Remote (based in Sub-Saharan Africa)
About the African Visionary Fund
The African Visionary Fund (AVFund) is unleashing breakthrough impact by driving resources to high-impact African founders. Our belief is simple—when tackling challenges and improving lives on the continent, proximity matters. Despite their potential for impact, African-led organizations receive less than 5.2% of all US foundation giving across Africa and less than 0.4% of all international funding. We envision a world where African visionaries are recognized and resourced by funders for their ability to accelerate progress and drive systems change on the continent.
The AVFund got started in 2020 and we are entering an exciting moment of growth as we expand our funding partnerships and our portfolio of African changemakers, launch our philanthropic systems change strategy, and grow our team to help us deliver on our ambitious vision. We have a small but mighty team of 7 spread across 3 time zones and 4 countries. In the last three years, we have raised close to $8M, committed over $4.5M in flexible multi-year funding to 25 African changemakers, been featured in the New York Times and The Guardian, and we are just getting started!
We’ve successfully achieved our target of raising $10M by the end of 2023. Our next milestone is to channel $50M or more in catalytic resources to African founders through a new fund by 2030. With the new fund launch in 2024/25, we plan to fund more organizations at different funding levels, we also plan to analyze our application data to encourage other funders to invest in locally-led organizations and for our advocacy to move more funds to African-founded and African-led organizations. We are a nimble start-up on a mission to live out our values in every aspect of our work. They will have a unique opportunity to build a portal that will enable our grantmaking process to be unique, centering the experience of our partners, and funders and putting people first.
We believe deeply in our core values of Transformative Impact, Equity, Solidarity, Trust and Integrity, and Striving to Learn. We strive to take the path aligned to these values at every decision juncture, even if the less values-aligned path might be faster or easier. We are looking for team members who are passionate and dedicated to these values and who will continue to challenge us to live into them at every turn.
Role Summary
We are a growing start-up fund and this role will ensure that our grantmaking and portfolio services stay equitable and less burdensome to our partners and those in our pipeline. The Technical Project Manager will lead the design, development, launch, and maintenance of two important software systems: Our application system and portfolio services system.
Initially, this role will focus on the design and development of an application system that will be used to support AVFund’s grantmaking processes (receiving and reviewing applications leading up to grantmaking decisions), in collaboration with our grantmaking team.
For the portfolio services system, the emphasis is to streamline and document all actions and data relating to supporting our portfolio organizations in their organizational growth journey – enabling us to see and tap trends and synergies in our fast-growing grant portfolio. The Technical Project Manager will smartly guide the integration of the two systems.
An important focus for this role is the user experience for the local organizations across Sub-Saharan Africa: ensuring easy access and keeping in mind different perspectives and barriers (language, technology, disability access, etc). Overall, our goal is to create a tech-enabled system that is aligned with our values of equity and solidarity.
The data and insights collected from the application and grantmaking processes and portfolio services will be used as a base for our advocacy work, helping us gain and communicate a deeper understanding of the needs of African-founded and African-led organizations. The system will also enable ways to share application information with funders interested in funding locally-led organizations.
The Technical Project Manager will work closely with our Programs and Operations Team based in SSA and will report to our Africa Co-CEO.
Key Responsibilities
Manage Portal Development
You will lead the start-to-end development of our portal that will support AVFund’s grantmaking processes. This includes defining the scope of work, stakeholder mapping, and consultant/technology sourcing to support the portal development, testing, and implementation of a user-friendly portal that integrates with other internal systems. We are interested in adopting existing technologies/platforms for this project. You will also act as a sounding board for the senior leadership team, ensuring that the platform meets the organizational needs.
● Lead the needs assessment analysis from multiple stakeholders about their interaction with the existing systems to ensure that all perspectives are taken into account during the design process of the new application platform
● Lead the recruitment and hiring of a competent software development team who will deliver the envisioned platform. Thereafter, define their scope of work and manage them to ensure successful delivery of the platform
● Direct daily operations of the development process, manage project timeframes, oversee budget and timelines as well and provide status reports to the Africa Co-CEO.
● Oversee the design, planning, and management of the data migration process from the old system to the new platform
● Lead the piloting and iterating of the new systems ensuring our partners’ feedback is effectively integrated into the ongoing upgrading of the platform.
