SmartStart, Fundraising Systems & Performance Fellow
About the portfolio organization
SmartStart is an early learning delivery platform and South Africa’s largest early learning network, powered by frontline practitioners — and collaborating to achieve universal access to quality early learning and economic inclusion for women. SmartStart has innovated an approach that activates women to establish and run early learning programmes as micro-enterprises, providing training, tools, quality assurance, and ongoing support through a structured programme and peer clubs. Leveraging this, the SmartStart network hub organisation is a social enterprise that collaborates to transform the early learning ecosystem.
SmartStart is nearly eleven years old, and the soon-to-be-announced winner of a major global award for social innovation. SmartStart’s budget for the current financial year is R300m (~$19m) and growing year-on-year to enable our impact to scale.
About the Fellowship role
This is a job on the Development department in the wider Ecosystem & Policy portfolio. As SmartStart scales, the Development (investment/fundraising) function must strengthen its internal systems and performance discipline to support growing pipeline complexity, renewal volume, cross-department coordination and funder reporting demands. This role is designed to support the Head of Development in formalising and institutionalising high-quality fundraising systems that improve efficiency, clarity and pipeline/funder conversion. The Fellow will work closely with the Head of Development to co-design and implement practical, scalable systems that strengthen pipeline management, stewardship, reporting coordination and renewal planning. The fellowship role will be integral to designing, documenting and embedding fundraising processes, systems and performance management practices that enable the Development team to operate at greater clarity, consistency and effectiveness.
The SmartStart Development Team currently fundraise primarily from philanthropic trusts & foundations. The team currently consists of the Head of Development and Senior Fundraising Specialist with the support of two interns, all of whom work hybrid in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Employment: Full-time, one-year Fellowship
Starting Date: July- September 2026
Key responsibilities
Moves Management & Pipeline Structure
- Support development of a clear moves management framework
- Help define pipeline stages and qualification criteria
- Improve tracking discipline and conversion visibility
- Assist in establishing structured monthly pipeline reviews
- All framework decisions made collaboratively with the Head of Development.
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Design & Institutionalisation:-
- Opportunity screening (go / no-go decisions)
- Proposal development and coordination
- Due diligence development and coordination
- Donor reporting development and coordination
- Site visit preparation and follow-up
- Renewal planning timelines
- Cross-department input mapping and RACI clarity
- Draft, test and refine processes with the Development team before institutionalisation.
- Journey & Stewardship Systems
- Map structured cultivation and stewardship stages
- Develop communication templates where appropriate
- Identify opportunities for light automation
- Improve renewal tracking discipline
- Strengthen proactive engagement planning
- CRM Stabilisation (Zoho)
- Support initial population of funder data
- Design simple, sustainable data standards
- Align CRM usage with current Excel tracking
- Develop reminder systems for renewals
- Recommend practical improvements without overhauling workflow
Performance & Forecasting Support
- Support initial population of funder data
- Develop structured dashboard formats
- Improve visibility of pipeline health
- Support documentation for Board and leadership reporting
- Assist in strengthening income forecasting discipline Align CRM usage
Continuous Improvement
- Identify process bottlenecks
- Recommend practical efficiency improvements
- Support documentation and institutional memory building
- Contribute to improving team performance and collaboration
Requirements
Experience and education:
- Minimum 8 years’ professional full-time work experience
- Demonstrated experience in developing or improving organisational processes, systems, or structured workflows
- Strong written documentation skills (evidence of producing formal reports, SOPs, or structured guidance documents)
- Intermediate to advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel
- Experience working in cross functional teams
- Analytical and methodical
- Can design practical processes, not just conceptual ones
- Comfortable working independently and collaboratively under leadership guidance
- Strong writing and documentation skills
- Clear curiosity — incl. a curious approach to technology, with interest and experience working across multiple tools to solve organisational challenges
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, uncertainty and change
- Demonstrated leadership
- Strong attention to detail and accuracy
Preferable
- Experience fundraising from Trusts & Foundations
- Experience in operations, consulting, systems, performance, or structured environments
Must Haves:
- Professionally fluent in spoken and written English
- Legal right to work in South Africa. Alternatively, will consider candidates agreeable to viable remote arrangements who can guarantee their legal right to work wherever they’re resident
About the LGT Impact Fellowship
How to apply
