Partnerships Finance Manager

Background:

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in more than 40 countries and in 22 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. IRC leads the way from harm to home.

More than 3.6 million people have fled across borders to seek safety in the 1st month since the escalation of conflict in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and over 6.5 million Ukrainians are reported to be displaced. As the vast majority of the displaced are women, girls, and boys, this could become the worst humanitarian crisis Europe has seen in decades.

Between February 7-23, 2022, an IRC team undertook a scoping mission covering Poland and Ukraine to better understand the context, humanitarian and civil society landscape, and anticipated service gaps in the event of an escalation of conflict in Ukraine and consequent displacement into neighboring Poland. As of February 24th, the IRC has pivoted to an emergency response, and have identified partner agencies in Ukraine and Poland to facilitate immediate assistance that can be used where it is the most needed. Simultaneously, the IRC is establishing operations across Ukraine and Poland to complement partner response services either in breadth or scale.

Job Overview/Summary:

The Partnerships Finance Manager is a key position for the Partnerships Department which provides support to IRC programs implemented across Ukraine. The position is primarily responsible for providing oversight and day-to-day financial management of the IRC Partnerships Department’s sub-awardees, in very close coordination and cooperation with the IRC’s internal Finance staff. The position will be responsible for capacity building for sub-awardees to build their financial management and administrative capacity, in coordination with the partners, Partnerships Department staff, and IRC Finance staff. The Partnerships Finance Manager will provide support to the Partnerships Department to review sub-awardee budgets at the proposal stage, participate in pre-award due diligence processes, document all financial matters related to sub-awardees’ finances to assure audit readiness at all times, and manage sub-awardee finances documents/reports including budget review, financial report review, providing guidance and training related to finance to sub-awardees in order to strengthen their capacity. The Partnerships Finance Manager acts as the focal point for financial and compliance aspects of Partnerships Department for sub-awardees, including ensuring high-quality financial monitoring of sub-awardees. This position reports directly to the Partnerships Coordinator, with an indirect technical reporting line to the Deputy Director of Finance.

Specific Responsibilities:

Promote Effective Partnerships

• Promote and apply the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERS). Contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS throughout the Ukraine Country Program, and to ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners.

• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback.

Program Delivery

• Participate in the Partner’s Project Capacity Review (PPCR) of potential partners as appropriate, and contribute to efforts to collaboratively analyze and manage material risks identified, as it relates to finance.

• Work collaboratively and supportively with partners to develop and finalize budgets and budget amendments, and (in the case of milestone-based partnership agreements) in determining the costing of milestones.

• Review draft partnership agreement terms relating to advances, reporting and any special conditions relating to finance.

• For cost-reimbursable partnership agreements, agree with partners the specific documentation required to support each type of cost, adjusting standard requirements to the operating context and the partner.

• Participate in Partnership Project Opening, Review and Closure Meetings, including to review successes, challenges, and lessons learned with the partner, and capture effective finance practices for future partnerships.

• Work collaboratively with partners to ensure the timely provision of funding to partners in accordance with the partnership agreement to ensure program continuity, ensuring clear communication with the partner and efficient resolution where for whatever reason this is not possible.

• Collaborate with partners to ensure completeness, correctness, and accuracy of financial reports and cash requests.

• Review partner financial reports (and narrative reports for consistency) and supporting documents to ensure compliance with the partnership agreement, donor regulations and IRC policy, and provide feedback to the partner as appropriate.

• Monitor partner budgets and actual spending in collaboration with technical coordinators, identifying issues and working proactively and collaboratively with partners to resolve them.

• Lead timely and effective finance review and reflection (monitoring), identifying appropriate follow up actions, and providing completed reports to Partnership Lead.

• Assist in the close-out of partnership agreements, including in relation to financial verification and asset confirmation.

• Participate in the review of the performance of the partner, of the IRC, and of the partnership, including successes, challenges and lessons learned.

Program Support & Capacity Sharing

• Provide finance and accounting training and mentoring support to partners, in accordance with partner project support plans, with a focus on supporting the partner to strengthen financial management systems and capacities that are responsive to the needs of the partner (rather than replicating IRC’s systems and policies).

Team Management

• No direct line management responsibilities, yet the Partnerships Finance manager is expected to coach, train, and mentor staff with the aim of strengthening their technical capacity, exchanging knowledge within the team and providing professional development guidance.

Other

• Any other duties as assigned by the Partnerships Coordinator

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Partnerships Coordinator

Position directly supervises: N/A

Indirect Reporting: Deputy Director of Finance

Other Internal and/or external contacts: Programs Team, Finance team, Grants team, other Partnership focal points and external stockholders and partners

Job Requirements:

§ Fluency in Ukrainian and/or Russian and English.

§ Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, finance, or any related field.

§ Minimum 4 years of progressive work experience in a non-profit setting overseeing and managing partners’ projects funded by major institutional donors.

§ Detailed knowledge of Government procurement rules and regulations, OMB Circulars, and related administrative guidelines and requirements associated with funding from BHA or USAID in particular.

§ Experience of working with partners

§ Experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring of staff, NGOs/CBOs.

§ Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to present to groups of all sizes.

§ Self-starter with ability to work independently and part of a team.

§ Demonstrated ability to work effectively under pressure and handle multiple simultaneous tasks and demands coming from multiple sources.

§ Hard-working, sharp and detailed oriented.

§ Exceptional interpersonal skills; tact, patience, diplomacy, and appropriate assertiveness.

§ Proficiency in MS Office software suite – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

§ Experience working with databases and/or other tracking systems.