About

The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and inclusive democracies whose governments are accountable to their people. To achieve this mission, we provide thousands of grants every year to groups and individuals across the globe that work on the issues we focus on—promoting tolerance, transparency, and open debate. We also engage in strategic human rights litigation and impact investing, while incubating new ideas and engaging directly with governments and policymakers through advocacy to advance positive change.

The Role

We seek a Grants Associate to provide advanced and complex administrative support for grantmaking activities and/or other opportunities by performing operational work that helps achieve the program’s goals and plans.

Key Responsibilities

Reporting to the Global Central Grants Management (solid line) and liaising with the Director of Programs (dotted line), the Grants Associate will be responsible for:

• Maintaining accountability for updating the system with relevant grants/grantee information.
• Reviewing reports and documents for compliance, accuracy, and readability.
• Ensuring data accuracy and completeness in accordance with appropriate protocols.
• Assisting in acquiring and reviewing expenditure responsibility reports.
• Supporting the delivery of knowledge building and training across opportunity portfolios.
• Collaborating with Central Grant Management to enforce global Grants. Management policy, procedure, and compliance.
• Providing support for portfolio analytics through data provision and entry.
• Developing and maintaining training materials for the grant management system based on implemented updates and changes.
• Managing relationships with grantees and other stakeholders in the field.
• Collaborating in the construction, maintenance, and assessment of grantmaking portfolios, as well as in the design of portfolio strategies.
• Assisting in obtaining and recording Equivalency Determinations.
• Supporting cash flow forecasting processes.
• Monitoring grant payment schedules and comparing actual grant spending against budgets.
• Providing support in checking Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and Conflict of Interest compliance systems taking responsibility for providing advanced and complex administrative support for the Grants Management department, including processing grantee audit confirmation letters, liaising with the Finance audit team, processing payment of contracts, invoices, and expense reports, publishing grant lists, and planning departmental meetings and event

Key internal relationships

• Grants Management team; Opportunity Team; Director Opportunities; MEL; OGC; Finance

Qualifications

• University degree – BA or BSc

Experience

• Prior career experience of working within grants management administration, processes and systems – either from within Grants Management or from Programmatic teams.
• Proven experience in collaborating with multi-country stakeholders within a multinational organization, and/or organization with significant complexity.

Functional Competencies

• Have extensive knowledge and experience of working with grant management processes and systems.
• Ability to facilitate and provide training to others on systems.
• Experience in working with grantees and nurturing those relationships.
• Knowledgeable of the field and partnerships, and of developing and designing the grant selection processes.
• Ability to generate, capture and organize information and knowledge to deliver prescribed outcomes for area of responsibility.

Personal Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to OSF’s core values of humility, commitment, collaboration, respect, inclusivity and integrity.
• Commitment to listening and working with humility; ways of working that are respectful to all people; and that support space and voice for all diverse perspectives in our workplace.
• Willingness to adjust working hours to include calls and discussions with colleagues and vendors located in various geographic regions.
• Commitment to continuous learning and growth in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, antiracism and social justice.

Languages:

• Possess an excellent command of English.
• Fluent in the local language where the opportunity is based.

What we offer:

• Exceptional opportunities to learn and grow, from annual professional development allowances to onsite training and learning conversations with visiting experts.
• Top-notch benefits and perks to promote well-being and a healthy work-life balance. Including generous time off, flexible work arrangements, employer-paid health insurance, retirement savings plan, progressive paid parental leave, reproductive and family planning support, and much more. (Benefits vary by location.)
• A commitment to nurturing a diverse and inclusive workplace so you can bring your whole self to work and make a positive impact.

We aim to build an inclusive workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve, and actively seek applications from those who are marginalized and underrepresented. We provide reasonable accommodations to applicants and colleagues with disabilities.