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 40 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 delivers 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.
The Awards Management Unit:
The Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global department with the responsibility for identifying, securing, and managing all funding from statutory/government donors. The department includes the following teams: Program and Award Support, Strategic Partnerships, Compliance and Policy, Business Development, Planning and Strategic Operations, and Training.
The AMU is a bridge between donors and country programs: providing expert technical advice to the country teams, while maintaining portfolio-level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance and manage risk. This unit ensures that donor compliance policies and procedures are implemented consistently, and supports all staff working across the award management cycle.
The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department:
The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department has a growing portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs under their remit. This work focuses support in five key areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic well-being and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all these programs, there is a drive to address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced) – and the universal barriers they face.
The CRRD works across 6 regions globally, including West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The regional teams are the links between country offices and key HQ departments and aim to support and provide advice to country programs with a range of issues from strategic planning, business development to compliance, awards management and partnerships management. Each region is managed by a regional team that oversees the region’s country programs, headed by a Regional Vice President (RVP) and Deputy Regional Director (DRD), and supported by a Director, Awards Management (DAM).
The Purpose of the Role:
The Latin America Region has a portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs currently in the following countries: Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
Where additional support is required by the countries in the region, the Senior Grants and Business Development Coordinator is deployed to work as part of the grants, partnerships and/or program teams in country offices. This could include acting as a temporary member of the grants, partnerships and/or program team (e.g., as Grants Coordinator), or to provide surge support to assist in the development of proposals as well as donor reports, and to perform general grants management functions during peak periods.
Scope and Authority:
No line management. However, when the position is deployed there could be line management responsibilities depending on the function performed in-country.
Key Working Relationships:
The Senior Grants and Business Development Coordinator reports to the Senior Program & Award Advisor (SPAA) and works closely with Grants, Partnerships, Programs and Finance teams in country, as well as other members of the Regional Program and Award Support (RPAS) team, and other AMU team members, as well as country office and regional staff. When deployed, the Regional Grants and Business Development Coordinator will also be accountable to the relevant line manager in the respective country program,
Key Responsibilities:
The Senior Grants and Business Development Coordinator is deployed (remote or in-person) to support specific country programs or the RPAS team, and may be responsible for the following, as assigned:
Proposal development
• Work closely with country programs to support specific proposal development coordination and tasks, such as developing proposal work plans, writing non-technical sections, consolidating and editing written inputs, developing annexes, writing budget narratives, and other tasks as needed, providing additional bandwidth, or backfilling for country grants staff when needed to support these processes.
• Act as proposal development lead, writer and/or coordinator, as identified by country programs and the regional team.
• Facilitate design sessions in coordination with country grants teams with key country program, partners, regional and HQ teams, and ensure proposal design is in line with the country program SAP.
• Liaise with the AMU’s global Business Development and Regional Program and Award Support Teams to ensure proposals are of high quality, meet internal and donor standards and are submitted on time to the donor.
• When in-country and in coordination with the DAM and the Senior/Program Development Advisors (S/PDA), support the country team in the cultivation of donor relationships at the country level and support country offices in the capture and pre-positioning for upcoming BD opportunities.
Awards management and compliance
• Work with country teams to develop donor reports and other award deliverables (e.g., workplans, M&E plans) and ensure they are high quality, coherent, accurate and submitted on time in accordance with donor and IRC internal requirements, providing additional bandwidth, or backfilling for country grants staff when needed to support these processes.
• Manage and/or support agreement and amendment/modification reviews and negotiations, and support award close-out, as needed.
• Provide technical guidance on donor rules and regulations to country team to ensure compliance.
• Proactively raise potential compliance issues to country team and keep senior management and regional team informed of any projected inabilities to meet contractual obligations and of spend rates/significant budget variances.
• Monitor and support the use of award management tools such as monthly financial reports, procurement plans, and activity plans amongst program teams to ensure accurate tracking of implementation and timely alerts to potential challenges/obstacles. Where support is required, act as focal point in facilitating the review of donor deliverables and approvals by technical advisors and other relevant persons at HQ and/or the region.
• Participate in and support the coordination of country program’s project cycle meetings, as well as donor and partner meetings, as required.
Partnerships
• Where necessary, support the management and implementation of partnership responsibilities including partner identification for positioning or proposal development processes, due diligence, partnership agreement package development and reviews, partnership agreement amendments and close-out in line with the IRC’s partnership management system’s (PEERS) and relevant donor requirements.
• Support country programs to strengthen existing systems and structures around PEERS implementation in-country and provide coaching and mentoring to country teams for a deeper understanding and effective implementation of PEERS.
Training/capacity building and regional/global initiatives
• Contribute to the development of training materials/modules, and adapt and contextualize training resources and materials to respond to in-country needs.
• Train and support country program teams on reporting, donor compliance, proposal development, and award and sub-award management (i.e., PCM and PEERS).
• Contribute to contextualizing global/regional initiatives (such as PEERS, PCM, Gender Equality Diversity and Inclusion, etc.), and their roll-out within country programs.
• Support country programs in the use of Project Cycle Meetings (PCM) guidance and provide capacity building to the teams for effective implementation.
• Train and onboard new Grants, Partnerships and other team members within country programs, as needed.
• Support and facilitate (as appropriate) regional and country program PEERS related trainings.
• Capture best practices and lessons learned and support cross-learning opportunities across the region and globally.
• Contribute to country program SAP development and implementation, or other strategic initiatives, as requested.
Regional support
• When not deployed, cover and provide surge support for other positions within the Regional Program and Award Support team or targeted support to different country programs.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential
Skills, Knowledge, and Qualifications:
• Degree in international development/affairs, public administration, social sciences or related subject
• 5-7 years’ experience working with non-governmental organizations in the area of program development, grants management, and/or project management; preferably in the region
• Successful experience developing projects, writing proposals, and developing budgets for USG, United Nations, and/or European donors, and with partner organizations
• Experience working in portfolio or grant management in humanitarian/conflict or post-conflict settings
• Fluent English and Spanish written and verbal communication skills
• Enhanced interpersonal skills and ability to work in a diverse team setting
• Ability and willingness to travel to across the region (up to 60% of the time)
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize high volumes of work to meet tight deadlines.
Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.
Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.