Grants and Partnerships Manager: Re:Build

The IRC is seeking a Grants and Partnerships Manager, based in Nairobi for a Euro 30 Million five-year, urban livelihoods program: Refugees in East Africa: Boosting Urban Innovations for Livelihoods Development (Re:BUiLD). The Re:BUiLD program is funded by the IKEA Foundation and is being implemented in Kampala and Nairobi. The IRC is the Lead Partner of a consortium of local and international partners to deliver the program. Re:BUiLD seeks for urban refugees and vulnerable host residents to achieve economic self-reliance and benefit from strengthened urban economic, regulatory and social environments. Re:BUiLD aims to enable change at varying levels, from better access to livelihoods opportunities and inclusive services within communities, to improved refugee-related policies and more targeted and effective service delivery from national, regional and global actors. Key features of Re: BUiLD’s approach include flexible funding, adaptive design and knowledge and evidence generation.

Position summary

The Grants and Partnerships Manager is a member of the regional Re:BUiLD Project Management Team that supports the implementation of the program across Kenya and Uganda. This position reports to the Re:BUiLD Program Director with technical support from the IRC Regional Grants Director.

The Grants and Partnerships Manager will be responsible for grant management, including ensuring compliance, and will act as the focal point for relationship management with Re:BUiLD partners based in Nairobi, Kampala and internationally. This position will work closely with the IRC HQ partnership team to ensure adherence to the grant agreement, policies and procedures. The Grants and Partnerships Manager leads all donor reporting, fundraising, information and grants management for the Re:BUiLD program. Facilitates/oversees partnership arrangements and agreements with city governments, technical, private, and CBO/RLO organizations. The Grants and Partnerships Manager provides program and operations teams with advice on compliance with donor and IRC regulations and undertakes programmatic and budgetary monitoring for compliance with donor and internal policies and procedures.

Responsibilities:

Grants Management and Compliance

• Maintain a deep understanding of donor policies, regulations, and procedures. Liaise with IRC HQ and the IKEA Foundation to ensure grant compliance requirements are clearly understood, documented and communicated to relevant colleagues in the Re:BUiLD Program Management Team and country teams

• Advise Re:BUiLD program technical leads and operations staff on reporting and compliance requirements and ensure inputs are received in a timely manner

• Establish and maintain systems to proactively identify and track grant compliance risks and compliance with internal IRC policies and procedures. Raise issues to the Re:BUiLD Program Director in a timely manner and advise on necessary actions.

• Lead grant opening meetings, quarterly grant review meetings, and grant close out meetings in collaboration with the Re:BUiLD Program Director. Monitor post-meeting implementation of action points.

• Lead grant management meetings, including monthly Grant Review Meetings and Budget vs Actual (BVA) to monitor spending, and manage opportunity tracking.

• Support annual revisions to the Re:BUiLD Program Strategy and realignment of the program budget for approval of the donor

Donor Communication and Reporting

• Coordinate all donor reporting, ensuring that reports are timely, accurate and responsive to donor needs.

• Upon delegation, provide liaison or representation to donors when need arises

• Ensure that effective channels of internal and external communications relating to grants are established and respected.

• Ensure that senior management and technical leads understand donor communication protocols and provide copies of correspondence for files.

• Ensure project activity progress and indicator tracking, and top-line expenditure forecasting and tracking (including supporting teams to develop spending plans).

Information Management

• Ensure quality information management through regular maintenance of grant and partner files, developing compliance sheets, updating of internal IRC documentation and other Grant Unit tools, including coordination and preparation of documents and files for internal and external audits.

• Track and maintain the partnership tracker and compliance issues

• Track donor correspondence.

• Track the submission of iteration of proposal and maintain file copies.

• Track the submission of reports and maintain file copies.

• Keep a database of key donor contacts.

• Maintain a comprehensive information management and filing system that ensures all donor and partner contractual documents, reports, key correspondences, etc. are appropriately filed in up-to-date and consistent soft and hard copies are available as needed.

Partnerships Management

• Develop understanding of and ensure compliance with the IRC’s PEER System (Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System)

• Coordinate pre-award due diligence assessment of potential partners by finance, program, operations, Awards Management Unit, and East Africa Region

• Review the capacity building/development plans for the partners based on the pre-award assessment result, ensure capacity building/development plan is tailored, targeted and responsive to their organizational needs and priorities.

• Design tools and create systems to effectively monitor progress made against partner capacity building plans and to partners in their organizational development, particularly around safeguarding.

• Lead in drafting partnership/sub-grant agreements and modifications, act as focal point with HQ for review and approval and facilitate signature by IRC and partners.

• Support program and operations staff in regard to sub-contract and sub-grant management (compliance), including tracking of partner deliverables.

• Advise and guide Re:BUiLD staff on procurement planning and transactions for sub-contract and sub-grants, in keeping with donor requirements and IRC policies, procedures, and standard practices.

Business development/Fundraising

• Support the Re:BUiLD Program Director in the development and implementation of a Co-Funding strategy for the Re:BUiLD program.

• Develop donor mapping tools to support identification of opportunities that are aligned with the Co-Funding Strategy, in partnership with HQ business development teams

• Identify key proposal and donor-related information linked to new funding opportunities to support the Project Director in organizing and leading program design for new business development opportunities.

• Coordinate development of high-quality proposals/concepts, including compilation/editing of the technical narrative and working closely with the Re:BUiLD Finance Manager to develop budgets/budget narratives

• Ensure that proposals are tracked with standard IRC tracking tools and receive all needed reviews and approvals

Requirements:

• Degree in Finance, Business Administration, Social Sciences, International Development or any related field.

• At least 3 years prior experience in an NGO in a similar position; demonstrated involvement and success in the key areas of this JD will be critical.

• Lived/experience working with refugees in the urban setting.

• Good communicator, with excellent proposal and report writing and editing skills and close attention to detail

• Strong organizational and time management skills

• Experience working with sub-grantees and/or local partner organizations and demonstrated ability to form effective and productive relationships with stakeholder counterparts.

• Proven prior experience with donor compliance. Knowledge of European (DFID, EU, SIDA, etc) and private foundation donor requirements and procedures is an advantage.

• Ability to develop, manage, and analyze budgets with a high degree of accuracy

• Willingness to travel to the field in Kenya and Uganda.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.