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SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
Program Associates support a team of program staff who are working toward a shared team/regional strategy. Program Associates hold a variety of responsibilities related to the research, analysis and coordination of programmatic activities with a primary focus on the portfolio of grants made to support the teams’ strategy. The Associate plays a critical role in supporting team learning and strategy by providing research and analysis, raising questions and tracking progress made towards outcomes, external context shifts, and the health of the field and organizations the program supports.
The Program Associate fosters engagement across a program team, has a high-level view of how the grant-making of individual program officers on a team contribute to the team’s strategic outcomes, and encourages learning and evaluative thinking across the team. In addition to supporting the needs of their team, Program Associates also play a role in identifying cross-programmatic learning opportunities in collaboration with the Office of Strategy and Learning (OSL).
Principal duties and responsibilities, include but not limited to:
Grants Strategy
Participate in and contribute to strategy development processes and monitor the level of strategic alignment of grants.
Map and analyze all grants so that the team can understand the totality of investments, fostering learning across the team.
Analyze and create periodic reports that summarize common themes across the portfolio of grants, for the purpose of shared team learning, strategy refinement and effective grantee support.
Monitor strategic alignment and coherence of grant-making portfolio to support team's implementation of strategy.
Review the portfolio of grants with the specific purpose of extracting lessons from grantees, changes in the field, and progress towards team outcomes.
Act as the team’s reference person for grant coding and periodically review the portfolio coding to ensure integrity and consistency.
Research, Analytics, Monitoring, Reporting and Knowledge Management
Conduct research linked to strategy and grant-making for the Director and program team members using a variety of external and internal resources (e.g., commercial online subscription databases, other web-based reference sources, Foundation information systems, and Foundation archives); consult external experts or other resources as per the research protocol.
Support the Director and program team in analyzing data and identifying trends.
Summarize research findings in written documents, databases, presentations, or multimedia formats.
Act as the team’s “information architect and manager,” partnering with the Information Management department.
Create substantive materials for the team, collect and manage them according to Foundation protocols, and advise members of the team on how to access and use the information provided.
Grantee Relationship Management and Capacity Building
Support grantee and network convening through agenda design and planning, prepping meeting materials, note-taking, synthesizing, and follow up, general project management, and archiving key meeting materials.
For convenings and site visits, develop and prepare background research, objectives for meetings and meeting materials.
Working with the Special Projects Officer, conceptualize and facilitate organization development and capacity building initiatives for grantees.
Program Learning and Project Management
Working with the Office of Strategy and Learning, create, implement and update learning tools for team learning and to share with other programmatic teams.
Curate and share information and knowledge from the team.
Relationship Management
Develop relationships with internal and external stakeholders to facilitate the Foundation’s work and strategy.
At the direction of the Director, attend relevant meetings/conferences to gather information and knowledge to advance the foundation’s work.
Communication
Serve as a team liaison to the Office of Communications on managing the profile of the program team on Ford's website; assist the team in identifying and sharing report backs to the field and external audiences on lessons learned.
Develop presentations and reports on team's strategy, grant-making, and on-going learning as needed for external and internal audiences.
Assist Program Officers with writing blogs and externally-facing pieces.
General Administration
Assist team members in responding to requests for information or other documentation from the various departments of the Foundation and from others outside of the Foundation.
Serve as back-up to Program Assistants and Grants Managers/Program Managers, as needed.
3-5 years’ experience working in program related support capacity in social development sector at the global or regional level.
A baccalaureate degree or equivalent required; Master’s Degree with specialist skills preferred.
Strong proficiency with data collection, review, analysis and reporting.
Strong proficiency with the use of software platforms and high degree of comfort with multiple technology applications, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint and databases. Exceptional organizational and communications skills.
Client-service orientation
Demonstrated ability to work successfully in multi-faceted, multitasking environment.
Demonstrated ability to be a productive member of a community of people at work, respecting differences while working toward shared goals, comfort with periods of ambiguity, constructive participation in ongoing organizational development.
Alignment to Culture and Values
Commitment to the Foundation’s mission and core values of equity, openness, collaboration, trust, accountability and urgency
Personal qualities of humility, capacity for self-reflection, and a sense of humor
Discretion and ability to handle confidential issues
Action-orientated and entrepreneurial self-starter who can work well independently and in teams
Equal employment opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at The Ford Foundation, where employment and promotional opportunities are based upon individual capabilities and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/affectional preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as established under law. The Ford Foundation does not discriminate against formerly incarcerated individuals.
This vacancy is archived.