Senior Program Business Development Advisor

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

BACKGROUND

IRC’s Crisis Response, Recovery & Development department (CRRD) leads and delivers the IRC’s work in crisis-affected contexts around the world. In FY24, we served over 36M crisis-affected people with high quality humanitarian programming. This was achieved by over 16,000 staff across 350 offices in nearly 40 countries, working to deliver more than 600 individual grants and contracts and an annual budget in excess of $830M.

The Awards Management Unit (AMU) within CRRD is responsible for identifying, securing and managing all funding from government donors for the IRC. AMU is a bridge between donors and the IRC’s work on the ground. The team leads donor engagement, provides expert technical advice to colleagues delivering our services around the world, ensures consistency and compliance with donor policies and procedures, and manages associated risk. The unit also supports all IRC staff working on awards from government donors and partnerships. AMU supports a grants and contracts portfolio of ~$750M over the past year, with total value in excess of $1B.

The Purpose of the Role

The Senior Program/Business Development Advisor will join a global BD team and will help drive IRC’s new business development efforts by engaging with global, regional, country, and technical staff throughout the business development cycle from opportunity tracking and positioning/capture planning to proposal development, and submission. The SPDA will primarily serve as capture and proposal manager, and s/he will also offer technical assistance and mentor staff working on proposals on relevant business development topics.

The ideal candidate will have significant high-level experience in managing capture and proposal development for opportunities that are complex or high-value nature, in particular with World Bank, FCDO and/or USAID; Experience with other donors is also a distinct advantage.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Bid leadership and coordination (70%)

• Lead proposal development for complex and strategic public opportunities, including capture strategy, management of proposal teams, calendars, and deadlines; strategy development with technical staff; consortium management and negotiations; recruiting; writing; production; and after-action reviews.

• Collaborate with regional, country, and technical teams to develop and implement opportunity-specific long-term capture and positioning strategies.

• Lead strategic capture efforts for frameworks, single opportunities and wider funding sources including donor mapping, SWOT analysis, support to win theme development, and relevant strategies for pre-positioning efforts.

• Contribute to strengthening IRC’s profile and relationships with key stakeholders, including donors, peer organizations, local partners, and government institutions to support opportunity-specific strategic planning and decision-making.

• Advises Technical Teams and Country Teams on strategic approaches for funding opportunities, guiding a robust and evidence driven Go/No Go process.

• Supports technical units and country teams to offer pitches to prospective partners to secure the most competitive consortia possible.

• Review and/or draft expressions of interest, concept notes, and proposals to ensure quality and compliance with donor standards.

• Collaborate with IRC’s pricing team, ensuring technical coherence and value for money with the cost proposal.

• Collaborate with Proposal Recruiter to identify and assess candidates for key personnel positions on proposals.

• Organizes and manages internal processes to ensure IRC is always submitting the most competitive proposals.

Business Development process improvement and knowledge management (10%)

• Conducts After Action Reviews and captures learning to disseminate to wider organization

• Contributes to and models the use of standard business development processes, tools, templates and information.

• May serve in short term mentor role to junior staff leading large bids for the first time.

Partnerships and Strategy (20%)

• Conducts landscape analyses  as necessary to identify most strategic partnerships in public donor markets, with a particular focus on fostering local partnerships.

• Drafts high quality positioning materials as necessary, including capability statements and prior project reference sheets.

• Strengthening collaboration with internal stakeholders including country teams, technical units, and other team members.

• Contributes to country-specific BD strategies and BD action plans as necessary to support prioritization of new business development opportunities.

PERSON SPECIFICATION:

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field, including international relations, political science, public administration, and communications

• At least six years of business development experience working with World Bank, FCDO and/or USAID **

• Strong knowledge of FCDO, World Bank and/or USAID rules and regulations **

• Training or familiarity with Shipley Proposal Development process. **

• Fluency in English with proficiency in one other language (French and/or Spanish) **

• Successful track record leading large proposal teams on complex subject, multi-year, multi-partner proposals with minimal supervision **

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively manage a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in ‘remote’ and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals

• The ability to work productively and accurately while under pressure in a fast-paced, demanding environment

• Experience managing FCDO, World Bank or USAID programs remotely or at country-level also beneficial

• Ability to travel internationally (up to 20% of time)

RECRUITMENT PROCESS:

The recruitment process for this role will be as follows:

• screening call online

• first round panel interview online (with assessment)

• second round panel interview online

Compensation: Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget.  Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

• US Pay Range: $110,000 - $114,000
• UK Pay Range: £ ​60,000 - $71,846

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS

All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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Compensation: Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget.  Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

US Benefits: We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days depending on role and tenure, medical insurance starting at $163 per month, dental starting at $6.50 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with immediately vested matching, disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

Equal Opportunity Employer: IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

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