Program Development and Partnerships Senior Advisor

Position description

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 50 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

We aim to make our programs a model for the highest global standards and to cultivate power and lasting change not just for our clients but for all people affected by humanitarian crises. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) group, located within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department, provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice.

 

IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five teams or sector “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.

 

IRC’s Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:

1. Program Design: We support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, together with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and our clients bring to the table.

2. Quality Assurance: We partner with our measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes. We partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.

3. Business Development: We partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; we deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.

4. Research & Learning: We partner with our research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that we continuously improve our future design and delivery.

5. External Influence: We showcase the IRC’s programs, technical insights and learning in order to influence and improve the humanitarian sector’s policy and practice.

 

The Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) Unit at the IRC 

 

The ERD TU is a dynamic team of more than 30 professionals responsible for supporting the development, implementation, and monitoring of client-centered economic wellbeing (EWB) programs. These include, but not limited to, cash and voucher assistance (CVA), agricultural & climate-resilient livelihoods, financial inclusion, and employment (including self-employment) promotion across emergency, recovery and resilience programming contexts. The TU’s technical assistance to this wide variety of programs ensures quality and use of evidence-based practices; promotes innovation, diversity, equity, and inclusion; and drives data-based management and decision making, to achieve positive change in people’s lives.

 

Job Overview 

The Program Development & Partnerships Senior Advisor will provide support to drive the ERD Technical Unit’s partnerships, and business development (BD) priorities, as set by ERD leadership and in the Economic Wellbeing Strategy. They will work in close collaboration with global and regional technical leaders and teams, as well as the Grant Operations & Analytics Team (GOAT) to develop and drive a global fundraising strategy for ERD. They will provide business development and program design support on Technical Unit-led or strategic proposals, focusing on both private and public/institutional donors, as well as cultivating strategic partnerships. As is strategically important, they may flex to support significant single-country or regional bids as well. Overall, the Program Development & Partnerships Senior Advisor is co-responsible for setting the BD strategy, assembling inputs to create compelling bids, gap filling in the BD process as needed/relevant, and driving ultimate bid success through correct donor intel and positioning, strong bid submission, and effective cross-functional collaboration.

 

Major Responsibilities 

 

Strategy and Capture 

• Develop and drive a global funding strategy for ERD in collaboration with global and regional technical leadership.

• Adapt, strengthen, and roll out new and existing tools and processes, such as IRC’s Business Development Manual, for ERD to pre-position and respond to new funding opportunities in line with the Economic Wellbeing Strategy

• Partner with and coordinate knowledge and information sharing with the Awards Management Unit (AMU) for public fundraising and GPPS/IPP for private fundraising, capturing priority needs across the portfolio, and providing accurate guidance to technical leaders and executive leaders for bid development

• Track a pipeline of upcoming opportunities and circulate to key staff

• Work closely with internal stakeholders to plan for staff needs and business development capacity requirements to successfully write and budget for winning bids

• Coordinate internal competition processes for unsolicited donor submissions by working closely with internal stakeholders, including but not limited to facilitation of expressions of interest from global technical leadership and strengthening ideas for internal competitions 

 

Business Development and Program Design  

• Be the focal point for TU-led opportunities, as needed. This includes: 

o Ensuring that the Project Design Meetings (PDM) take place on time for ERD TU-led awards, adapting PDM agendas to the specific opportunity, providing (or arranging) PDM facilitation

o Ensuring overall quality, coherence and logic in project design, promoting integration with other sectors as needed, partners’ meaningful participation, adherence to IRC’s IMPACT quality standards and scale considerations

o Escalating key decisions to management group as relevant

o Being mindful of competitiveness aspects throughout the design process

o Ater the PDM, sharing core decisions and ensuring their validation by technical leadership and partners

• Provide advice and support on budget development to TU staff; review budgets to ensure consistency with the proposal design

• Write non-technical sections and edit all sections for TU-led proposals

• Coordinate with the internal stakeholders on the review and signature process of agreements and contracts to closely follow IRC processes for award 

• Coordinate technical input during negotiations with donors on any requested changes to the proposal

