United States onlyXPRIZE Overview
XPRIZE is an established global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. As a 501(c)3, our unique model democratizes innovation by incentivizing crowd-sourced, scientifically viable solutions to create a more equitable and abundant future for all. Since our founding in 1994, we’ve launched $519 million in prize competitions that are driving more than $31 billion in social and economic impact — a 60x return on philanthropic investment. These competitions not only de-risk early-stage breakthrough ideas but also mobilize capital, talent, and momentum to accelerate solutions from concept to real-world scale.
We operate across 5 areas of impact,including:
- Deep Tech + Exploration
- Energy + Climate + Nature
- Food + Water + Waste
- Health
- Learning + Society
Join XPRIZE to help create meaningful impact as we strive to empower humanity to achieve breakthroughs and architect a more equitable and abundant future for all.
Position Description
The Manager of Prospect Management and Research serves as a core driver of XPRIZE’s intelligence-led fundraising system, operating at the intersection of prospect strategy, fundability insight, and pipeline performance.
This role is not a traditional research function. It is a strategic partner to fundraisers and leadership, responsible for building and managing a disciplined, prioritized, and insight-driven prospect pipeline that fuels Advancement’s funding priorities.
The Manager will execute a structured prospecting and portfolio management model aligned to XPRIZE’s fundability-informed prioritization framework, ensuring that research effort is directed toward the highest-impact opportunities and that pipeline development is continuous, intentional, and measurable.
This role sits within Integrated Strategy and works in close partnership with Advancement leadership, Strategic Philanthropy, and Community teams to ensure that prospect intelligence informs decision-making, not just reporting.
Responsibilities
Prospect Strategy & Fundability Alignment
- Support the fundability assessment process by contributing prospect intelligence, market signals, and sponsor insights that inform prize prioritization (Priority vs. Conditional)
- Align research and prospecting efforts to enterprise priorities, ensuring resources are focused on high-probability, high-impact opportunities
- Continuously feed real-time market insight back into fundability and prioritization discussions
Structured Prospect Sourcing & Discovery
- Execute continuous proactive prospecting across both fundraising engines, Strategic Philanthropy and Community
- Lead and manage Prospect Discovery Waves
- Deliver assignment-ready prospect pools (quality over volume), aligned with capacity and strategy targets
- Monitor wealth creation trends, liquidity events, and emerging leaders to drive new pipeline growth
Prospect Management & Pipeline Governance
- Own and manage Salesforce pipeline architecture
- Enforce qualification criteria before prospect assignment
- Partner with Advancement leadership on portfolio composition and rebalancing, prospect assignment recommendations, and recycling and acceleration decisions
- Monitor pipeline health and velocity, including time in stage, conversion rates, and stagnation triggers
Moves Management & Performance Discipline
- Lead bi-weekly moves management processes across Strategic Philanthropy and Community
- Ensure conversations are data-informed and action-oriented, not status updates
- Track and report on key performance indicators, including, but not limited to lead-to-conversation conversion, conversation-to-opportunity conversion, opportunity velocity, and close rates
- Identify pipeline gaps and intervention points, triggering strategy reviews when needed
Executive Travel & Event Intelligence
- Activate executive travel prospecting strategy by identifying in-region prospects, preparing intelligence briefs, and mapping introductions and access pathways
- Support event strategy through pre-event prospect intelligence and seating strategy and post-event conversion recommendations and follow-up prioritization
- Ensure events drive measurable pipeline movement, not just engagement
Data, Systems & Analytics Partnership
- Partner with the Manager of Advancement Systems & Analytics to maintain Salesforce as the single source of truth while ensuring research insights are captured and usable
- Use tools such as Wealth-X and Salesforce to drive capacity modeling prospect identification and trend analysis
Qualifications
- 5–8+ years in prospect research, strategy, or fundraising operations
- Experience supporting major gifts, institutional fundraising, or complex sales cycles
- Demonstrated ability to operate in a data-driven, performance-oriented environment
Capabilities
- Strategic thinking with ability to translate insight into action
- Strong understanding of pipeline management and moves management systems
- Ability to synthesize complex data into clear, actionable intelligence
- Experience with Salesforce (or similar CRM) and research tools (e.g., Wealth-X)
- Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
The anticipated base salary for this position is $100,000 to $115,000 and may also qualify for an annualincentive. This role is eligible for our extensive benefits package and generous paid time offincluding vacation, sick, and holidays. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors including the qualifications of the individual applicant, years of relevant experience for therole, level of education attained, and certifications and/or other licenses held. XPRIZE is a remote-first environment.
The XPRIZE FOUNDATION is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate in employment. Equal access to employment, services, and programs is available to all persons. Those applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application and/or interview process should notify a representative of the organization.
Please note: Though submitting a resume to the XPRIZE FOUNDATION implies that you are interested in a position(s), it does not imply that you are an applicant. You are not considered an applicant until you have been contacted directly by a Talent Acquisitions representative requesting that you begin the designated application process, which may involve phone and/or in-person interview(s), job-related testing, and background checks.
