Senior Regional Support Manager, Private Partnerships – Latin America

Background:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure.

The External Relations (ER) department was created in early 2020 and is comprised of three complementary functional areas: Private Fundraising, Communications and Advocacy. The department is in the beginning stages of developing and implementing a new, ambitious strategy that will enhance IRC’s ability to ‘punch above its weight’ 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 Global Partnerships and Philanthropic Services, GPPS consists of functional specialists across a variety of high-value fundraising functions providing all elements of cultivation, support and stewardship to high value donors, partners, and supporters, comprising three pillars: Research, Partner Engagement & Corporate Affairs, and Program Services.

Program Services is anticipated to become GPPS’ largest sub-pillar and works at the intersection of HV fundraising and our operations and programs in the field. This pillar comprises of proposal, proposition and reporting development services, field experience and field trips and program services and field capacity.

Job Overview:

IRC’s Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) department focuses on various relief, rehabilitation, and development programs for refugees, internally displaced persons and those affected by conflict in different regions worldwide. Each region is led by a regional team that oversees the region’s country programs. The IRC’s Latin America region comprises a comprehensive regional response to the Venezuela Crisis to include Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; regional response in Northern of Central America (NCA- El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) and Mexico & Cross Border Response. Candidates who are from these countries and/or have significant experience in the region are strongly encouraged to apply.

IPP (which leads IRC’s international high-value private fundraising strategies) and CRRD teams collaborate to support the successful management of private partnerships around the world. The teams work in tandem, with CRRD implementing programs and IPP/the high-value fundraising teams managing relationships. The Regional Support Manager (Latin America) 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 Latin America. The Support Manager will act as a key liaison between partnership managers in IPP/the high-value fundraising teams and the program teams in Latin America, 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 with the Director, Awards Management Latin America.

Major Responsibilities:

The role will serve as the primary focal point and liaison between the private fundraising teams, the regional team, and country office teams for all aspects of business development and grant management. The major responsibilities will span across all award lifecycle stages and include:

New funding and proposal development (45%):

• Pursues new funding opportunities for the region suitable for presenting to private sector entities including corporations, foundations, wealthy individuals and faith and membership organizations;
• Ensures that country office funding needs and priorities are well represented across IPP/high-value fundraising teams on an ongoing basis, and proactively shares information, and advocates as needed on behalf of country offices;
• Scans the program work in the region to identify new areas of work that can be proactively worked up and offered to new partners and donors;
• Manages proposal development processes as required for single-country, multi-country and/or multi-region opportunities, bringing together teams across IPP, program regions and technical units;
• Reviews and provides substantive feedback and content on all private donor proposals and drafts proposals with inputs from country programs when needed;
• Reviews budgets and supporting documentation for proposals in coordination with the HQ Finance Department and assists country programs in creating budgets when necessary.

Private funding portfolio management (30%):

• Maintains an up-to-date record of all private sector partnerships in the region to inform effective and timely delivery of relevant updates, progress and insight to the relevant business teams;
• Ensures consistency and compliance across private partnerships for the entire duration of a partnership in close coordination with country teams to ensure donor requirements are met and compliance issues are raised to Director Awards Management;
• Keeps up-to-date with developments around program implementation, flagging risks and challenges around implementation, and ensures timely flow of information to support efficient delivery of donor reports;
• Proactively reviews and provides substantive feedback or content on donor reports, guides country offices with budget realignments, and supports grant amendments;
• Coordinates and ensures clear, reliable reporting and data-points for maximum partnership impact, including drafting and finalizing donor reports and communication materials for country offices as needed;
• Flags donors who need to be stewarded by Fundraising to maintain and deepen relationships, especially if there have been any issues with program implementation;
• Supports country offices 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;
• Maintains an ear to the ground on programmatic issues and security & political developments in Latin America and how they might affect private partnerships;
• Provides project management support on large multi-year and multi-country opportunities and grants as requested from IPP, the region and TUs.

Process improvement (25%):

• Responsible for establishing the foundation for the development of processes and systems that would advance our private-sector partnerships pursuits;
• Coordinates with relevant teams in ER to ensure optimal support for country program offices;
• 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 6 years working in private sector fundraising with at least 4 years working in or closely with the Latin America region;
• Demonstrable experience of running and/or 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 and Spanish fluency required

Desirable Skills & Experience:

• Experience implementing medium- to large-scale programs in humanitarian, nexus or development settings;
• Existing network of partners and donors in Latin America.
• Understanding of the Latin American private philanthropy ecosystem and trends

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.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

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, 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.