Manager, Global Institutional Funding

The Center for Reproductive Rights (the Center) is the premier global litigation and legal policy organization using the power of law to advance reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world. Headquartered in New York City, the non-profit, non-partisan organization has regional offices in Bogota, Geneva, Kathmandu, Nairobi, and Washington, DC; a staff of approximately 200 diverse professionals; an annual budget of approximately $40 million with an additional $22 million in donated services from leading law firms around the globe.

The Center’s game-changing litigation and advocacy work, combined with its unparalleled expertise in constitutional, comparative, and international human rights law, have transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies worldwide. It has played a key role in securing landmark legal victories in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the United States on issues including access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, safe abortion services, and comprehensive sexuality information, as well as the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage. It has brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, U.N. Committees, and regional human rights bodies, led the development of historic, proactive legislation advancing robust protections for reproductive rights, and has built the legal capacity of women’s rights advocates in more than 60 countries.

To learn more about the Center for Reproductive Rights, go to www.reproductiverights.org.

The Role: The Manager, Global Institutional Funding reports to the Senior Manager Institutional Partnerships and supports the Senior Director as well as the Associate Director of Foundations in planning and implementing the Center’s global institutional funding plan. This includes, specifically, managing an institutional grants portfolio which includes Foundations, bi-lateral (government agencies) and multi-lateral (the UN) funders. The Manager, Global Institutional Funding will manage donor outputs for all grants in their portfolio across the grant life cycle, including pre-bid capture, proposal coordination and submission, donor reporting and other award activities, and knowledge management. This individual will also provide support across the Institutional Funding unit, as needed, and participate in weekly unit updates and quarterly planning and replanning exercises. The Manager will work closely with the other departments, principally the programs team, including the global regional teams in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, as well as with the Finance, Compliance units and the Strategy, Evaluation, and Learning unit.

This position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Primary Responsibilities:

New Business and Pre-Bid Management (20%)

• Monitors new funding opportunities and synthesizes information from external list-serves, dashboards, subscriptions, and donor databases.
• Develops succinct summaries of solicitations and carefully tracks the status of opportunities in the pre-bid/pre-proposal phase.
• Develops capture plan and manages its implementation in coordination with other departments.
• Engages in partnering discussions.
• Undertake sector, country and other competitive research proactively as may be required.

Proposal Development (40%)

• Supports the entire proposal-development process in response to specific funding opportunities, from proposal kick-off through post-submission debrief.
• Uses proposal-management system to track tasks and follow up on actions to ensure timely completion of deadline-driven deliverables.
• Manages proposals as assigned.
• Writes and edits select portions of the proposal, as assigned.
• Coordinates responses during award-negotiation phase.

Post-Award Management (20%)

• Ensures timely, complete, and compliant submission of all grant deliverables, including required reports, modification requests, and close-out actions.
• Manages cross-departmental response to funder requests and required deliverables.
• Works closely with the Global Legal Program and finance to ensure grant deliverables are delivered on time and the project budget is spent as planned.

Knowledge Management (5%)

• Updates knowledge management system (Raiser’s Edge) according to specifications and serves as focal point for other departments for key pre and post award documents and emails.

Cross-Cutting Unit Support (10%)

• Manages proposal consultant onboarding processes.
• Contributes to development and refinement of systems and tools to enhance institutional grants management.
• Serves on cross departmental working groups as needed.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Strong commitment to the Center’s mission, purpose, and values.
• Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree a plus.
• At least 7 years of professional experience in proposal development, donor relations, and grant management.
• Experienced in managing the end-to-end bid process, including bid management process, bid documentation, and submissions.
• Demonstrated success in winning bids through effective proposal management Experienced in facilitating teams to develop collaborative processes.
• Demonstrated excellent writing and verbal communications skills.
• Ability to draft and copyedit written communication effectively such as memos, talking points, presentations, and emails.
• Ability to collaborate with cross functional teams and influence stakeholders and various levels.
• Solutions-oriented approach with strong analytical/reasoning skills.
• Must be able to work proactively and independently, multi-task, and work under tight deadlines.
• Experience working with or in partnership with an institutional funding agency is a plus.

Critical Competencies:

• Strategic thinking: Applies big-picture thinking while also focusing on the details of implementation.
• Decisiveness: Consistently makes sound decisions in a timely manner supportive of the Center’s mission, core values, and strategic objectives. Blends vision and judgment.
• Collaboration: Brings a track record of working effectively with various and diverse individuals and groups, and a willingness to actively listen and invite different views and opinions across all levels of the institution to build alignment in support of a common goal.
• Receives and Provides Direct Feedback: Actively gives and requests feedback to and from peers, supervisors and direct reports (if applicable) about work products, behaviors, values, style and approaches with a view on how this impacts self, other individuals and teams.
• Transparency: Consistently applies openness and honesty in communicating decisions and plans to team members.
• Commitment to learn: Applies a growth mentality to their own and their team’s (if applicable) development. Promotes a culture of learning by modeling inquisitiveness and an openness to viewing mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve.
• Passion for Coaching, and Mentoring Staff: Empowers and motivates employees and creates opportunities for learning, development, and leadership, with a focus on harnessing skills for the future development of team members. (if applicable) Accountability: Follows through on each commitment made to individual contributors, teams and partners and proactively informs others of any delays that occur along the way. Holds team members accountable.
• Integrity: Possesses impeccable integrity and personal and professional values that are consistent with the Center’s high standards and mission.
• Empathy: Serves as an empathetic, approachable leader who engenders trust and confidence. (if applicable)
• Adaptability/Flexibility: Demonstrates comfort with ambiguity and calculated risk.

Compensation: The monthly salary for this position is Ksh.6,600,000 per annum.