● Continuously coordinate between multiple stakeholders to ensure that the system under development captures all perspectives and has buy-in from the start
Pipeline Management
Continuously collaborate with the team to ensure that once the platform development is complete, the inputs are organized and sorted based on AVFund’s internal needs.
● Identify and design new process improvement opportunities for the platform and ensure continuous maintenance of the platform as needed
● Lead the integration of the platform to the existing portfolio management services
● Support AVFund team members in drawing necessary information from the system.
Insights & Analytics
Analyze data based on our Theory of Change and help the AVFund surface important insights
● Analyze collected data by sector, region, size, etc, and make it easy to draw out trends and patterns
● Convert trends or patterns into usable insights for the AVFund team to act upon
● Identify and manage data requests from AVFund funders who are interested in our partner pipeline
What You’ll Bring
Our ideal candidate is a strong technical Project Manager, with a proven interest in social impact & community development. They should have experience leading the development of robust technological products and systems in the African context, keeping in mind AVFund’s values.
● You have a strong understanding of User Experience and Design Thinking, concerning our work of making any partner interactions less and not more burdensome in terms of system usability.
● You have successfully led the needs analysis, development, and roll-out of technology platforms to successfully support multi-stakeholder workflows across diverse sectors
● You have at least 4 years of experience in technical project management and at least 8 years of overall work experience.
● You have a good understanding of technology – not necessarily a developer but having the skills to effectively manage software developers to deliver within project time frames
● Proven ability to select and oversee the tailoring of highly suitable tech platforms to meet the unique requirements of users and complex workflows.
● You possess strong project management skills and can successfully handle multiple moving pieces, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. A certification in project management is an added advantage
● You have successfully recruited and managed technical teams of full-time staff or consultants.
● You are excited to dig into and analyze big sets of qualitative and quantitative data to identify trends and valuable insights that can move the mission forward
● You have proven data analysis skills and can confidently use a range of tools and technologies to analyze large sets of data and the ability to communicate these in a comprehensible manner to diverse audiences.
● You have successfully overseen data migration projects.
● You possess strong interpersonal and communications skills with a proven ability to effectively influence and collaborate with diverse team members in a multicultural environment.
● You have a track record of managing the balance between systems and people – you design great systems. Still, you do so in ways that are collaborative and incorporate the human element of implementing systems.
● You are a resourceful self-starter, have a high level of initiative, and a strong ability to work independently. You have a strong ability to make decisions based on information and insights gathered.
● You love working in start-up environments, are highly agile, and are comfortable with creating results even when faced with ambiguity and changing contexts.
● You have an understanding of the social impact space, funding, and the inequities present in both spaces. You strongly believe in the power of community-driven development and the importance of African social changemakers being at the forefront of development.
● Strong cultural awareness to work in a very diverse work environment of teams across cultures and time zones.
● A background in computer science, engineering, business and information technology, or any other relevant degree and training is an added advantage
● Familiarity with Google Suites, Slack, Smartsheet, and Salesforce is a big plus
Additional Information
● This is a full-time remote role of 40 hours per week. The location is flexible within Sub-Saharan Africa. The ideal candidate has pre-existing work authorization in the country they desire to be based.
● While there is some autonomy and flexibility in the work schedule during the week, the Operations team that will highly collaborate with this role is currently based in East Africa. Thus our ideal candidate must be able to work productively in this timezone.
● The role requires some travel, likely 1-2 trips per year or as needed.
● The compensation for this position will be commensurate with experience, alongside such benefits as generous PTO and health insurance, and retirement savings stipends.
● AVFund believes our team is better and stronger with a diversity of perspectives and experiences. We welcome applications from candidates historically underrepresented in the nonprofit sector, especially within the international development sector. AVFund is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment.
How to apply
To Apply
● Please fill out this form https://bit.ly/AVFundTPMApply
● Be sure to answer all questions comprehensively and concisely.
● You will be asked to upload your CV as part of the application form. Please ensure your CV is in PDF format, tailored to this role, and no more than 4 pages.
● Applications will be shortlisted on a rolling basis. Due to the high number of applications anticipated, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
● Recruitment process in partnership with Edge. All emails regarding this role will come from email accounts in the domains @edgeperformance.co.ke and @africanvisionary.org. If you have any questions, please reach out to jobs@africanvisionary.org.