Officer, Private-Sector Grants (TU)

Background:

The External Relations (ER) department was created in early 2020 and is comprised of 3 main but complementary functional areas: Private fundraising, Communications and Advocacy. The department is in the beginning stages of creating a new ambitious strategy that will enhance IRC’s ability to achieve greater success in private income, advocacy, and brand awareness.

Supporting this endeavor, and an integral part of ER, is the Global Partnerships and Philanthropic Services (GPPS) Unit. Reporting into the VP , GPPS consists of functional specialists across a variety of high-value fundraising functions, comprising three pillars: Research, Partner Engagement & Corporate Affairs, and Program Services. GPPS works in the nexus of IRC’s High-Value Front-facing fundraising teams, namely International Philanthropy and Partnerships (IPP) and USA Philanthropy (USAP) and an array of other organizational units, in this case, the Technical Excellence Unit (TechEx) in IRC’s Program Division (CRRD).

The Grant Operations & Analytics Team (GOAT) sits within TechEx and brings together grants and contract operations, business development, finance, and analytics functions and staff from each TechEx Unit to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and quality control across Technical Excellence business operations. The primary purpose of this team is to harmonize capacity and capabilities and drive efficiencies by establishing consistent, high quality standards and best practices to the service of improved budgeting, grants & contracts management, business development, and data collection and analytics for the IRC.

Job Overview:

IRC’s front-facing high-value teams, namely IPP (which leads on IRC’s engagement with corporations, foundations and international philanthropists) and USAP (which leads on the organization’s engagement with USA-based philanthropists) and which lead on all private fundraising strategies with those stakeholder-groups, and TechEx teams collaborate to support the successful management of private partnerships around the world. The teams work in tandem, with TechEx implementing programs and the high-value fundraising teams managing the pre and post-award relationships. The Officer, Private-sector Grants (TU) will help coordinate the engagement of these two business functions.

This new role, the first to focus solely on private donors and partnerships between these departments, will contribute to the growing private-sector portfolio of partnerships relevant to the TechEx teams. The Officer, Private-sector Grants (TU) will act as a key liaison between partnership managers in IPP and USAP/the high-value fundraising teams and the TechEx teams, for the successful delivery of our donor commitments.

This role is an integral part of GPPS’ Program Services reporting into the Director, Program Services in partnership (MiP) with the Director, Grant Operations & Analytics Team.

Major Responsibilities:

The role will serve as internally-facing and is the primary focal point and liaison for grant operations between the private fundraising teams and Technical Units for all aspects of business development and grant management. The major responsibilities will span across all grant lifecycle stages and include:

New funding and proposal development (30%):

·Manages proposal development processes for TU-specific opportunities as required for multi-country, multi-Technical unit, and/or multi-region opportunities, bringing together teams across IPP, program regions and technical units;

·Adheres to GPPS and GOAT-related evaluation processes and standard operating procedures for new business development opportunities that would specifically apply to private-sector collaboration

·Supports TechEx in reviewing and providing substantive feedback on relevant private donor proposals with a special lens to the technical area of the TU in question

·Builds the proposal budgets along with TechEx project lead and manages all supporting documentation for proposals in coordination with the HQ Finance Department and assists program teams in creating budgets when necessary.

·Coordinate and liaise with country program finance and grant staff on private-sector business development proposals, providing guidance and feedback on business development private-sector workplans, deadlines, and proposal parameters;

·Coordinate with GPPS and GOAT staff to ensure visibility on all opportunities and the appropriate level of grants management support in the post-award phase

Private funding portfolio and budget management (50%):

·Maintains an up-to-date record of all private sector partnerships in the TU’s to inform effective and timely delivery of relevant updates, progress and insight to the relevant business teams;

·Ensures consistency and donor compliance across private partnerships for the entire duration of a partnership in close coordination with TU’s to ensure donor requirements are met and compliance issues are raised to Relationship Managers;

·Keeps up-to-date with developments around programme implementation, flagging risks and challenges around implementation, and ensures timely flow of information to support efficient delivery of donor reports;

·Proactively reviews and manage donor reporting, providing guidance to country offices/TU’s with budget realignments, and supports grant amendments;

·Coordinates and ensures clear, reliable reporting and data-points for maximum partnership impact

·Supports the fundraising trams and the relevant TU to apply internal procedures and systems such as OTIS (IRC’s grant information tracking system), and PEERs (IRC’s partnership management system) for private funding portfolio and ensure SNAP entries are up to date;

·In collaboration with the assigned Project Lead, provides project management support with the coordination of donor reporting, budget management and ensuring compliance with donor regulations on large multi-year and multi-country opportunities and grants as requested from IPP, USAP, the region and TUs.

·Create and review monthly BvAs and transaction detail reports, participate in monthly budget meetings and ensure that all BvAs and financial reports accurately reflect current and planned spending

·Conduct as budget and financial processes as required, such as Integra budget templates, recodes, budget amendments, etc.

Process Improvement (20%):

·Ensures that private gifts and grants are managed in accordance to internal IRC protocols, i.e. ensuring that budget submissions are reviewed by finance, proper approvals are attained for all new business development opportunities from TechEx, country programs budgets are reviewed by regional finance controllers, etc.;

·Responsible for establishing the foundation for the development of processes and systems that would advance our private-sector partnerships pursuits, while ensuring that internal IRC processes are followed and aligning with GOAT Standard Operating Procedures for Business Development and Grants Management

·Coordinates with relevant teams in ER to ensure optimal support for Technical Units;

·Reviews and proposes improved processes as needed to help reduce time, and ensure appropriate partner sign off, to better match private sector donor timescales.

Essential Qualifications:

·Approximately 3+ years working in private sector fundraising with at least 5 years working in or closely with Technical teams

·Demonstrable experience of running and monitoring large, multi-sectoral and multi-country private sector partnerships and working across various teams and functions;

·Knowledge of the drivers and motivators for support from corporations, foundation, wealthy individuals & faith and membership based organizations, and experience working directly and supporting private sector fundraisers;

·Experience in developing and leading successful complex proposals and providing impactful reporting for high value donors;

·Ability to effectively manage and coordinate with geographically dispersed teams throughout all stages of the private grant lifecycle;

·Experience managing donor compliance, budgeting, negotiating agreement provisions, technical and financial reporting;

·Understanding of the private donor mentality and pace of work and the differences from public funding culture;

·Ability to analyze and synthesize information and excellent attention to detail;

·Willingness and ability to regularly travel to the region, sometimes on short notice and to volatile areas;

·Outstanding people skills: strong ability to communicate constructively across culturally diverse teams and contribute to a pleasant work environment;

·Solid organizational skills: ability to be flexible and in a fast-paced multi-task team environment;

·Language skills: English required; proficiency in French & Spanish is a plus.

Desirable Skills & Experience:

·Experience implementing medium- to large-scale programs in humanitarian or development settings;

IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, Egalite, le Service, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.