TEAM/PROGRAMME: Program Development and Quality (PDQ)
LOCATION: Preferably based in Kigali, Rwanda (for nationals or non-Rwandans already having work permit/authorization to work in Rwanda). Remote working is also a possible option (but must be able to work in Rwanda working hours (+/- 2 hours). Any other arrangements can be discussed later with the successful candidate.
GRADE: 2
CONTRACT LENGTH: 2 Years renewable for internationals and Open Ended for nationals
SAFEGUARDING:
Level 2: either the post holder will have access to personal data about children and/or young people as part of their work; or the post holder will be working in a ‘regulated’ position (accountant, barrister, solicitor, legal executive); therefore, a police check will be required (at ‘standard’ level in the UK or equivalent in other countries).
Anti-Fraud and Integrity Commitment:
The organization maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward fraud, corruption, and unethical behavior. All staff are expected to uphold the highest standards of integrity and accountability, comply with internal policies and procedures, and report any suspected misconduct through the appropriate channels.
Please note: The organization does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, offer, or onboarding). Any request for payment should be reported immediately.
ROLE PURPOSE
As a member of the extended country Senior Leadership Team, the New Business Development Manager will provide leadership to the Rwanda and Burundi Country Office (CO) resource mobilisation and new business development efforts. This will include but not limited to: -
- Leading the development and implementation of a robust country office funding strategy and donor engagement plans to diversify and grow the country office funding- aligned with the Country Strategic Plan priorities and targets. Offering the overall funding strategy direction to the Country office.
- Identifying, developing and maintaining key and strategic donors and other funding and non-funding partners relationships and partnerships opportunities needed to grow the country office portfolio and pipeline. Working closely with account managers across the movement to strengthen positioning at all levels.
- Facilitating/ or leading on both in and (where necessary) out of country donor engagement initiatives.
- Leading and managing programme and proposal development processes as well as coordinating proposal and concept note development for all new funding opportunities.
- Ensuring NBD best practices, processes tools and trainings are embedded and followed across country office departments. Ensuring well-coordinated and competitive proposal management processes and continuous learning and improvement are mainstreamed through after-action reviews.
- Be externally engaged and highly involved in prepositioning and capture planning for high value and strategic funding opportunities with donors, governments, local partners, peer agencies. But also, work closely with Save the Children Member offices in various countries, who channel programme funding, and other Save the Children International offices.
- Providing overall leadership on strategic portfolio planning, analysis, management reporting and key decision making.
Recognizing that many conversations with donors involve a review or update around current grants as well as discussions about new opportunities, the NBD Manager will be expected to keep closely informed about the progress of all major institutional grants and able to speak to results in key reporting documents, working closely with the Save the Children Member offices who provide programme funding.
SCOPE OF ROLE
Reports to: Programme Development and Quality (PDQ) Director
Direct reports: New Business Development Coordinator(s) and consultants or interns as required
Key working relationships: Engages internally with CO Technical Experts (TEs), Global resource mobilization team, Finance, Awards and partnerships, Operations, Kumwe Hub team, and Human Resources to coordinate deliverables and responsibilities across the country office.
KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
Fundraising Strategies and Donor Engagement Plans
- In alignment with the CSP, develop and utilise a robust, relevant and comprehensive fundraising strategies and donor engagement plans that links local regional and global knowledge, priorities and breakthrough to the relevant donor landscape.
- In close consultation with PDQ, Operations and other relevant functions, lead the development and regular update of a long-term donor engagement strategy to assist in growing the Rwanda/Burundi portfolio over the next 3-5 years in areas relevant to SCI and child rights.
Forming Partnerships, Donor engagement and Relationship Management
- Cultivate excellent working relationships with donor and strategic partner agencies at regional and country level as appropriate; build relationships, gather business intelligence, and generate new funding opportunities
- Facilitate creation, integration, and utilization of realistic and well-informed engagement plan and prepares country office Senior Leadership Team for donor engagement;
- Manage both strategic and programmatic relationships with donors, implementing partners, and other relevant stakeholders to advance Save the Children’s reputation, drive strategies, create new opportunities, and push for funding in SC's Breakthroughs;
- Cultivate excellent working relationships with SC members at head office and regional level;
- Represent the Rwanda/Burundi office in relevant donor fora, workshops and conferences where new business development opportunities can be formulated;
- In relation to specific opportunities, support country leadership decision making to form competitive and complementary programming consortia which strengthen both programming and resource mobilization outcomes.
Strategic Portfolio Planning and Management
- Actively track existing and upcoming opportunities while linking them to country and global strategy and SC's Breakthroughs, positioning efforts, resource allocation, and broader award portfolio planning.
- Analyse and leads strategic portfolio management conversation with the Senior Leadership Team to inform key decision making around NBD resourcing, Strategic opportunities to pursue, portfolio health, sustainability, and risks etc.
- Analyse and communicate key portfolio, pipeline and country office priority funding gaps for action. These may include thematic/program gaps, co-financing gaps, and operational sustainability gaps.
- Proactively work with our headquarters and East and Southern Africa Regional Office Resource Mobilisation teams to drive improvement in strategic portfolio planning and management for the country office.
- Work closely with key SC Members to identify opportunities to grow funding and partnerships, ensuring they have ready access to information on funding needs, concepts and materials for donor outreach.
Identification of Funding Opportunities
- Identify, research, and disseminate information on new funding opportunities from bilateral, multi-lateral, and other institutional donors;
- Cultivate business relationships with external stakeholders and potential partners for large scale or strategic funding opportunities, either as a prime or sub-recipient in joint ventures;
- Explore and test potential private sector partnerships and keep abreast of local funding environment;
- Pro-actively seek donor intelligence on prospective new opportunities or partnerships;
- Provide updated information to Member Services team to stimulate increased and new investments by SC Members in the Rwanda/Burundi country portfolio;
- Ensure key contacts, required formats and donor strategies are kept up-to-date at the country office level.
