Summary
The Specialist, Humanitarian Program Portfolio will serve as the primary focal point for country offices (COs) on a portfolio of awards from institutional donors (BHA, BPRM, UNHCR, WFP and private grants). You will support the full life cycle of assigned awards, ensuring adherence to donor rules and regulations and supporting Country Offices to meet key deliverables. You will help ensure donor compliance and successful implementation of a country-specific humanitarian portfolio of awards funded by institutional donors, and will contribute to meeting new raise targets and metrics for the caseload of awards. You will liaise with relevant stakeholders, particularly with the Humanitarian Finance & Compliance unit, to achieve its objectives, and will problem-solve to instill overall health of awards.
What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)
Management of Country Specific Awards (75%)
- Coordinate effectively with Country Offices (COs), other SC members, and relevant partners and sub-grantees to ensure high quality, timely and compliant program implementation.
• Monitor risk, work with CO leadership to agree on risk mitigation strategies; develop plans to address these risks and escalate issues as appropriate.
• Oversee donor communications, requests, amendments, etc. are communicated effectively and oversee completion of resulting actions; coordinate response to donor queries as needed.
• Oversee production of high quality and timely narrative donor reports generated by CO and circulate for additional input as necessary; ensure submission of reports to donor and share any feedback with COs and Technical Assistants.
• Collaborate with DHR Finance and Compliance unit to organize training on donor compliance and LOE budgeting guidelines, meet key reporting deadlines and respond to internal SCUS reporting requests (KPIs, overspend, budget projections).
• Develop sub-award agreements to Save the Children Member countries or partners as needed.
• Monitor donor compliance responsibilities for assigned portfolio, including working with the DHR Finance and Compliance Unit to monitor award implementation, supporting reporting and procurements to ensure compliance with donor requirements, and providing needed compliance support to country offices
• Coordinate project start-ups for awards in portfolio, including planning and facilitating startup calls/meetings with CO, and reviewing project timeline, deliverables and donor requirements in detail.
• Coordinate project close-outs for awards in portfolio, including supporting completion of the SCI and SCUS Closeout Checklists and, with the Finance and Compliance Unit, help ensure that awards in SC’s Award Management System (AMS) and Agresso are closed/deactivated as required.
• Travel to Save the Children country offices to conduct award reviews, provide operations support and build CO capacity on SCUS systems and donor requirements.
New Business Development (25%)
- With the support of the donor operational focal point, support prepositioning and planning with COs in portfolio, proactively engaging them to reach out to in-country donors and identify opportunities. Lead the go-no-go process from the SCUS side. Secure all needed approvals prior to submission.
• Oversee the process of developing and submitting high quality and compliant concept notes and proposals that are aligned with SC’s response strategy and donor priorities. Provide feedback as needed. Support country-specific proposal development as needed.
• Work closely with country office, the DHR Finance and Compliance unit and technical teams to coordinate proposal timelines and roles and responsibilities.
• Support the department to maintain knowledge management systems around resource development (ensuring documents are posted on AMS as applicable, maintaining proposal libraries, documenting lessons learned, etc.)
Required Qualifications
- High School diploma or equivalent, plus at least 3 years relevant experience
- Demonstrated experience working across the full cycle of grant/award management from proposal and budget development through to reporting and close-out.
- Demonstrated knowledge of and experience working with USG and/or UN agencies as donors and partners.
- Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with individuals and teams at all levels
- Proven ability to manage a complex and varied workload, while adhering to tight deadlines
- Demonstrated successful analytical, organizational, and interpersonal communication skills.
- Proven attention to detail, ability to multi-task and able to make independent decisions as appropriate.
- Professional proficiency in written and spoken English
- Professional proficiency in MS Office and proven ability to learn new systems, including SharePoint
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 20% of time internationally
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working with and raising funds from BHA (OFDA and/or FFP), BPRM, WFP and UNHCR strongly preferred
- Proven ability to track, manage and represent a diverse funding portfolio.
- International field-based experience; humanitarian context experience a strong preference.
- Understanding of the humanitarian system
- Ability to speak a second, relevant language (French and/or Spanish).
Why you should join the Save the Children Team…
About Save the Children
Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.
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