Programme Funding Coordinator

Job Title: Programme Funding Coordinator

Company: Self Help Africa/United Purpose

Location: UK/Ireland/Dakar, Senegal/Gambia (flexible working arrangements considered)

Contract Type: Permanent (open to all candidates with right to work in UK/Ireland/Senegal/Gambia)

Hours: Full time

Reports to: Head of Programme Funding (UK) & Regional Director, West Africa (Senegal)

Salary: Salary in line with local salary scales

Organisation overview:

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.

Job Purpose:

The Programme Funding Coordinator will support the Self Help Africa/United Purpose West Africa region with all aspects of resource mobilisation and business development.

Working closely with assigned country teams, the post-holder will play a key role in pipeline development, donor engagement, positioning for contract and grant opportunities and lead the development of high-quality bids. Excellent written and verbal communication skills in both English and French will be critical to this role.

The role may be based in the UK, Ireland or with United Purpose in Dakar or the Gambia, but will be part of the UK-based programme funding team.

You may see similar roles advertised as: Business Development Coordinator/Officer, Proposal/Bid Writer, Fundraiser, Resource Mobilisation Coordinator/Officer.

Key Responsibilities

Proposal Development

• Identify, research and advise on new funding opportunities.
• Lead proposal development for assigned countries/donors and coordinate cross-organisational teams to respond to funding opportunities.
• Contribute to meeting ambitious departmental financial and non-financial (volume and quality of proposals) targets.
• Develop and oversee timetables; coordinate inputs; write and edit content; provide quality assurance on fit with donor priorities; ensure compliance with internal review and approval procedures; ensure timely submission; and follow up with donors for feedback.
• Work closely with colleagues in the Programmes Department, who lead project design, to contribute to the assessment, research and design of projects for specific donor funding opportunities.
• Liaise with donor staff and colleagues on progress of applications or potential funding opportunities.
• Work closely with Programmes Department colleagues to support and/or lead contract negotiation with institutional donors.

Donor Strategy Alignment, Engagement and Relationship Management

• Actively manage relationships with assigned funders.
• Coordinate donor strategy to maximise relationships and funding from donors through: meeting donors and cultivating contacts; liaising with colleagues across the organisation to coordinate donor meetings and briefings; and writing capacity statements/quality statements for specific donors.
• Maintain up-to-date information on donor priorities, strategies, regulations and activities pertaining to United Purpose’s strategic plan.
• Ensure relevant staff including senior management and Country Directors are briefed on donor activities, through the preparation of briefing notes and maintaining up-to-date information on our management information system.
• Provide advice to Programme Department colleagues on donor policies and priorities, and managing funding contracts, in order to support overall donor strategies.
• Maintain and report on donor relationship and income pipelines on a periodic basis.

Programme Funding Team and Miscellaneous

• Work with colleagues within the Programme Funding Team, and across the organisation, to improve the standard of proposal and report writing and donor relationships, and ensure funding opportunities and contracts are managed according to donor requirements.
• Contribute to Programme Funding Team reporting through ensuring donor information is up-to-date in UP’s management information system.
• Represent UP in donor funding-related groups and networks.
• Keep up-to-date on relevant areas of the development sector.

Key Relationships:

Internal

• Head of Programme Funding (Line Manager)
• 2 x Programme Funding Co-ordinators, 1 Trust & Foundations Coordinator, 1 Programme Funding Manager
• Global Programmes Department staff
• Regional Director – West Africa
• Country Directors and Heads of Programmes
• Global and Country Office Finance & Admin staff

External

• Donor staff
• Partners (NGOs, private sector, academic institutions).

Knowledge, Experience and Other Requirements

Essential

• Fluency in English and French (spoken and written) with the ability to write proposals/bids in either language.
• Minimum of three years’ experience in a programme funding role.
• Evidence of success in securing income from institutional donors, ideally including experience of FCDO, EU, USAID, AFD and UN agencies.
• Minimum of three years’ experience working with large and diverse multi-nationality virtual teams.
• Experience of managing and prioritising own workload, meeting tight deadlines and working under pressure.
• Excellent written skills including proposals and reports, and the ability to creatively turn complex project and/or organisational information into a compelling business cases.
• Strong and creative oral presentation skills and experience.
• Strong numeracy and analytical ability, with ability to understand complex budgets and expenditure reports.
• Ability and willingness to travel when required.