Business Development Specialist II-Malawi, Lesotho and South Africa

Note: This position is open for Telecommuting.

About CRS Catholic Relief Services (CRS) carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

Background

Catholic Relief Services began working in Malawi in 1997. In a country affected by regular shocks – droughts, floods and chronic food insecurity, CRS Malawi has implemented programs to improve agriculture livelihoods in rural areas, support vulnerable children orphaned by the HIV epidemic and to strengthen community systems for nutrition and early-childhood development programs. The country program has enjoyed a diverse portfolio of public and private donors and strong partnerships with the Catholic Church and Government Ministries.

CRS Malawi is dedicated to sustainable outcomes of development work by strengthening local institutions and linkages with the private sector.

CRS Lesotho plans and coordinates programs in three of Lesotho’s four dioceses, working with a large range of Church and local NGO partners. Our current work in Lesotho focuses on OVCs and HIV, agricultural livelihoods, climate change and natural resource management, emergency response, and education. CRS/Lesotho’s principal donors currently are PEPFAR/USAID, GIZ, UNICEF and UNDP. However, the program is pursing new initiatives with other donors.

CRS has a long historical presence is South Africa working in strong collaboration with local partners which includes the national Church, other faith-based and secular organizations. Current programming focuses on HIV epidemic control through strong community-based programming. The current portfolio is depended on CDC funding and is actively working to diversify.

The Business Development Specialist will be based in the Malawi country program and will support the Lesotho and South Africa country programs both remotely and through visits as needed. The Specialist will also coordinate closely with the CRS’ Southern Africa team and CRS’ global BD (Business Development) community, providing direct support to strategic growth opportunities as well as helping to strengthen BD-related systems, processes, relationships and staff capacities in Malawi, Lesotho and South Africa.

This is an exciting and dynamic post for an experienced Business Development professional with the drive to represent and lead CRS programming transformation and growth.

Primary Function

The BD Specialist will maintain CRS’ competitive positioning for and pursuit of institutional donor resources, with an emphasis on competitive funding mechanisms, through representation and leadership in all the designated countries. He/she will define, monitor and update the business pipeline and ensure that CRS is best positioned to pursue relevant opportunities. With a core function of identifying opportunities and leading the production of high quality applications for donor funding, this position will provide specialized assistance across the BD cycle:

• providing guidance and leadership for strategic growth planning
• leveraging CRS’ competitive position and program results to attract new funding
• managing functional teams to identify and capture funding opportunities
• incorporating best practices into growth-related business processes and proposals
• establishing and/or maintaining positive, respectful and fruitful relationships with current and prospective donors
• developing/managing strategic alliances and/or coalitions with other organizations
• monitoring donor trends, including corporate and other non-traditional sources
• identifying and fortifying CRS’ competitive advantages in the designated countries which would be utilized to better position CRS for accessing available funding

The BD Specialist will train and mentor staff to improve their skills in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing, including the production of well-developed, polished English marketing materials for external donors. He/she will support CRS with marketing events, communication pieces for stakeholders in coordination with the CR (Country Representative), HOPs (Heads of Programs) and Program Managers, to enhance visibility and serve external information needs.

Other roles include: working closely with the Regional BD Manager and other BD colleagues around the region on planning, intelligence gathering, sharing lessons learned, and pursuing opportunities; ensuring that high-quality studies, research components, and documenting of innovations are completed and presented to donors and other interested audiences; ensuring reports and responses to donors are of high quality, in the correct format and responding to donor requirements; and managing the project development budget.