• Upon request, organize re-design meetings at inception phase or during pre-established learning moments

• Gather technical insights across the Technical Unit and consolidate for proposals in which multiple Global Practice Areas are represented

 

Partnerships Strategy 

• Support in defining and leading the ERD’s approach to partnerships including both global and local partnerships, working closely with the Grants Operations and Analytics Partnerships team to ensure successful pre- and post-award partnership operations

• Lead coordination to drive all aspects of the partnerships strategy and management for TU, with a strong focus on building effective partnerships with local civil society, women-led organizations, and other local actor organizations, and evolving tools, processes and ways-of-working to be fit-for-purpose for TU-led projects and strategic priorities 

• Identify and evaluate opportunities for private sector partnerships required to effectively deliver the EWB strategy both as part of but also outside specific BD opportunities

• Identify and evaluate opportunities for partnerships with academic or research centers, with Research & Innovation colleagues as appropriate, with a goal of identifying more research partnership opportunities from the global South

 

Key Working Relationships 

• Position Reports to: Senior Director, ERD, CRRD Technical Excellence

• Direct Reports:  Livelihoods and Program Development Officer 

 

Key Internal Relationships: 

• ERD Leadership Team

• Policy and MEAL 

• Grants Operations and Analytics Business Development Sr Coordinator and team

• Program Development and Partnership teams in other Technical Units (Health, Education, Violence Prevention & Response Unit, and Governance) 

• Policy & Solutions, Advocacy & Influence, and Systems Change global teams 

• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams 

• Global HQ and AMU focal points  

 

Key External Relationships: 

• Counterparts at other INGOs and international Coalitions 

• Civil society actors across geographies with a focus on civil society platforms and across in the ‘Global South’ 

• Counterparts at Red Cross/Crescent Movement with a focus on IFRC and ICRC and with national societies as relevant to partnership, thought partnership opportunities 

• Donors and policy makers including humanitarian and protection policy spaces

• Counterparts in relevant multilateral agencies including 

 

Desired Experience and Skills 

Education: Degree in economics, business, international development, international relations, or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and work experience background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.

• 6-8 years of progressive experience providing technical and/or bid leadership to multi-year, multi-million-dollar business development opportunities in economic  or livelihoods development.

• Strong capacity to understand the humanitarian system and operating context and coordinate the relevant technical inputs from within and outside ERD TU

• Familiarity with managing large-scale, complex portfolio and experience using strategic insights and data from varied sources to support portfolio management, pivoting and alignment to organizational and sectoral goals

• Excellent attention to detail and problem-solving skills and ability to analyses trends based on a diverse set of data and insights 

• Demonstrating experience leading the development, review and implementation of systems, policies and processes in collaboration with other functional areas including Finance, Awards, Advocacy, MEAL  

• Experience in building partnerships for development and humanitarian funding as well as negotiation of programmatic and financial contractual arrangements with donors and partners

• Demonstrated expertise in working with both public and private donors and knowledge of the funding landscape for economic development, multi-purpose cash, livelihood development, and/or financial inclusion

• Experience with some of the following donors programmatic and advocacy priorities, funding instruments and cycles: USAID, BHA, PRM, Irish Aid, FCDO, AFD, Global Affairs Canada, Swiss Cooperation, GFFO

• Experience and comfort interrogating partnership practices and familiarity with emerging developments including growing attention to power-shifting, localization and technical assistance models for INGOs

• Knowledge of public and private fundraising – appetite and curiosity about building collaborative pathways with philanthropy and private sector 

• Experience in developing and managing project concepts and funding proposals for humanitarian / development work with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action

• Demonstrated ability to work with stakeholders at multiple levels

• Highly collaborative and proven ability to work independently and work with remote, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary teams

• Flexibility and ability to work well under pressure, taking care of competing priorities, in a fast-paced team environment

• Experience in successfully influencing change in teams you don’t directly supervise

• Fluency in English required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish also valued

• Ability to travel globally up to 20% of the time, occasionally on short notice

 

Compensation: Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget.  Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

Application instructions

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