UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

Building on work across the UN with and for young people, and in line with the UN Youth Strategy, in 2018, UNICEF launched a new global partnership dedicated to skilling and connecting young people, aged 10-24, to opportunities in employment, entrepreneurship and social impact.  Generation Unlimited (GenU) is centered on finding new ways to ensure that every young person is in school, learning, training, or employment by 2030 — with a focus on those in the greatest danger of being left behind, including girls, the poorest, those with disabilities, young people on the move and those affected by conflict and natural disasters. This partnership brings together leaders from governments, UN agencies, the private sector, academia, international and civil society organizations, and young people to identify, co-create and scale up innovative solutions to expand opportunities for youth. Young people participate meaningfully in the co-creation of solutions by informing, advising, and helping in implementation every step of the way.

To drive fundraising for the youth skills-to-opportunity gap and inspire action to better prepare young people for the future of work and life, GenU’s fundraising approach relies on leveraging the reach and influence of its public-private-youth partners.

For every child, an opportunity……

The Senior advisor will be responsible for developing and implementing fundraising strategies globally and domestically in-country to support UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited’s mission to skill and connect youth to opportunities. The Senior Advisor will work closely with the partnership/innovation and other colleagues in the programmes team to identify and cultivate major donors, implement fundraising campaigns, and oversee fundraising events. The senior advisor will also lead on cultivating strategies for domestic revenues for GenU programs in countries.

How can you make a difference?

Fundraising strategy

UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited has a clear fundraising strategy and associated work plan to attract investments/funding from international/domestic donors (both public and private) and through innovative financing opportunities. The funds raised are catalytic to crowd in further resources and partners to skills and connect youth to opportunities in employment, entrepreneurship and social impact, as defined in GenU’s mission. The fundraising strategy is aligned with PFP and PPD strategies and delivered in close collaboration with both divisions.

• Review, maintain, update and implement the fundraising strategy and associated annual work plan. Strategy and workplan include partner and stakeholder mapping/assessment; objectives; target audiences; pitches; proposals/products, co-creation opportunities; monitoring and evaluation of impact; success and opportunity for improvement; ongoing refinement of the strategy.
• UNICEF GenU’s rights and results-based programming approach is appropriately reflected in the fundraising, work plan and products.
• Maintain close collaboration with PFP and PPD, regional and country offices for effective overall coordination.

Build relationships with existing and potential contributors for catalytic funding and provide leadership on engagement with non-traditional donors, for innovative financing modalities and domestically leveraged financing.

• Mobilize, broker and leverage financial and in-kind contributions for ideas and Glocal solutions and catalytic funding working strategically with Deputy Director Partnerships.
• Lead the review and maintenance of the partner/fundraising data base for resource mobilization working with colleagues in PPD and PFP consistent with the strategic objectives of the fundraising plan and the harnessing on non-traditional forms of support.

Ensure monitoring of implementation and effectiveness of the strategy and plans, taking corrective action when and where necessary to minimize risk and maximize results.

• Ensure timely forecast of resource requirements and oversee market research to tap into longer term opportunities to generate resources for GenU.
• Ensure effective monitoring mechanisms are in place to track the effectiveness of advocacy, communication and resource mobilization plans, taking corrective action, when necessary. Relationships are built and maintained with donors and investors for catalytic funding and leadership provided on engagement with non-traditional donors.

Networking and partnerships

UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited has a well maintained and continually developed contact list of individuals, groups, organizations and fora whose support is essential to mobilize resources for GenU’s mission.

• Develop, maintain, and update partners contact list/database.
• Help establish, document, review and refine process of working collaboratively with PFP, PPD, regional and country office partnerships teams through meetings, joint fundraising opportunities, information sharing to leverage and optimize resources, etc.
• Ensure or enhance the quality, consistency and appropriateness of country-specific resource mobilization tools/materials, activities, processes and messages to optimize resources.
• Identify opportunities to innovative financing mechanisms to strengthen GenU’s programmes and shared value partnerships.
• Monitor, evaluate and share results and findings with GenU team and partners.

Resource mobilization support

Ensure that global and country level fundraising activities are supported by effective advocacy and communication strategy and activities. Global and country level fundraising activities with both public and private sector are supported by effective advocacy and communication strategy and activities.

• Mobilize country office communication capacity to support/facilitate the gathering of content and coverage of relevant country efforts. Use the opportunity to identify/highlight effective programme activities and results in support of fundraising.
• Mobilize resources for fundraising support by regular communication and co-ordination with relevant communication focal points in regional offices and headquarters divisions.

Monitoring and evaluation

Fundraising baselines are established against which the achievement of objectives of the targets set for the fundraising strategy are regularly evaluated and analyzed for rigor and continuous improvement.

• Provide technical support to ensure that a set of fundraising performance indicators are adjusted as necessary, and are incorporated in the Annual Management Plan, Annual Work Plan, Annual Reports, etc.
• Conduct timely and accurate monitoring and evaluation activities to ensure the objectives are met and the strategy is effective.
• Undertake lessons learned review of successful and unsuccessful fundraising experiences and share observations/findings with country, regional and HQ fundraisers to promote best practices across the board.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Fundraising, Management or another relevant technical field is required.
• A minimum of ten (10) years of professional experience at the national and/or international levels related to in fundraising, marketing, or sales, with a proven track record of success in cultivating major donors and implementing fundraising campaigns is required.
• Experience in the development and implementation of fundraising strategies and plans.
• Experience in managing fundraising events and campaigns across a range of channels.
• Experience in monitoring and evaluating fundraising activities and making recommendations for improvement.
• Experience working in a developing country is considered as a strong asset

Expected Technical Competencies include:

• Resource Mobilization: familiarity with public/private donors, including domestic and regional funds, financial institutions, good knowledge of global and innovative financing mechanisms. A solid track record in raising funds at a global level and in securing high level/long term commitments from donors. Ability to negotiate with donors to best align their contributions and mobilize joint fundraising to meet shared goals.
• Engagement with partnerships: global partnerships for youth, donor countries traditional/nontraditional, the UN system, PFP, PPD, financing institutions, etc. Solid experience in fundraising/partnership models to support GenU’s products.
• Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, French or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability (CRITA), and sustainability

Please click Here to view UNICEF’s core values and Here to view our competency framework.

UNICEF competencies required for this post are.

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to including everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination.

UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.

Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid).

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF.

UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

“UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/”

For more information on remuneration and benefits, please visit UNICEF’s Entitlements’ page.  If you would like to find estimates for entitlements, you may use the online Salary Estimate Calculator

• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.