Capture Planning and Opportunity Preparation
- Effectively analyze information about SC, the donor, and competitors in relation to the specific opportunity in order for the CO to determine competitiveness and capacity to pursue and facilitate facilitates high-level conversations with Senor leadership Team on the Go/ No Go decision.
- Ensure that country and member offices collaborate effectively to gather and assess donor, partner and internal information relevant to upcoming major opportunities.
- Strengthen country office capabilities on long-term capture planning for major forthcoming strategic funding opportunities.
- Work closely with lead members to define and secure relevant staff and core proposal team members to successfully bid for significant and high value upcoming funding opportunities.
- Proactively address challenges that may hinder the proposal development process.
Oversee (and where necessary) coordinate the Proposal Development Processes.
- Provide leadership in the development of all proposals and bids. Provide leadership in the developing of all proposals and bids. Managing and working closely with other key staff members for effective proposal development process. Set and track proposal development timelines and key outputs, ensuring effective coordination amongst teams – Proposal coordinator, Programme Development and Quality (PDQ), Programme Operations, Finance, Human Resource, Security and Member Services, and external stakeholders (if relevant);
- Oversee and manage the the proposal development processes to ensure quality and timely delivery and submission of the proposal package. Undertaking quality assurance of donor proposals to ensure high quality competitive proposals in order to successfully secure donor funds at scale.
- In collaboration with Director of PDQ and Head of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL), identify needs for additional technical support and resources required to support proposal development;
- Represent Save the Children International generally (along with technical experts) in consortium meetings regarding proposal development;
- Ensure that Programme Quality Framework is addressed in all new proposals and that key elements of programme quality are included (e.g. child participation, child safeguarding, lessons learned from past proposals, accountability, risk assessments, effective partnership strategy, etc.);
Capacity building, Knowledge Management and Learning
- Support on the job skills development for COs of collegues on NBD e.g. roll out and deliver TE for NBD Training, proposal development, donor engagement, consortia development skills and capacity building.
- Ensure continuous learning and implementation of best practices so future NBD experiences are improved at the CO level. Leading quarterly process to identify trends and support continuous learning
- Work with members and the regional office to access and disseminate donor intelligence, Funding and capacity building opportunities, and on skills building.
- Maintain strong knowledge management systems (e.g. MS Teams sites.) to support CO and regional communication and continuous learning.
- Support relevant CO staff to adhere to Fundraising Protocol.
- Support the development of an organisational culture that reflects our dual mandate values, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors;
- Proactively gathers project implementation intelligence and donor feedback and feed back into Prepare phase and donor engagement
- Coordinates with programmatic colleagues to facilitate sharing of program achievements, results, technical briefs and lessons learned with donors, governments and other strategic partners.
- Staff management
- Lead NBD related recruitments and create a safe and sound working environment.
- Line manage NBD staff in line with SC HR policies and procedures.
- Ensure that NBD staff’s capacity is built in line with their professional needs and job requirements.
BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)
Accountability:
- holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
- holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.
Ambition:
- sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
- widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
- future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.
Collaboration:
- builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
- values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
- approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.
Creativity:
- develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- willing to take disciplined risks.
Integrity:
- honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
QUALIFICATIONS
- University degree (minimum bachelor’s degree) preferably in social or development studies, human rights, resource and entrepreneurship development, project management or in any other field of relevance to development and humanitarian response.
- Background in donor and relationship management, strategic portfolio analysis and planning, and change management is key.
EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
Required
- 5+ years demonstrated experience identifying and securing funding from major government donors, multilateral agencies, corporate donors and/or foundations. (e.g. USAID, DFID/FDCO, EU, DEVCO/ECHO, UNHCR, UNICEF, etc)
- Recommended a minimum of five years management in either development or emergency contexts, preferably with solid experience in more than one of the Save the Children International priority sectors: education, child protection, rights governance, health and nutrition, and emergencies; Demonstrated experience in coordinating and facilitating the development of major proposals to institutional donors.
- Demonstrated ability to solve complex issues through critical thinking, analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy in.
- A high degree of attention to detail and the ability to lead key tasks (e.g. proposal development) to on-time completion under significant pressure. The position requires effective time management, multi-tasking and strong coordination and planning skills.
- Highly developed networking skills and ability to form productive working relationships with a wide range of internal colleagues and stakeholders (e.g. program technical, awards compliance, finance, program operations).
- Well-developed interpersonal and communication skills including communicating with impact, influencing, negotiation, and coaching.
- Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
- A high degree of flexibility and adaptability in order to respond to changing needs. Ability and willingness to change work practices and hours in the event of major emergencies including travelling at short notice and for extended periods of time.
- Experience in project and change management related to organisational development projects and international, cross-functional teams with a proven history of delivering results.
- Excellent writing/editing skills, budget development skills and presentation/communication skills.
- Fluency in English both verbal and written, required. Knowledge of French is an added value.
Desirable
- Previous experience with capacity building, learning, or training initiatives, ideally in the BD sector.
- Proven ability to write persuasive, competitive, and compliant narrative proposals for institutional donors and private sector. Including budget development skills and presentation/communication skills
- A detailed understanding on funding mechanisms for development work such as Save the Children’s.
- INGO experience and an excellent grasp of operational issues.
- Experience and understanding of humanitarian and development issues within East and Southern Africa.
- Commitment to Save the Children International values;
- Background in large international non-governmental organisation or other international relief/development body.
- French fluency highly desired.
Additional job responsibilities
The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.
Equal Opportunities
The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.
Child Safeguarding:
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
Safeguarding our Staff:
The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy.
Health and Safety
The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.
