Head, Program Funding & Institutional Partnerships

Save the Children believes every child has the right to a future. In Canada and around the world, we do whatever it takes – every day and in times of crisis – to support children to fulfil their rights to a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn, and protection from harm. With over 100 years of experience, Save the Children is the world’s first and leading independent children’s organization – transforming lives and the future we share.

THE IMPACT YOU WILL MAKE:

Reporting to the Director, International Programs and Partnerships, the role of the Head, Program Funding and Institutional Partnerships (HoPFIP) is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic systems-thinker, to lead Save the Children Canada during a new strategy period, embracing traditional and non-traditional resource mobilizing strategies to meet the increased need of children globally.

Save the Children, both in Canada and globally has an ambition to diversify and optimise our institutional and private income; success in this area will be dependent on understanding and planning for shifting donor trends, changes in behaviours and ways of working that facilitate a shift to prioritise partnership and collaboration. For SC Canada, guided by an organizational theory of change which uses a variety of vehicles, including programming, advocacy, research, partnership, and public engagement to advance child rights, the role will focus on building institutional funding strategies and pipelines, through developing systems, plans, partnerships, and relationships to increase resources towards our mission.

The HoPFIP will lead business development related strategies, system builds and change management processes, which align to an evolving direction of the organization and the industry. The role will lead a team who identify mission-aligned funding opportunities and who develop funding applications. The HoPFIP’s work will focus on driving a culture of insight-driven decision-making and actions, both strategically and operationally, working closely with key senior stakeholders as well as functional experts such as financial advisors, technical advisors, policy advisors. The successful candidate will have experience managing funding pipelines, including developing predictive models and scenarios to enhance planning and foresight for resourcing. The successful candidate will be a strategic thinker, who demonstrates the ability to utilize market intelligence and who has experience and knowledge of funding strategies and preferences of institutional donors, philanthropic donors, and an understanding of nontraditional financing tools (e.g. innovative financing). Most of all, the candidate will be creative, curious, knowledgeable of the future evolution of the international assistance sector. This position will require periodic travel in Ontario and abroad (1-2 times a year).

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

Business Development Strategic Direction

• Lead insight and analytics for the development and maintenance of organizational fundraising strategies, which leverage institutional and private sources of funding in support of the Save the Children’s mission.
• Aligned to organizational strategic goals, accountable for the development of account strategies and the execution of plans to obtain new business development opportunities (partnership, programmatic, advocacy, research) from institutional donors. This includes developing strategies to diversify donors and strengthen SC Canada’s competitiveness to access new funding mechanisms.
• Lead on the development of the annual institutional fundraising plan, informed by market intelligence, including business development targets, through the direction of and collaboration with relevant teams and colleagues executing on business development functions across the organization.
• Lead a culture of strategic partnership development for resourcing for impact.
• Represent Save the Children Canada in Save the Children International business development working groups, with responsibility to ensure Canadian contribution to the SCI strategic Global Funding Framework

Business Development Operations

• Lead development of systems which contribute to foresight and agility in strategy implementation and planning.
• Oversight of the development of clear, efficient, enabling processes to support strategy implementation of cross-functional business.
• Oversight of the performance of the institutional funding pipeline, providing strategic analysis to operational performance to make appropriate additions and adjustments.
• Aligned to the organizational revenue strategy, and in coordination with the Head of Award Management, proactively manage the match liability for institutional funding opportunities.
• Oversight of staff to ensure the design and maintenance of effective and efficient processes, tools and guidelines for opportunity and proposal development phases in the project management cycle.
• Accountable for the frequent socialization of SCC teams on processes, tools and guidelines to ensure effective ways of working in business development processes.
• Ensure teams have best practice approaches and systems for planning and undertaking stakeholder engagement with identified prospects and ongoing key partnerships.

Partnerships and Relationship Management

• Lead the continuous assessment of organizational relationships to determine priorities, identify opportunities for growth, and areas requiring course correction.
• Synthesize and present clear analysis to senior leadership team on the evolving threats and opportunities within SCC institutional relationships (particularly Global Affairs Canada) to inform strategic planning.
• Develop clearly articulated value propositions (including comparative advantage relative to sector peers) informed by the unique profiles and priorities for SCC institutional relationships (particularly Global Affairs Canada).
• Proactively engage on a strategic basis with institutional donors (particularly Global Affairs Canada) in order to influence practices, influence policy and thinking, and identify key areas of potential cooperation, including program funding.
• Represent Save the Children as needed with key institutional, corporate, foundation and other donors.
• Work closely with Heads of Awards Management, Program Impact, Humanitarian Affairs, Policy/Advocacy Government relations and Philanthropy & Partnership to build partnership, maintain relationships and develop strategy.

