BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARECARE is seeking a Business Development Manager (BDM) for Humanitarian Affairs & Development who will be a part of a growing Institutional Funding and Strategy (IFS) team. The position holder will report to the Deputy Director, Business Development, who oversees the Humanitarian, Governance and Market Based Approaches portfolios. The BDM plays a key role in the oversight, management, and quality control of the entire proposal development process, ensuring a compliant and donor-responsive proposal that meets both funder and CARE requirements and internal standards. Particularly, the BDM coordinates the development of proposals, primarily to the US Government including both prime and sub bids generally under $20m and will give a particular focus to Humanitarian opportunities with USAID-BHA and DoS-BPRM. The BDM will also lead Development bids from CARE’s portfolios which include Food and Water Systems, Health, Education, Gender & Youth, Governance, and Market Based Systems.

This role includes: coordinating IFS support to CARE Country Offices (COs) responding to USG bids; liaising with partners; helping conceptualize the CARE role in potential projects; reviewing draft proposals for quality and compliance; leading proposal development efforts, as assigned, and on occasion being deployed to the field to manage the proposal process and facilitate design workshops. In addition, the BDM works closely with the other members of IFS with CO and HQ staff to ensure responsiveness to the requirements of the RFP/A, and consistency with CARE’s best practices and CO needs and interests. The BDM develops and maintains systems to facilitate CARE’s response to RFPs/As; prepares analytical reports of past CARE experience to reflect on lessons learned; and designs and facilitates workshops to build CARE staff capacity to successfully pursue bids. Finally, the BDM plays an important role in advocating for proposals to reflect CARE’s proposal and programming standards.

In addition to proposal management responsibilities, the BDM supports and/or leads coordination efforts with their assigned technical team. They will also support ongoing IFS efforts to improve its business development processes, particularly those relevant to their position.

Responsibilities:

• Proposal Management
  • Oversees, coordinates and is ultimately responsible for ensuring the preparation, writing, editing, review, management and timely submission of technical and cost proposals and other funder or IFS required materials.
  • They will coordinate advanced preparations for upcoming opportunities including intelligence gathering, recruitment, workshop design and prep where applicable, technical content development.
  • They will make an initial assessment of CARE’s ability to effectively compete, and factors required to assure a successful bid (in the case where we move forward to a bid).
  • They will set priorities, delegate responsibilities, establish deadlines and document timetables (e.g calendar) necessary to ensure bid progress, and report on same to Deputy Director, BD.
  • They will identify potential partners and play a lead role in the negotiation of teaming agreements when applicable.
  • They will develop agenda for strategy meetings including development of “win themes” for each proposal, where appropriate.
  • They will lead and provide guidance to the proposal team on proposal content, strategy, staffing, partners and budgeting; and develop a timeline to accomplish said tasks.
  • They will draft, edit, review and provide guidance to COs regarding donor positioning, proposal strategies, technical content and budgets, etc.
  • They will document best practices and foster training to improve a successful proposal outcome.
  • The incumbent may be deployed when necessary to facilitate in-country design workshops or provide field-based proposal management support for a particular response or coordinate the proposal preparation.
  • They will participate in the After-Action Review process after each proposal to ensure proposal lessons learned are captured and will help develop business development guidance documents to capture such knowledge and learning from proposals
• Planning and Positioning
  • Actively coordinate with Humanitarian team to forecast and facilitate advance planning and positioning for strategic opportunities.
  • Support annual USG resource mobilization strategic planning sessions, track progress against established goals and milestones, and actively support portfolio growth
• Improving Capacity and Processes
  • Build Humanitarian Team capacity to effectively pursue USG funding through regular guidance and both informal and formal training as appropriate
  • Provide backstopping support in concertation with the Deputy Director, BD to new IFS staff and surge support consultants as needed.
  • Support ongoing IFS efforts to improve its business development processes, particularly those relevant to their position. This includes contributing to the development, maintenance, and promotion of BD guidance as well as supporting development of training models, guidance documents, and best practices for capacity building in areas relevant to their position.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in development studies or related, or field that emphasizes critical writing and thinking skills
• Masters degree in relevant field
• At least four years’ experience in proposal development, and at least two years overseas experience in program management or design
• Excellent writing skills with special emphasis on clear, persuasive language; strong editing skills; knowledge of US government proposal requirements
• Ability to work under tight deadlines
• Facilitation and training skills; foreign language capabilities; and familiarity with CARE and partner organizations
• Experience working with or pursuing USAID funding
• Technical background or understanding of Humanitarian programming