Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.
The Department
Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV) invests in and catalyzes venture-led solutions to increase the resilience of underserved individuals and communities. Founded in 2015 as the impact investing arm of Mercy Corps, we’ve supported 47 early-stage ventures to scale and raise over $443 million in follow-on capital and reach over 20.4 million end users with impactful products and services. 49% of our portfolio has at least 1 female co-founder and centers around resilience-building solutions in adaptive agriculture and food systems, inclusive fintech, and climate-smart technologies, so that those living in frontier markets can withstand disruption and plan for the future. Through capital and support, piloting new approaches, action-oriented insights, and rigorously managing impact, we catalyze the ecosystem toward smarter, more impactful investments. The Position
The Program Officer, Ventures provides critical operational, grant and donor management and fundraising support to the Mercy Corps Ventures team. This role will support our interactions with Mercy Corps’ procurement, consultancy, and development teams, including leading process improvement initiatives. This role will maintain our donor and grant reporting systems – including being responsible for ensuring all of our donor reporting and communications are completed on-time, and to a high-quality.
This role will also support our fundraising operations – providing important support to our fundraising team by managing our tracking system for funder outreach, and ensuring follow-ups are completed on-time. Finally, this role will get the opportunity to work closely with our Senior Managing Director, providing him with administrative support.
We are looking for someone who is excited to be a core member of one of the leading early stage impact investors in emerging markets – this role will get a front-row seat to some of the most exciting venture-led innovation happening around the world!
Essential Responsibilities
VENTURES TEAM OPERATIONS (40%)
- Manage Ventures team operations, including support on procurement, invoicing, and contract management.
- Manage internal Ventures team administrative aspects, such as communications, meetings, offsites, etc.
- Manage Ventures team data management, for internal team and donor deliverable data, including supporting in ensuring data is updated, and providing light data analysis as needed.
- Lead process improvement initiatives across all of the above areas.
GRANT ADMINISTRATION (20%)
- Maintain donor reporting and meeting tracker, proactively ensuring all donor deliverables we are delighting all of funders and completing deliverables early and with high quality.
- Lead drafting of donor reporting – including tracking and reporting key metrics, along with qualitative program updates.
- Support donor meetings – including scheduling, drafting call agendas and visuals, supporting follow-ups.
- Support on new proposals as needed.
FUNDRAISING OPERATIONS (25%)
- Support for all Mercy Corps Ventures fundraisers in meeting coordination, call scheduling, tracking outreach, meetings, and follow-ups with key funders.
- Management of our fundraising tracking system – including tracking outreach, meetings, and follow-ups.
- Support on follow-ups for funders where possible, including the preparation of documents or follow-up emails.
- Research and preparation for funder meetings as needed.
SUPPORT TO THE SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR (15%)
- Scheduling & calendar management for Senior Managing Director (scheduling & calendar management in addition to fundraising meetings).
- Support on meeting preparation for Mercy Corps, board, or executive team meetings for Senior Managing Director.
- Support on coordination and serve as point of contact for Mercy Corps teams to Senior Managing Director.
Supervisory Responsibility
The Program Officer, Ventures has no supervisory responsibilities.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Senior Director of Strategy & Operations.
Works Directly With: Ventures Senior Managing Director, Ventures team, Mercy Corps back office teams (procurement, accounts payable, consultancy team, etc), Ventures donors and board members.
Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills
- Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) and 2+ years of professional experience.
- Project management skills, able to balance multiple priorities.
- Proficiency with MS Outlook and online collaboration tools / software, willingness to work with data and numbers.
- Problem solving and time management skills.
- Clear written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
- Proactive and independent worker, high attention to detail.
- English fluency required.
Success Factors
The Program Officer, Ventures must be a natural project manager – detail oriented, organized, and able to manage multiple priorities and workstreams concurrently and meet deadlines. They must be a clear communicator – both written and verbal – and must be an independent and proactive worker who doesn’t require strong oversight or supervision.
They must demonstrate patience and flexibility, as well as have the ability to build and maintain effective internal and external relationships. They must demonstrate the ability to understand and follow agency procedures and work with internal Mercy Corps back office teams and processes.
We are a low-ego, collaborative team and these traits are essential for any candidate, and especially for an inherently cross-functional role such as a Program Officer, Ventures. We are looking for a team-oriented, “low-ego” individual who works collaboratively in a high-performance environment. The ideal candidate would have an excitement and interest in Venture-Led impactful innovation in emerging markets.
The ideal candidate should have experience with, or the desire to work in a small and agile team. They should value the diversity of a global team, and bring an authentic, diverse perspective and set of experiences to our growing team. We are a fully remote team, so any candidate should be comfortable with a primarily digital environment.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based remotely in any Mercy Corps office location and may require minimal travel. This role is remote, so candidates should have a comfortable home office environment and amenities, or plan to commute into a Mercy Corps office.
Ongoing Learning
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening, and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.
Safeguarding & Ethics
Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC
and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to
Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.
As a safeguarding measure, Mercy Corps screens all potential US-Based employees. This is done following the conclusion of recruitment and prior to assuming full employment. Our screening process is designed to be transparent and completed in partnership with new Team Members. You will have the opportunity to disclose any prior convictions at the conclusion of the recruitment process before the check is initiated. We ask that you do not disclose any prior convictions in your application materials or during the recruitment process.
Covid-19 Vaccine Policy for US-Based Employees
Mercy Corps has determined that, in an effort to protect the health, safety, and well-being of all Mercy Corps employees working in the United States, all U.S.-based employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, regardless of prior COVID-19 infection status. This policy is necessary to ensure not only the safety of our workforce, but the ongoing functionality of the organization.
This policy will be revised as needed to comply with federal, state, and local requirements, and to respond to changing guidance from public health authorities.
For new employees this requirement goes into effect within 10 business days of employment. Team members that travel are expected to comply with host-country requirements, including vaccinations. Failure to comply may impact your employment. Proof of vaccination or exemption must be provided.