Membership Mobilizer

Membership Mobilizer

About Pollinate Impact

Incubators and accelerators across the Global South relentlessly support entrepreneurs to build thriving businesses while creating impact for their communities. But, there are limited – if any – support systems for the incubators and accelerators to share lessons learned, connect them to funding opportunities, and offer networks of peer support.  

Pollinate Impact recently launched as a member-led network of impact incubators and accelerators in the Global South. By bringing the incubation and acceleration community together, we are amplifying and unifying their voices, to drive more support to the impact entrepreneurship field. By building avenues for incubators to share, collaborate, and co-create, we enable them to better support their entrepreneurs, develop shared resources, and ultimately create transformative change in their communities. By the end of 2024, our 50 member organizations will have supported more than 60,000 impact entrepreneurs who are driving sustainable development solutions across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

This is a pivotal moment to join our team, where you will play a crucial role in building this Network from the ground up, directly supporting members to amplify their impact, and to build a thriving incubation industry in their regions. As part of the Secretariat of this member-led network, you should expect a dynamic environment where emergence is embraced, where you appreciate learning through an iterative process. We are cultivating and stewarding the members of our Network towards common goals, and we believe in being responsive and empathetic to the unique needs and demands of our members.

Position Overview

As the Membership Mobilizer, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on our organization by growing our membership base and engaging with them on a regular basis. The Membership Mobilizer plays a pivotal role in not only recruiting and onboarding new members, but also fostering strong relationships with our members, understanding their priorities, challenges, ensuring their needs are met, and actively involving them in Pollinate Impact activities.

You will be on the front lines listening to the community and being the community’s voice inside the Pollinate Impact team. You will help us track and manage all member information in a soon-to-be-designed database, and pull reports to help us identify trends on what topics or issues are most interesting for members and help us understand how often our members are engaging with our programming. 

This will be a full-time remote role, with a preference for an individual based in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia. Because our team is scattered across the globe, you will need to take meetings outside of a 9-5 schedule, since our opportunities to connect as a team are limited, given the spread of time zones.  

Your Responsibilities

Member Outreach & Onboarding - 30%

• Deliver on the strategic plans related to membership outreach and growth.
• Lead our membership growth through proactive outreach and follow-up with attendees of both our virtual and in-person events, and by performing desk research to identify and reach out to potential members.
• Drawing on your day to day interactions and learning with our community and potential members, you will collaborate with the Chief Convener to refine and align our membership value positioning and member outreach and onboarding strategies.  
• Manage the membership outreach from the first and second engagements to eventual conversion of membership, ensuring appropriate and timely follow-ups.
• Develop, own, and drive the onboarding process for all new members by ensuring all steps happen in a timely manner, and by coordinating with the network Secretariat and Stewardship Group on new membership approvals. 
• You will establish and manage regularly scheduled orientation sessions, encourage new members to engage in working groups, and ensure their team members have access to all relevant information and our soon-to-be member portal.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for individuals and organizations interested in joining or partnering with us .
• Provide excellent customer service to members and others in response to phone, email inquiries, and requests for information.

Member Engagement - 40%

• Establish and maintain close relationships with member organizations, serving as the main point of contact for addressing their inquiries and concerns. You will collaborate with the Community Choreographer by regularly engaging with them via email, phone, and in-person visits, where feasible in order to help us drive engagement.
• Participate in regular member one-on-one check-in calls (at first, with colleagues) to understand their priorities and build rapport. Eventually you will own this process end-to-end as your understanding of the network grows.
• During these regular member one-on-one check-ins, you will:
• Help them identify how they can participate more fully in the network by engaging in member-driven activities, speaking in peer workshops, contributing tools they’ve developed, or hosting incubator meet-ups, to name a few.
• Listen to their struggles and add value to members by connecting them to other members, pointing them towards relevant tools or trainings that might be helpful.
• Identify common threads, make recommendations how members could engage together, and make introductions between members to promote collaboration.
• Feed trends and insights back to the rest of the team by surfacing opportunities where the Network could provide meaningful interventions, such as common requests for trainings, tools, etc. 
• Support Information Management of our membership, including:
• Maintain up-to-date data for all members, which may include, but is not limited to: contact information, interest areas, focus sectors, who registered for events and webinars, and who actually attended our events and webinars, etc. This information will support our ability to track metrics on relationships, connections, and engagement.
• Support with data for internal reports to track membership pipeline, engagement rates, retention rates, geographic spread, new conversions, etc. These should be run monthly, and if you can automate them, even better!
• Work closely with the accountant to oversee and manage the collection of annual membership fees ensuring timely invoice generation and follow-ups on any payments owed. Establish a process to track membership renewal timeframes, follow-ups, invoices, payments, receipts, etc.  
• Collaborate closely with our Communications Ninja to develop and implement an effective member-only communications strategy.
• Share pertinent resources and opportunities with member organizations and invite them to get actively involved in various Pollinate Impact activities, including but not limited to Collective Action Teams, member meet-ups, peer-powered workshops, funding opportunities, etc.
• Develop and carry out the annual member survey as a formal feedback channel. You will analyze and synthesize learnings to help inform Pollinate Impact’s strategy and programming for the next year.
• Always ensure that prospective and current members, partners, and allies have a positive experience with Pollinate Impact by promptly and thoughtfully replying to their inquiries, facilitating introductions as needed, and building positive rapport with them.

Support Programming, Community Engagement & Local Brand Building - 30%

• Be the face of Pollinate Impact in your region by attending events, participating in speaking engagements, etc. in order to keep abreast of the trends emerging in the regional ecosystem, understand the nuances of the market in your region, and offer recommendations and insights to the Network Secretariat to improve our programming and value proposition to Members, Partners, and Allies.
• Support Pollinate Impact's programs & Community Building efforts in your region by assisting with event logistics, moderating virtual collaboration sessions, or representing the Network at an event to generate leads and interest for our work.
• Build strong rapport with the impact entrepreneurship community in your region (i.e., incubators, investors, entrepreneurs, NGO, and corporations, etc.) to overall awareness of the mission and work of Pollinate Impact.
• Backstop for the Community Choreographer on occasion, as needed by:
• Ensuring the efficient planning and successful execution of Pollinate Impact activities, events, and programming calendar. These are virtual and in-person events that include member-only meetings, public ecosystem events, workshops, appearances, and other community opportunities.
• Managing post-event activities, which include tracking attendance and poll reports, sharing recordings, sending thank you emails, and circulating minutes and action items.
• Supporting the progress of working group meetings, including scheduling, invitations, documenting minutes and action items, following-up with members for updates and tracking budgets in order to ensure that progress is made on any action items committed to by members. 
• Explore emerging opportunities to strategically promote Pollinate Impact and reach new audiences through the development of new partnerships and events.