Risk Management and Quality Control

• Accountable for comprehensive feasibility and risk assessments for all funding opportunities being completed and aligned to strategy.
• Oversight and sign off on Save the Children Canada’s costs on proposals to ensure competitiveness and cost recovery.
• Accountable for final sign off on all proposals prior to submission to institutional donors

Team Management and People Management:

• Lead the Business Development team in the operational execution to support strategic organizational goals.
• Set clear team and individual performance expectations for productivity, quality, and success; providing direction and support as needed.
• Manage and monitor operating budget spend to approved targets.
• Effectively resolve issues through appropriate escalation channels
• Maintain relevant standard operating procedures.
• In compliance with HR policies and the Collective Agreement, lead employees using a performance management process that includes performance goal setting, timely feedback, and recognition.
• Mentor and coach employees to support professional development.
• Manage new employee onboarding, ensuring employees receive relevant training and tools to be successful in their roles.
• Model behaviours consistent with Save the Children values, actively creating an organizational culture that reflects values.
• Deliver timely and effective communications, promoting open dialogue.
• Managerial responsibilities of ensuring health and safety, proactive risk management through organizational policy enforcement and maintaining currency of organizational policies and procedures, and integrating Child Safeguarding practices in proposal development and donor agreements

Qualifications include (but are not limited to):

• Post-secondary education and post-graduate degree/professional designation and/or equivalent years of relevant work experience.
• A minimum of 10 years of progressive leadership in program funding and business development functions with direct management experience
• Strategic systems thinking capabilities, with demonstrated ability to utilize market intelligence and who has experience, understanding and knowledge of funding strategies and preferences of institutional donors, philanthropic donors/partnerships/fundraising, and an understanding of non-traditional financing tools (e.g. innovative financing).
• Experience with non-traditional types and modalities of funding (e.g. innovative financing), as well as non-traditional sources of funds that are trending towards growth for CSOs are an asset.
• Experience engaging with donors to develop partnership opportunities and project financial management.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills to develop strong working relationships across cultural and organizational boundaries with internal and external stakeholders and managing through influence as well as actively promoting dialogue with key stakeholders.
• Excellent writing, analytical, and research skills; Proficiency in spoken French is considered an asset.
• Ability to breaks down silos, with change management capabilities including identifying overt and covert work cultures and experience using change management approaches.
• Experience gathering intelligence from external networks to influence/leverage the medium and longer-term impact of SCC’s work.
• Knowledge of child rights programming in areas such as Health, Education, Child Protection, Livelihoods, and Gender Equality
• Experience developing predictive models and scenarios to enhance planning and foresight for resourcing pipelines.
• This position will require periodic travel in Ontario and abroad (1-2 times a year).
• Demonstrated experience developing program funding strategies to meet strategic goals, inclusive of KPIs.
• Highly developed networking and influencing skills and ability to form productive working relationships with external donor agencies.
• Experience with Global Affairs Canada, including knowledge of GAC’s requirements and standards, including Results-Based Management
• Demonstrated experience building organizational systems in support of business development aims.
• Demonstrated experience using financial data to optimize investments for maximum return.
• Demonstrated experience applying data analytics to track, forecast and evaluate institutional fundraising performance against internal benchmarks and sector trends.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex issues through critical thinking, analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy in.

WHAT WE OFFER

This position salary range between $93,843.88 – $110,838.38 CAD depending on skills and experience. In addition to this, our employees will have the following package of additional benefits:

• Comprehensive benefits package for you and your dependents available in three months after employment.
• Coordinated benefits for your partner paid by Save the Children Canada.
• Hybrid workplace, and flexible work hours to support employee wellbeing and productivity.
• Confidential Employee Assistance Program services available to you and your dependents from your first day of employment.
• Discounted rate for a GoodLife membership.
• Organization-wide membership with Headspace.
• 3 weeks of annual leave.
• In addition to annual leave, we offer a December 25 – January 1 office closure (SAVE Days) so we can all recharge simultaneously.
• Paid 3-day-personal days.
• Paid 2-day-float days.
• Paid 10-day-sick leave.
• Parental leave top-up.
• Employer contributions to group pension plan.
• Learning and development opportunities and specialized training.