The Organization
The Kresge Foundation is one of the top 20 private foundations in the United States and the only one focused exclusively on expanding opportunities for people with low income in American Cities. With a $3.8 billion endowment and a staff of over 100 employees, the foundation deploys grants and social investments across arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development. The foundation’s state-of-the-art headquarters maintains an array of energy-efficient, water-conserving and health-promoting systems. The foundation also operates an office in Detroit’s Midtown district.
Position Overview
The Kresge Foundation has been utilizing social investments to complement its grant making activities for about 12 years. Since inception, the Foundation has invested over $300MM through the practice and there is strong executive and Board support to accelerate the Foundation’s use of non-grant forms of capital (debt, equity, guarantees, deposits).
The Portfolio Manager will work closely with Social Investments and Finance Department staff as well as other foundation employees and investee organizations to support the success of portfolio investments and assist in the ongoing learning, evaluation and asset management of transactions.
This position works with multiple stakeholders and the candidate must have the right blend of hard and soft skills. The ideal candidate will have a finance or banking related asset-management background, an understanding or expertise in non-profit financial statements and business models, an understanding of the social/impact investing sector and a passion to support the use capital to make a difference. Prior experience with social investing or private foundations is a plus, but not required. The candidate must have strong writing and communications skills as well as an aptitude for visualizing data, identifying trends, and distilling details into an insightful high-level view.
Externally, this position works with grantees, borrowers, investors, consultants, and legal counsel.
Primary responsibilities:
1. Closely manage an assigned subset of the portfolio and oversee management of other subsets managed by analysts or other staff
2. Ensure a high degree of accuracy for all information provided to internal stakeholders
3. Foster strong relationships with portfolio investees and partners across the foundation
4. Together with analyst(s), ensure receipt of required investee reporting
5. Review investee reports for material changes or investee requests
6. Analyze financials and other information to ensure fidelity to investment terms, distill learnings and to monitor the health of investee organizations
7. Participate in, and oversee, the periodic investment review and risk rating processes for all investments and make investment level, and portfolio-wide reserve recommendations
8. Work with other functional areas of the foundation to maintain forecasts of disbursements and guarantee payments and track new investment activity.
9. Produce quarterly reporting including portfolio reports, cash-flow, disbursement, and guarantee payment projections
10. Support the careful monitoring and intensive analysis sometimes required for watch-list investments
11. Serve as the team-lead on ensuring investment actions are properly documented and recorded in the foundation’s internal systems
Qualifications
· B.A. in related field, advanced degree preferred.
· Five to seven years’ experience in banking, finance, community development finance or related fields.
· Experience monitoring portfolio investments to ensure fiduciary and investment responsibilities are being met.
· Demonstrated ability to take personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of work.
· Demonstrated ability to build and maintain effective and constructive working relationships and partnerships.
· Strong investment acumen and successful track record of managing investments.
· Strong interpersonal and communication skills necessary to interact as a team member with diverse Foundation colleagues.
How To Apply
Application deadline for this position is September 23, 2020
Kresge is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Please note: Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all Kresge staff are working remotely, and our Troy and Detroit offices remain closed until further notice. Kresge staff will not be traveling or attending in-person meetings during this time. Thank you for your understanding.