Job Responsibilities

Prepositioning

1. Develop and maintain key relationships with donors, collaborating organizations, and private sector actors with an eye toward opportunity identification, shared value creation, strategic alliance formation, and global brand positioning.
2. Research, analyze and plan for new funding opportunities, competitive intelligence, and CRS’ competitive positioning on a continuous basis within the marketplace in a timely manner. Support effective internal communication and information management processes to ensure access and use of BD information by relevant stakeholders within the agency, including maintaining an up-to-date opportunities matrix.
3. Work with the Regional BDM, CRs, and HOPs to identify international partners and negotiate CRS’ role on proposal consortia, ensuring a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
4. Foster a culture of business development within the country program by contributing to the development and dissemination of standardized BD materials (learning resources, guidelines, tools and templates, and online information) and build capacity of country program staff on their application, through staff mentorship, modeling of good practices, and training.
5. Lead the country programs’ functional teams to develop appropriate and effective fundraising and positioning strategies involving donor research and intelligence, product development, marketing, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship, as needed.
6. Lead the country programs’ opportunity pipeline tracking and analysis, including portfolio trends, proposal submissions and performance, and growth projections.

Capture Planning and Proposal and Concept Note Development

1. Provide BD skill and capacity to guide and/or lead teams in opportunity analysis, capture planning, proposal preparation (includes proposal development budget, human resource needs, proposal development timeline, coordination with the Region and HQ, partner management, etc.), proposal development, proposal review, and after action review.
2. Lead the country teams to manage proposal processes, often as the Proposal Coordinator or Lead Writer, to ensure timely submission of high quality proposals that are responsive to and compliant with donor requirements and with CRS technical application and cost application standards. This includes coordinating review timelines with Regional and Headquarters-based staff, support personnel recruitment, budget development, non-technical proposal writing, and/or editing/packaging as part of proposal team.
3. Provide internal reviews of technical and cost applications prepared by other staff, reviewing for clarity, responsiveness, presentation, and compliance, in coordination with the HOP and Finance Officer.

Documentation of results, reporting and marketing

1. Work with relevant staff to leverage CRS’ programmatic and operational results for marketing, positioning, and direct fundraising purposes, including maintaining data on past performance and agency capacity, publications and dissemination, and donor visits.
2. Participate in quarterly program reviews and evaluations to ensure systematic documentation of program best practices and lessons learned by program staff, maintain a centralized system with access by all staff and disseminate as appropriate.
3. Conceptualize and oversee the production of appropriate marketing materials for the CRS portfolio in collaboration with programming and administrative staff. This is likely to include project fact sheets, sectoral and/or geographic focus brochures, past performance documentation, and others.
4. In collaboration with the Heads of Programs, establish effective systems to ensure timely reporting to donors, support other program staff in understanding funder requirements and ensure reports themselves are in the correct format, and edit sections of reports as needed.

Shared services

1. Provide specialized expertise in select areas of the BD cycle, priority program sectors and funding sources, and/or relevant cross-cutting skill sets, as a member of CRS’ global pool of BD talent. Contribute effectively to global strategic initiatives through a shared services structure.

Personal Skills

• Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture.
• Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
• Excellent negotiation skills.
• Strong communications and presentation skills.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented.

Required/Desired Foreign Language

Travel Required (include percentage of required travel, if applicable) 25% LOE for Lesotho/South Africa including 10 – 15% travel to Lesotho/South Africa and 10% travel within Malawi.

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: NA

Internal – Country Representative, Heads of Programs, programming and finance staff, Regional and HQ BD Advisors

External – Donors, partners, research institutions, NGOs, peer BD community, government, private sector partners, etc.

Qualifications – External

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in international development, international relations, or related field. Master’s degree preferred.
• Minimum five years of international development experience, with at least three years’ experience in a developing country.
• Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position his/her organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships.
• Exceptional writer with expert command of English grammar and AP style.
• Demonstrated experience leading and producing competitive proposals in programming contexts similar to CRS.
• Comprehensive familiarity with a broad range of institutional donor technical and cost requirements.
• Experience with both USAID/CDC RFP and RFA funding mechanisms highly desirable.
• Familiarity with relevant institutional donor regulations, policies, procedures and priorities.
• Demonstrated experience managing teams and processes, leading teams to produce deliverables under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality.
• Knowledge of CRS programs, justice agenda and Catholic Social Teaching principles a plus.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

· Integrity

· Continuous Improvement & Innovation

· Builds Relationships

· Develops Talent

· Strategic Mindset

· Accountability & Stewardship

***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

Note: All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside their home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical examination.

CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.

CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer