Business Development Officer (Remote)

POSITION SUMMARY:

This is a remote role. However, eligibility is restricted to candidates authorized to live and work in the following countries where World Relief has a registered presence: Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Chad, DRC, Malawi, South Sudan, Sudan.

The Business Development Officer will play a critical role in supporting World Relief’s efforts to secure, maintain and grow a robust portfolio of publicly funded grants. The team member will: (1) lead researching and assessing World Relief’s strategic positioning to pursue new opportunities; (2) manage home office and country office-managed proposal development processes; and (3) model process improvement and capacity strengthening.  The ideal candidate will have 5 years’ experience in developing high quality proposals for USAID and other technical donors and have a keen interest in developing new skills related to prepositioning and partnership development.

 

Role & Responsibilities

 

1.       Market Intelligence and prepositioning

·         Conducts landscape analyses, trends and intelligence to identify most strategic partnerships in USAID, EC and other donor markets with a focus on fostering local partnerships.

·         Support technical teams to draft high quality positioning materials as necessary, including capability statements, impact briefs and fact sheets.

·         Support and promote donor relations; participate in calls with select donors, represent the WR at donor meetings as needed; and communicate relevant priorities to donors and internal WR units.

·         Lead the tracking of donor, potential donor, and umbrella websites for RFAs and proposal submission opportunities aligned to WR’s priority sectors or countries

·         Conduct background research on proposal opportunities to determine WR’s competitiveness and strategic positioning

 

2.       Proposal management

•         Coordinate proposal development for primarily US Government opportunities, including capture strategy, management of proposal teams, calendars, and deadlines; strategy development with technical teams; partner identification and negotiations; recruiting; writing and submission

•         Drafts sections of concept notes and proposals and/or serve as a point of quality control for all proposals.

•         Collaborate with technical teams and HR to identify and assess candidates for key personnel positions on proposals.

•         Represents WR and works with TAs to deliver pitches in partner calls related to funding opportunities.

•         Liaise with finance teams to ensure standard budget allocations and relevant approval in proposals

•         Accountable for tracking the process from assignment (concept note, EOI, proposal development) to submission through business development tools & processes

•         Maintain and grow intelligence-gathering network and ensure effective communication and collaboration between World Relief’s longstanding Alliance partners, traditional collaborators, and others.

 

3.       Process Improvement and capacity strengthening

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

·         Develop and model the use of BD tools, templates, shared workspace and work processes that result in streamlined and efficient proposal development and teamwork

·         Ensure documentation and resources needed for proposal development are up to date and filed appropriately in the knowledge management system.

·         Through capacity-training and mentorship, build a strong internal collaborative system for proposal development.

 

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

·         Demonstrated success in developing high quality proposals for the US Government and other international agencies

·         Clear understanding of institutional donor priorities related to global health and humanitarian assistance – especially the priorities of USAID (BGH, BHA), State Department (BPRM) and UN Agencies.

·         Familiarity with building and managing consortia proposals.

·         Outstanding English writing skills and strong analytical capacity assessment, and planning skills.

·         Strong capacity for developing budgets for development projects

·         Computer proficiency in MS Office and familiarity with project management software

·         Strong leadership and teamwork skills

·         Excellent organizational and time-management skills, ability to deliver when facing multiple projects with tight deadlines

·         Familiarity with the international development community and donor solicitation processes (US government agencies, European Government agencies, multilateral agencies)

·         Must be a self-starter, strongly motivated and interested in rapidly producing results

 

Requirements

·         Mature and personal Christian faith

·         Committed to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief

·         Desire to serve and empower the Church to impact vulnerable communities

·         Able to affirm and/or acknowledge World Reliefs Core Beliefs, Statement of Faith, Christian Identity and National Evangelicals For the Health of The Nation document

·         University education in relevant field required (social sciences, applied sciences, business or similar). Advanced degree, preferred

·         Minimum of 5 years of experience in humanitarian and development contexts

·         5 years of experience with substantive proposal writing experience with USAID, EC-ECHO, UN Agencies and/or other institutional donors.

·         Up to 25% domestic or international travel