Head of Programme Funding

Job Title: Head of Programme Funding

Company: Self Help Africa

Location: London / Dublin / Cardiff (or any SHA/UP country office location)

Reports to: Director of Programmes

Hours: Full Time: 37.5 hours Monday – Friday

Job Purpose:

Self Help Africa (SHA) is an international NGO dedicated to the vision of an economically thriving and resilient rural Africa. Headquartered in Ireland, SHA creates scalable and sustainable solutions to eradicating long-term poverty through knowledge transfer, investment, and market linkages.

In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose. This doubled our size and created an international NGO that is implementing projects to end extreme hunger and poverty across 17 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Collectively a part of the wider Gorta Group, which also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, TruTrade and Cumo Microfinance, the organisation will work with close to six million people this year.

The Head of Programme Funding is a senior role in the organisation, responsible for leading the restricted and strategic funding function of the Gorta-Self Help Africa group (i.e. Ireland, UK, Africa, Brazil and Bangladesh, and supporting SHA US). The post is responsible for strategic leadership, developing and implementing restricted funding plans from grant and commercial contracting opportunities and donor strategies and growing income from these sources. The Head of Programme Funding will lead, manage and support a Programme Funding team across multiple countries to deliver high quality work.

Key Responsibilities

Funding Strategy and Donor Engagement

• Develop and implement plans and strategies to maximise income from statutory and foundation donors, expanding the organisation’s donor base.
• Network and represent SHA externally with donors and contacts, and in donor funding-related groups and networks.
• Contribute to organisational strategic planning with expertise on the restricted donor funding landscape.
• Mainstream and support the execution of a key relationship management system.
• Represent SHA UK in London/UK at events.
• Maintain overview of restricted annual income and co-funding requirements.
• Liaise with the Fundraising department to coordinate and track co-funding bids.
• Report on progress against plans and strategies, including tracking potential pipeline funding and expenditure and income budgets.
• Provide updates to the management team and board on progress towards increasing funding from statutory and foundation donors.
• Prepare updates for the UK board and attend meetings to present Programme Funding work.

Team Management and Leadership

• Lead, manage and support the Programme Funding Team to be high-performing and achieve income targets.
• Line manage direct reports, including coordinating workloads and assigning donor leads.
• Support the Programme Funding Team to achieve KPIs through regular support and identifying development opportunities as required.

Proposal Development

• Have overall responsibility for developing high-quality funding proposals for statutory and foundation donors from opportunity identification through to submission/contract signing.
• Support the Programme Funding and Country Teams to identify, research and advise on funding opportunities and coordinate cross-organisational teams to respond to them.
• Develop and maintain internal review and approval procedures, to ensure the quality of submissions is as high as possible.
• Work closely with colleagues in the Programmes Department, who lead project design, to contribute to the assessment, research and design of programmes for unsollicited proposals and specific donor funding opportunities.

Donor Relationship Management

• Oversee the development of donor strategies to maximise relationships and funding from statutory and foundation donors.
• Ensure the Programme Funding team is up-to-date on donor strategies and priorities, and ensure relevant staff, such as Country Directors and Senior Management, are briefed on donor activities.
• Work closely with Programmes Department colleagues to support and/or lead contract negotiation with institutional and foundation donors.

Commercial Contracting

• Lead the growth and development of SHA’s commercial contracting portfolio, including collaborating with Finance, HR and Programmes to improve systems and processes.
• Track commercial contract opportunities and maintain knowledge of contract holders and potential prime partners.
• Identify and develop strategic relationships with potential commercial contract partners in order to improve SHA’s external profile. Liaise with country teams, SHA US and the management team as required.
• Prepare high-quality capacity statements and tender documents in response to commercial contracting opportunities.

Programme Funding Team and Miscellaneous

• Develop and manage Programme Funding team processes to improve coordination and quality, liaising with colleagues across the organisation as required including IT, Finance and the wider Programmes Department.
• Work with colleagues within the Programme Funding Team, and across SHA, to improve the standard of proposal and report writing and donor relationships, and ensure funding opportunities and contracts are managed according to donor requirements.
• Ensure the Programme Funding Team’s donor information is up-to-date in Self Help Africa’s management information system.
• Keep up-to-date on developments in relevant sectors.

Key Relationships:

Internal

• Executive Director
• Director of Programmes (line manager)
• Programme Funding Manager
• Programme Funding Coordinators
• Director of Fundraising Ireland and UK (Liaison)
• Programmes Department (Liaison)
• Country Directors / Heads of Programme (Liaison)
• Finance, Internal Audit and HR (Liaison)
• SHA US Inc.
• Partner Africa
• TruTrade

External

• Restricted/strategic donors
• Partners – NGOs, private sector, academic institutions

Knowledge, Experience and Other Requirements

Essential

• Minimum of seven years’ experience of securing institutional funding.
• Minimum of seven years’ experience working with large and diverse multi-nationality, multi-location teams.
• Evidence of success in winning large (multi-million GBP) donor funding grants/contracts.
• Experience in leading, inspiring and being part of a programme funding team.
• Evidence of building, managing and developing key funding relationships.
• Experience of managing and prioritising team workloads, meeting tight deadlines and working under pressure.
• Excellent written skills including proposals and reports and strong interpersonal, networking and influencing abilities.
• Strong and creative oral presentation skills and experience.
• Strong numeracy and analytical ability, with ability to develop and understand complex budgets and expenditure reports.
• Commitment to Self Help Africa’s vision.

Desirable

• Ability to speak/understand French and Portuguese

All candidates offered a job with Self Help Africa will be expected to sign Self Help Africa’s Safeguarding Policies and Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents. Specific roles may require Police/DBS/ vetting.

Self Help Africa is an equal opportunities employer.