Senior Finance & Grants Manager

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa is a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with teams in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zambia. TaRL Africa began as a joint venture by Pratham and J-PAL in 2019, with the goal of supporting governments and organisations across Africa to accelerate children’s foundational skill learning using the evidence-based TaRL approach.TaRL Africa’s mission is to support every child across Africa to build foundational skills for a better future. We support governments and organisations in over 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to design, deliver and scale impactful TaRL programs while learning and sharing how the approach can be improved for different contexts. Together with partners, TaRL Africa reached over four million children with TaRL programming by 2022.

Summary of the Role:

The Finance & Grants Manager plays a crucial role in budgeting, financial management, and grants management at TaRL Africa. This position is responsible for overseeing the organization’s financial activities, including budget developments, consolidation, monitoring, and actuals reporting against budgets. Additionally, the Finance & Grants Manager is responsible for managing grants, which involves evaluating potential grantees, drafting agreements, monitoring burn rates and timely reporting. This role ensures the effective allocation of funds, accurate financial reporting and compliance with grant requirements. The Finance & Grants Manager contributes to the overall financial sustainability and success of TaRL Africa by maintaining strong financial controls and supporting the organization’s grant-making initiatives.

Duties & Responsibilities

1. Grant and sub-grants Compliance and Management
   1. Manage all awards to TaRL Africa and subsequent sub-awards to different partners under the prime awards.
   2. Monitoring and coordinating all phases of grants; including drafting agreements, donor reporting and compliance with approved budgets, contract terms and legal or regulatory requirements.
   3. Support in preparing funding proposals by developing proposal budgets from the proposed activities and ensuring sufficient staff cover and overheads recovery per project
   4. Carry out due diligence on new and potential partners and sub-awardees.
   5. Collaborate with the program and finance teams to ensure grants are implemented according to the operational and financial needs of the organization.
   6. Keep program teams updated on burn rates per project per award on a quarterly basis
   7. Timely invoicing and request for funds from donors based on achieved reporting and deliverable milestones as per contracts
   8. Timely follow-up on all sub-grantees for timely and accurate reporting; including timely disbursement of funds and refund of any unutilised funds
   9. Periodic update of the grants and sub-awards tracker with any new information on grants and sub-grants
   10. Oversee the smooth transition of all TaRL Africa grants and sub-awards from MIT to TaRL Africa or TaRL Africa USA
2. Financial Management
   1. Review all proposed grant budgets before submission to ensure consistency with proposal requirements; accuracy in the calculation of salaries, direct and indirect expenses, overheads and compliance with established regulations.
   2. Work with the finance team to streamline internal financial reports and reporting processes to deliver more efficient, more effective, and more useful reports and analyses .
   3. Engage with program staff across the organization to monitor and review program budgets throughout the year and life of the project(s).
   4. Assist with the development and reconciliation of organizational indirect cost rate.
   5. Maintain records of all payments and receivables and prepare monthly records for all grant-related activities.
   6. Provide training to the new staff on grants management and reporting requirements.
3. Annual organisational budget (AOB) management
   1. Coordination of annual organisational budgets development, consolidation and update on to the ERP
   2. Continuous monitoring and tracking of actual expenditure against budgets per award per country
   3. Extraction and review of budgets vs actual reports; ensuring correct categorisation of expenses per expense general ledger, major category, country and award
   4. Monthly sharing of the BVA report with all budget holders and follow-up to ensure their understanding of their departments expenditure trends and share any mitigation measure on slow or faster burn rates
4. Organisational financial reporting
   1. Prepare quarterly financial reports for TaRL Africa and share them with Finance and Operations Director for review and sharing with SMT
   2. Prepare annual financial reports for TaRL Africa; income and expenditure and balance sheet
   3. Prepare all donor financial reports as and when they fall due and ensure timely sign-off and submission before the agreed timelines

5. Audits

• • Prepare for annual and project audits by ensuring the availability of an accurate and updated general ledger and related schedules and support documents for audits
    – Extraction of the trial balance, Income and expenditure statement and statement of affairs for every financial year
    – Coordination and liaison with auditors on the conduct of the audit and scheduling
    – Liaison with programme staff on any audit responses and or reports required from them

6. Oversight on all TaRL Africa country offices’ financial management:

• • Liquidity management-ensuring timely request for funds and disbursements to the country offices
    – Monthly review of all country-level expenses including the payroll to ensure correct categorisation per expense category per award per country

7. Compliance oversight

• Ensure compliance with all TaRL Africa policies by staff (travel, finance, procurement etc)
• Ensure compliance with all statutory authorities within Kenya and the countries where TaRL Africa has direct programme implementation. These compliances include: NHIF, NSSF, NITA, KRA, registrar of company’s annual returns among other statutory requirements
• Any other duties as may be assigned

Profile

Required Minimum Qualifications:

• Degree in Finance or Accounting, Business Administration, Management or related field preferred. Having a master’s in Business Management shall be an added advantage.
• At least seven (7) years’ experience in financial and grant management, budgeting, and reconciliation.
• At least four (4) years’ experience in a financial management role at an international non-profit that receives revenue from different donors, such as government agencies, private foundations, and corporations.
• Must be a Certified Public Accountant in good standing.

Required minimum Skills and Competencies:

• Strong interpersonal skills with an ability to collaborate and work with others, to create trusted client relationships, and comfort moving between senior stakeholders and more tactical operations.
• Excellent organizational skills to manage multiple projects and competing priorities.
• Excellent writing and verbal communication skills; can effectively communicate and be comfortable both in the academic world and and in a dynamic fast-growing organization.
• Ability to think critically and analytically, and identify and troubleshoot potential issues before they arise.
• Positive team player with a roll up your sleeves, customer-first attitude.
• Ability to learn new technologies.
• Possess good knowledge of planning and strategizing financial and budgeting issues.
• Knowledge of auditing policies and knowledge of donor agencies.
• Proficient in using computers with related knowledge of software programs and Internet.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce or equivalent grants and financial systems.
• Interest in children’s learning and education.
• Experience working internationally; Africa experience a plus.
• Working knowledge of academic policies and processes.

TaRL Africa Values

1. We put children’s learning first.
2. We are always learning, improving, and innovating.
3. We are locally rooted for high-quality delivery and sustainable impact.
4. We are kind, respectful, and collaborative.
5. We are proactive, committed to integrity, and doing our best each day.