re on an exciting journey to impact millions more in the years ahead.
Educate! is a team of over 300 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations, and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.
We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Livelihood Impact Fund, Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.
Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year.
We know that incredible candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t meet every requirement. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply!
We’re looking for passionate individuals who believe in our mission and can bring unique perspectives to our team—not just those who check every box. We value diversity and strongly encourage women and individuals from all backgrounds to apply.
Over the past four years, Educate! has grown 3x - and we're just getting started. With an ambitious goal of reaching $100M in revenue by 2035, we are building the team and infrastructure to match the scale of our vision. This is a rare opportunity to join a high-performing organization at a key inflection point.
The Senior Development Manager is a key role on Educate!'s revenue team, sitting at the intersection of strategy, execution, and relationship management. This person will play a critical role in driving our ambitious fundraising goals - leading external engagements with funders, developing compelling proposals, and ensuring seamless coordination across teams and developing junior team members, while taking on increasing ownership of a growing portfolio of philanthropic funders.
This role demands both strategic thinking and hands-on execution. In the near term, the balance leans toward execution: building proposals, coordinating funder visits, and keeping complex workstreams moving. Over time, as you develop your portfolio and demonstrate ownership, the balance shifts toward strategy and leadership. We're looking for someone who is energized by both, and clear-eyed about what that journey looks like. This role sits one step below Head level on our development team, and we expect the right candidate to grow into that position as they build impact and demonstrate ownership.
This role is well-suited for a high-performing professional with 5–7 years of experience who is ready to step into a senior execution role and grow quickly into team leadership. The ideal candidate brings:
Application Process: Rolling basis, interviews happening soon!
We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey of their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.
Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do. Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.
We’re committed to ensuring all candidates are screened for child and youth safety. As part of the process, candidates must successfully complete our standard background verification and safeguarding review in accordance with local legal standards. Educate! reserves the right to withdraw an offer of employment if any screening results indicate potential risks to youth.
Educate! is a social enterprise aimed at reducing youth unemployment in Africa by reforming educational systems. It partners with schools and governments to improve curricula and teaching methods so students gain essential skills for further education, entrepreneurship, and work. The organization works mainly in East Africa, focusing on secondary school students and collaborating with national education systems to scale its impact. It implements its work directly in schools and through government partnerships, funding activities via grants, donations, and program fees. Success is measured with evaluations showing gains in soft skills, gender equity, and overall educational outcomes among graduates. Its clients include educational institutions, government bodies, and international development organizations. The key goal is to create a scalable, systems-level change in education that better prepares young people for jobs and opportunities in the region.
Explore more opportunities at Educate!