Senior Business Development Manager (Institutional Funding)

Self Help Africa is now inviting applications for the role of Senior Business Development Manager (Institutional Funding) whowill play an important role in SHA’s institutional income generation activities, leading select donor relationships, working with assigned country programmes to diversify the scope and scale of new donors and grants.

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 and writing of high-quality bids. Excellent written and verbal communication skills are critical for this role, and French and/or Portuguese language skills are desirable.

The role is open to candidates with the right to work in the UK, Ireland or Senegal.

You may see similar roles advertised as: Senior Business Development Manager, Senior Proposal/Bid Writer, Fundraiser, Resource Mobilisation Lead, Strategic Relationship Manager.

The key responibilities of this role are:

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.
• Lead tracking of funding opportunities including liaising 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 lead relationships with assigned funders to build effective long-term partnerships.
• Manage 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.
• Provide capacity development and training in programme funding and bid writing to colleagues
• Contribute to Programme Funding Team reporting through ensuring donor information is up-to-date in the organisation’s management information system.
• Represent the organisation in donor funding-related groups and networks.
• Keep up-to-date on relevant areas of the development sector.