Regional Corporate Specialist Central and Eastern Europe

Background

NRC Poland was established in March 2022 in response to the Ukraine crisis and to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Equally NRC started operations in Romania and Moldova, as well as is scaling up its humanitarian response in Ukraine where it has been operational since 2014.

NRC is looking to leverage the private sector to provide funding, skills, and strategic partnerships that improve the lives of people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine. The role will work with the NRC’s Country Director in Poland and the Global Corporate Relations section to develop, monitor, and implement NRC’s corporate relations policies and strategies in Poland and Central/Eastern Europe (CEE). This includes responsibility for creating and sustaining one-to-one relationships with corporations, private foundations, and philanthropists based in Poland or with country or regional headquarters based in Poland. This will include providing the leadership, capacity building and guidance to ensure robust relationships are created at all levels of the organisation, that are safe, impactful and give good return on investment.

Duties & Responsiblities

The Corporate Fundraising Specialist will operate to find, recruit and manage sources of funding from private organisations (corporate, foundations) and private philantropists in Central and Eastern Europe. They will do this in a way that aligns to NRC’s priorities, follows NRC rules/policies and give a significant return on investment for NRC. They are also expected to contribute to wider leadership across NRC to help others develop their thinking and execution around private sector partnership.

Below is a summary responsibilities, please download Job Description for further details.

1. Develop and maintain a diverse portfolio of unique global fundraising partnerships with different types of private organisations/philanthropist from different industries and cultures.
2. Work across NRC to understand global, regional and country strategies and identify ways the private sector could contribute resources to help deliver that. From this create new and innovative opportunities, identify suitable potential matching partners, roadmap a way to engage them and get them to commit to funding the opportunity including negotiating/recognising when to pivot to ensure funds and when to redline to meet NRC’s needs.
3. Engaging with C-suite/leaders one to one to explain NRC, get them to see value in partnering with NRC and finally get a funding commitment from them.
4. Work with other teams/leaders in the Head Office (HO) and field/representative offices to mentor their abilities to successfully engage with the private sector and contribute to the wider goals of the Gobal Corporate Relations Section.
5. To deliver on a fundraising target for the role.
6. To work to promote NRC partnerships e.g. case studies, talk at events, partner meetings with the Secretary General (SG) and other collagues across the organization.
7. Influence NRC’s Global corporate fundraising strategy and regional fundraising strategies as well as strategies for other parts of NRC e.g. Digital transformation, WASH.
8. Bringing a level of realism whilst creating excitement around private sector partnerships to NRC staff across the organisation
9. Ability to travel for partner meetings/manage existing partnerships and to find new partnership funding opportunities.

Skills & Experience

Given the large differences between humanitarian culture/donor grant procedures and the way the private sector works, the Corporate fundraising specialist must build and use their experience and knowledge from both worlds to facilitate arriving at a mutual agreement. Skills required include building trust, curiosity to understand unrecognised opportunities, ability to translate language/culture between both sides, strength of character to explain and make acceptable priorities and redlines for each partner, resilience to handle ‘No’ and keep looking for a solution, self-starting to find new relationships to leverage.

Below is a summary of thel person profile that we are seeking:

• Documented highly professional experience within business development/sales, corporate partnerships and/or social impact or other relevant professional qualification, ideally in CEE.
• Documented extensive professional knowledge of corporates, private foundations, or private philanthropist located in CEE or at least in one of its countries.
• Capacity for flexible thinking and innovation to find win-win solutions between NRC and the private sector.
• Demonstrated experience in creating new partnerships – including identifying partnership opportunities, designing projects, brokering, and cultivating relationships, negotiations and designing and formalizing partnership structures.
• Documented experience and ability to engage at C-suite roles/senior levels in business and development sector contexts, and to build trust-based relationships with senior-level executives.
• Fluency in English and one of CEE languages (Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Moldavian), both written and verbal.
• Communication skills to build bridges between private organisations and individuals and the humanitarian sector.
• Documented experience working with stakeholders across the public, private, and non-profit sectors in CEE, and if possible, an existing network of contacts to draw upon.
• Ability to multi-task and work with short deadlines.
• Documented experience in project planning and management.
• Demonstrated excellent communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and proactively.
• Willing and able to work outside normal workhours, to operate different time zones towards colleagues in field offices and corporate partners around the world.

Your passion, skills, and experience can make a big difference. This mission would be a start-up in a challenging, emergency context in Europe.

What We Offer

• Duty Station: Warsaw (Poland).
• Contract: 12 months with potential for extension, 20% travel across region.
• NRC’s Salary Scale: NRC offers a competitive compensation and benefits package.
• Start date: Immediately.

NRC is very grateful to those who have responded thus far and continue to heed to our calls for support. This is going a long way in addressing the diverse needs, priorities, and concerns currently affecting the people of Ukraine.

Applications will be reviewed on ongoing basis. Due to large response, NRC will not provide feedback to those candidates who do not meet criteria and/or not follow the application process.