Lead Manager, Project & IT Budget Analyst

About Make-A-Wish America: Make-A-Wish America is the world’s largest, most impactful wish-granting organization, driven by a powerful vision to grant the life-changing wish of every eligible child. By uniting local communities, donors, and a dedicated network of volunteers, we create a warm, inclusive environment designed to transform lives and support families during critical chapters. Operating under a modern cloud infrastructure, Make-A-Wish America combines operational excellence with innovative digital platforms to streamline nationwide delivery, maximize philanthropic funding efficiency, and foster long-term institutional growth.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly structured, financially literate Lead Manager, Project & IT Budget Analyst to join our core operations team in a full-time remote capacity. In this versatile dual-track seat, you will take accountability for assisting in the planning, initiation, and execution of key strategic IT infrastructure projects, while simultaneously overseeing the coordination, maintenance, and forecasting of the IT department’s fiscal year budget. Partnering cross-functionally with internal project managers, technical budget owners, and the central Finance division, you will keep resources organized, track hardware contract dependencies, and analyze monthly spend variables. This position demands a details-driven professional who possesses excellent organizational habits and thrives within a consensus-driven environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Coordination & Execution: Assist senior project managers with the comprehensive coordination of human resources, hardware equipment, and timeline metrics to deliver strategic initiatives on time and within budget boundaries.
• Independent Project Management: Directly pilot, monitor, and document lower-level administrative projects and process improvement initiatives aligned to our long-term business goals.
• IT Department Budget Governance: Oversee, reconcile, and audit the IT department’s financial health indicators, managing complex line items covering forecasting, monthly actuals, expense planning, and financial accruals.
• Spend Variance & Risk Analytics: Log monthly transactional expenditures, cross-examining actual spend arrays against seasonal budgets to pinpoint financial risks, overages, or under-spend parameters.
• Contract and Invoice Stewardship: Administer incoming IT vendor contracts, verify internal compliance rules, and manage invoice intake systems to match corporate payment authorization frameworks.
• Stakeholder Meeting Architecture: Organize, schedule, host, and document project milestone assemblies, preparing professional presentation slides, agendas, and technical meeting summaries.
• Process Framework Optimization: Partner with internal technical units to increase the speed and data efficiency of operational workflows, utilizing tools such as Smartsheet and Microsoft Office applications.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 5+ years of verified professional history running corporate project support, business analysis, operations management, or data tracking pipelines, with at least 2 years explicitly focused on project coordination or departmental budget administration.
• A Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Information Technology, Data Analysis, or an equivalent quantitative corporate management field (or equivalent verified career background).
• Demonstrated accounting literacy, with a sound conceptual understanding of accrual methodologies, forecast-versus-actual analysis, and balance sheets.
• Advanced computer skills, with master-tier functional experience mapping dependencies inside Smartsheet and designing Microsoft Office data views.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication mechanics, with a proven track record of compiling clear project briefs and translating numbers for stakeholders.
• Location Context: 100% remote-first full-time operational flexibility optimized for qualified analysts permanently based anywhere within the continental United States.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior experience operating or coordinating workflows natively inside a registered non-profit, public charity, or foundations structure.
• Possession of, or immediate willingness to attain, professional process optimization credentials such as Six Sigma or Lean certifications.

What We Offer

• Attractive Hiring Parameters: A competitive annual base salary range scaling from $68,100 – $80,000 USD, complemented by annual incentive potential based on performance evaluations.
• The exceptional operational canvas to utilize your project skills to drive business transformation for the nation’s premier wish-granting organization.
• Comprehensive health insurance benefits starting on day one, including complete employer-paid monthly premiums for employee vision, dental, and short/long-term disability coverage.
• A 401(k) retirement savings plan with a 5% corporate matching structure after one year of service, alongside fully funded Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRA) and FSA options.
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF): Direct employment eligibility to participate in federal student loan forgiveness programs under applicable public service rules.
• Home Office Provisioning: Shipments of premium enterprise hardware including a high-performance laptop, a 24-inch monitor, and an adaptable docking station at zero cost to you.
• Generous time off parameters including 15 baseline PTO days, 10 dedicated sick days, 11 paid public holidays, 2 personal days, parental leave, and 2 volunteer service days.