We're hiring!
Fractional Business Development Lead
Location: Ottawa, Ontario | 90% Remote
Job Type: Contract | Fractional with option to scale to full-time | Remote | Canada
Pay: Base rate + Commission
Reports to: Chelsey Fawcett - Chief Executive Officer
About Us
Grant Solutions Canada (GSC) supports SMEs and NGOs to secure government funding and accomplish meaningful impact in their industry. We are committed to funding the future and solving our clients' pain points through funding applications at all levels of government to ensure their projects succeed. We pride ourselves on being an industry leader in real estate funding, working closely with politicians, investors, and developers to develop affordable housing. Additionally, our clients span across health sciences, technology, and agriculture.
GSC has developed specialized expertise in real estate and affordable housing funding, working closely with politicians, investors, developers, and community organizations to advance housing projects. Our clients and areas of work also span health sciences, technology, agriculture, construction, and other sectors.
We are now entering the next stage of GSC's growth: building a firm that can scale beyond its founder. We are looking for a Fractional Business Development Lead to help us build the business development engine that will support that growth.
The Opportunity
This is not a traditional sales role.
We are looking for someone who can take meaningful ownership of GSC's business development pipeline: identifying the right organizations, creating relationships, initiating conversations, following up consistently, qualifying opportunities, and moving qualified prospects toward engagement with GSC.
Initially, the CEO will remain involved in strategic and high-value client conversations and closing. However, the long-term goal of this role is to progressively build a business development function that is not dependent on the CEO personally managing every lead and opportunity.
You will have the opportunity to help build the systems, processes, relationships, and pipeline that will eventually support a larger GSC team.
This is an ideal opportunity for someone who enjoys building a business rather than simply working within an established sales system.
What You'll Do
Business Development
• Identify and research prospective clients and strategic referral partners.
• Build and maintain a qualified business development pipeline.
• Develop targeted outreach strategies for GSC's priority markets.
• Conduct personalized outreach by email, LinkedIn, telephone, and other appropriate channels.
• Develop relationships with prospective clients, referral partners, and industry stakeholders.
• Follow up consistently with prospects and dormant opportunities.
• Qualify prospects based on organizational fit, funding needs, timing, budget, and GSC's service model.
• Schedule qualified discovery conversations with the CEO.
• Support the development and refinement of sales materials, proposals, and outreach campaigns.
• Identify opportunities for strategic partnerships, referrals, speaking engagements, webinars, conferences, and other business development channels.
Pipeline & Sales Operations
• Maintain accurate CRM records and ensure opportunities are tracked throughout the sales process.
• Establish follow-up systems so qualified opportunities do not go cold.
• Track pipeline value, conversion rates, sales activity, and upcoming opportunities.
• Provide regular pipeline and business development reporting to the CEO.
• Maintain clear next steps and follow-up dates for active opportunities.
• Help establish repeatable business development processes and standard operating procedures.
• Identify gaps in GSC's current sales process and recommend improvements.
Strategic Growth
• Identify which markets, client profiles, and partnership channels are producing the strongest opportunities.
• Test and evaluate different business development approaches.
• Bring forward recommendations based on actual pipeline performance.
• Help identify emerging markets and sectors where GSC's expertise can create value.
• Develop relationships that can create repeatable referral and partnership opportunities.
• Help GSC move from founder-dependent business development toward a repeatable organizational sales function.
What Success Looks Like
The goal of this role is not simply to generate a high volume of leads.
Success means building a pipeline of organizations that are genuinely capable of becoming GSC clients.
You will be successful if, over time:
• GSC has a predictable and well-managed qualified pipeline.
• Prospects are consistently followed up with.
• The CEO is spending her time on high-value conversations rather than prospect research and administrative sales activity.
• GSC develops repeatable sources of qualified leads and referrals.
• New retainer and project clients are being generated consistently.
• Business development activity can be measured and forecasted.
• The company has a sales process that can eventually be delegated to additional team members.
Who We're Looking For
We are looking for someone who is:
• Experienced in B2B business development, professional services sales, partnerships, account development, or a related field.
• Comfortable selling a specialized service where the sales process is consultative rather than transactional.
• Strong at relationship development and follow-up.
• Highly organized and comfortable managing a pipeline.
