Business Development Assistant

The Business Development Assistant is responsible for providing administrative support to ACDI/VOCA’s Business Development Group. This position has three primary areas of responsibility and support within BDG: 1) Knowledge Management and Business/Market Intelligence Support, 2) Proposal Coordination and Process Management Support, and 3) General Administrative Support. This position reports to the Sr. Director, Capture and Proposal Management. Because this position directly supports various key BD functions, this position also reports on a matrix basis to the Associate Director, Business Intelligence, and the Vice President, Business Development.

Responsibilities

Business Development – Knowledge Management and Business/Market Intelligence (approximately 40%)

• Proactively search for and immediately distribute solicitations, notices, and other client communications to correct audiences; periodically recommend revisions to procurement site searches based on evolving ACDI/VOCA market strategies and changing donor landscape.
• Proactively monitor industry news to compile and publish a weekly “BD Digest”, routing items of special interest to appropriate staff members.
• Conduct desk research and data entry to maintain and grow account (clients and partners) and contact profiles in CRM system.
• Conduct desk research to compile/maintain market and competitive intelligence; conduct analysis and prepare reports as directed.
• Conduct basic AViator resource center maintenance, e.g., updating files with new versions received from authors, publishing files to existing structure, updating proposal and “best of” libraries, and helping users locate desired resources.
• Assist with CRM, Business World and other data entry, retrieval, cleaning, integration, and system testing.
• Ensure proper after-action data entry and reporting, including drafting and coordinating proposal win announcements.
• Help maintain proposal sites and file structure, including but not limited to setting up sites, ensuring proper membership and access, creating OneNote notebooks, updating proposal stages, filing proposal receipt confirmations, and ensuring proposal sites are complete and properly closed out.
• Conduct research and outreach to help identify and set up appropriate meetings, speaking engagements, etc. to support positioning and diversification.

Business Development – Proposal Coordination and Process Management Support (approximately 45%)

• Support business development and proposal processes, under the direction of the Senior Director, Proposal Capture & Management, by working with staff in BDG and other departments to ensure appropriate business development activities are completed.
• Support proposal teams to use proper proposal templates, job aids, and other BD resources.
• Prepare initial draft calendars for live proposals in alignment with ACDI/VOCA best practices and in collaboration with proposal managers.
• Assist with development of expressions of interest, corporate capability statements, concept notes, etc. as assigned.
• Serve as liaison and provide proposal coordination support to department-led proposals, coordinate other proposals as assigned, ensuring bids follow established BD processes and best practices.
• Assist proposal teams with uploading and updating capture and preparation budgets into Business World.
• Proactively identify process improvement needs and propose solutions.
• Draft and maintain job aids, as needed, related to BDG processes.
• Support positioning efforts, as requested.
• Cross-train in other BD-related roles and activities and provide backstopping and surge support as needed, including, but not limited to:

– Production of final documents for submission to clients

– Providing high-quality copy-editing services on submissions to clients

– Providing basic graphic design and/or graphics editing support, using Adobe Illustrator or other relevant applications.

Business Development – General Administrative Support (approximately 15%)

• Serve as a central point of inquiry for potential partners, circulating information appropriately, scheduling meetings, taking notes, and entering information into CRM.
• Process departmental procurements, invoices, and payments.
• Provide remote meeting technology support, helping meeting facilitator use features such as breakout rooms, polls, etc. to enhance the effectiveness of remote meetings.
• Provide logistics and other support for external meetings, events, speaking engagements, etc.

Other duties

• Support and enhance the company’s culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion and align with our corporate values by treating others with respect and congeniality.
• Host or attend in-person meetings at the Home Office or elsewhere when required.
• Other duties as assigned.