Back Project Specialist, Restoration Finance

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days/month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position in US, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

About the program:

WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative informs, enables, and invests in people that revitalize degraded land – the world’s “restoration champions.”

Through its four investment portfolios, WRI finances, trains, and monitors hundreds of these local enterprises and community non-profits. In Africa, TerraFund has made 200+ investments in local organizations through grants, low-interest loans, and equity finance, with a focus on the Lake Kivu & Rusizi River Basin in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda; the Greater Rift Valley of Kenya; and the Ghana Cocoa Belt.

In India, Harit Bharat Fund has financed its first cohort of 20 restoration champions in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. In Brazil, Fundo Flora is a new restoration fund designed to restore the Brazilian Amazon in Pará State. And globally, the Priceless Planet Coalition is financing large-scale restoration projects that benefit the climate, biodiversity, and communities.

These portfolios for funding and capacity building are built through the TerraMatch platform, an end-to-end system that hosts calls for proposals, connects champions with technical assistance, and tracks the progress of funded projects through a standard monitoring, reporting, and verification protocol.

Job highlight:

You will integrate equity into your work.

With our partner Conservation International, WRI co-manages the Priceless Planet Coalition (PPC), an ambitious corporate-funded program to restore 100 million trees to sites around the world. Partnering with locally led organizations, WRI selects projects for funding, manages their work, monitors their success, and communicates about their impact.

You will support the WRI’s PPC Project Manager to manage the implementation of 7 projects that restore trees to improve biodiversity, fight climate change, and empower communities. As funding allows, you will assist in sourcing additional high-quality, multimillion-dollar projects to expand the PPC portfolio and manage them on the coalition's behalf.

You will work directly with each project to ensure that they deliver on their targets, understand the program’s monitoring, reporting, and verification protocols, and consistently and accurately report on their progress through TerraMatch. You will assist WRI’s Capacity & Innovation Manager and Communications team in the creation of “playbooks for the restoration economy,” documenting the core business processes that WRI uses to find, fund, manage, and monitor local restoration champions. You will distil this information into online modules that fund managers, public agencies, and WRI’s Country Offices can consult when building their own portfolios of local restoration projects. You will assist in engaging these external partners by helping them deploy these playbooks.

This is a dynamic opportunity to contribute to a growing portfolio of global restoration projects, supporting the day-to-day execution of the PPC and its sister portfolios. You will build critical project management skills, while learning the ins-and-outs of investing in restoration projects across developing countries.

What you will do:

Project Management & Engagement (100%):

Priceless Planet Coalition (75%):

• Assist the PPC Project Manager in liaising between WRI, Mastercard, and Conservation International, ensuring alignment of restoration priorities, deliverables, and reporting.
  • Provide project management support to regional PPC teams, resourcing their on-the-ground needs with technical support and advice.
    • Contribute to reporting, storytelling, event preparation, and presentations with Mastercard and other coalition funders.
      • Support PPC fundraising strategy, project contracting, and donor progress reports.
        • Quality assure data submitted by projects and provide technical support as they engage with the PPC.
          • Assist with the development and maintenance of partner contracts, budgets, and scopes of work.
            • Develop, socialize, and improve project management processes, aligning stakeholders across WRI, Conservation International and partner organizations.
              • Organize the delivery of monitoring, reporting, and verification analyses with WRI’s Monitoring team.

                Restoration Economy Playbooks (25%):

                • Assist the Capacity & Innovation Manager in managing the delivery of “restoration economy playbooks.”
                  • Synthesize lessons learned from PPC, TerraFund, Fundo Flora, and Harit Bharat Fund into online content targeted at fund managers, government agencies, and WRI Country Offices.
                    • Engage with external partners to implement the playbooks and assist the Communications team in preparing materials.
                      • Contribute to data analysis and research products that inform the creation and dissemination of playbooks.
                        • Identify areas of synergy across WRI restoration initiatives in Africa, Brazil, and India, building connection across geographies.

                          What you will need:

                          • Education: You have a completed bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, business, finance, forestry, agriculture, data science, or a related field. Relevant work experience is accepted in lieu of a degree
                          • Experience: You have 2+ years of work experience in financial management and operations administration. Mention prior experience in technical areas or in previous industries/sectors in your cover letter
                          • Experience working in program operations, grants compliance, financial management and budgeting
                          • Experience supporting non-financial managers through financial planning and forecasting processes
                          • Experience working in a detail-oriented environment, particularly with regard to grant compliance and financial data
                          • Experience communicating with vendors and subcontractors, tracking vendor payments
                          • Experience working with a diverse and highly matrixed team based in different geographic locations
                          • Languages: You have verbal and written proficiency in English. Other languages are desirable but not required.
                          • Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization

                            Potential Salary: US salary range is between 57,000 and