• Able to independently research organizations and identify potential opportunities.
• Comfortable initiating conversations with senior decision-makers.
• Strategic enough to understand that not every lead is a good lead.
• Persistent without being overly aggressive.
• Comfortable working independently in a small entrepreneurial environment.
• Able to translate a business strategy into consistent day-to-day business development activity.
• Interested in building something rather than simply executing a predefined sales script.
Particularly Valuable Experience
Experience or established relationships in one or more of the following would be an asset:
• Affordable housing
• SAAS
• Non-profit or community organizations
• Government funding
• Grant consulting
• Construction or modular construction
• Economic development
• Professional services
• Corporate partnerships
• B2B consulting
A working knowledge of current Canadian government funding priorities is also an asset, including areas such as affordable housing, climate change, poverty reduction, accessibility, economic development, and other emerging policy priorities.
You do not need to be a grant writer or funding expert.
GSC's subject-matter expertise is already established. What we need is someone who can identify and develop the right commercial opportunities around that expertise.
The Right Person for This Role
This role would be particularly well suited to someone who enjoys the business-building side of consulting.
You might be a fractional business development professional, independent consultant, experienced account executive, partnership manager, or business development strategist who wants to work with a specialized firm without taking on a full-time position.
We are less interested in someone who simply wants a list of leads to contact and more interested in someone who can think:
Who should GSC be talking to, why should they care, how do we get the conversation started, and how do we move the relationship forward?
A working knowledge of the current issues the Canadian Government is looking to fund through grants. For example: affordable housing, climate change, poverty, accessibility, and political climate is also ideal.
Compensation & Structure
This is initially a fractional contract position, designed to begin with a defined scope and expand based on demonstrated results.
The initial engagement will include:
• A defined monthly time commitment;
• Clear business development and pipeline objectives;
• Agreed reporting and performance metrics; and
• A compensation structure that includes a base component and performance incentives tied to qualified business generated.
The goal is to establish a successful working relationship and demonstrate the economics of the role before considering a larger or more permanent position.
Benefits & Perks
Mandatory company closure 2 weeks in December and July (4 weeks total)
Payment:
• Pay: Base rate + Commission
• No cap on commission payouts
• Professional development opportunities through paid educational options and conferences
• 90% remote (However, preference will be given to candidates in the National Capital Region, in order to attend networking events and staff meetings)
How to Apply
Please send a brief introduction outlining:
1. Your experience generating business for professional services or consulting organizations;
2. The types of clients or markets you have successfully developed;
3. Your approach to building a qualified B2B pipeline; and
4. Your preferred fractional engagement structure and availability.
Please include:
• Resume
• LinkedIn profile
• Examples of business development results you have generated, where possible
The posting will remain open until the position is filled.
Please submit applications to: chelseyf@grantsolutionscanada.ca
Equal Opportunity Employer - What employment looks like at GSC
GSC is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, age, disability, or any other legally protected status.
GSC does not believe in traditional working hours.
We actively dismantle the structure of a 40-hour work week in exchange for a work culture that is flexible for applicants and based on supporting employees to have a life-work balance, not a work-life balance. We believe the 9-5 structure excludes exceptional applicants who are the main caregivers in their household, or who may have neurodivergent work styles.
Flexible Work Hours
GSC works according to client and grant deadlines. There may be busy periods and slower periods.
As long as work is completed to a high standard and deadlines are met, we do not prescribe a traditional schedule. We do establish reasonable communication boundaries, particularly when working with clients, to protect team members from scope creep and ensure sustainable workloads.
Our core collaboration hours are 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, with flexibility outside those hours.
As a small company that is growing, our goal is to build a team that can support themselves and their dependents while making a meaningful difference in the communities our clients serve.
Why GSC?
This is an opportunity to join GSC at an important stage of its development.
GSC has established specialized expertise and relationships in a growing funding environment.
The next stage is building the organizational infrastructure and business development capacity required to scale that expertise beyond the founder.
The person joining us in this role will have meaningful influence over how that growth engine is built. This is not a role where you will inherit a finished sales department.
You will help build it.
If you are excited by the idea of developing relationships, creating opportunities, building systems, and helping grow a specialized Canadian consulting firm, and want the autonomy of a fractional role, we would like to hear from you.