As Save the Children US’s dedicated surge personnel capacity, HSTs can expect to deploy 6-9 months of the year for 2-3 months at a time in varying environments and contexts. During deployments HSTs should expect to work unusual hours and in potentially insecure and stressful environments. When not deployed, HSTs will support the work of their technical or operational teams in the US.
The Awards and Program Development Specialist will deploy to medium and large-scale emergency responses to support country and regional offices in the development of proposals and concept notes from start to finish, including support to needs assessments. Additionally the Specialist is expected to monitor field level implementation, compliance and to recommend improved proposal and award monitoring processes as necessary. S/he will liaise closely with country offices to ensure the production of high quality proposal submissions, the accurate and appropriate management of awards, and the effective flow of resources to Save the Children International (SCI). S/he is responsible for award management from opportunity to closeout, including opportunity tracking, proposal development activities, project start-up, processing agreements/amendments, reporting and closeout. This position will engage closely with relevant stakeholders, particularly technical and financial staff to ensure effective management of specified awards and opportunities.
Program Development
- Manage 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. This will include;
- Leading the development and coordination of high quality concept notes and proposals, ensuring coordination between logistics and operations teams.
- Working closely with country office and technical teams to coordinate proposal timelines and roles and responsibilities
- Participating in needs assessments as necessary for proposal/concept note development and ensure findings are documented with a specific analysis on children
- Conducting detailed quality review of narrative, budget, logframe and annexes for technical and operational soundness and compliance with donor and agency requirements
- Providing feedback to COs; incorporate reviewer feedback into concept notes and proposal documents, ensure alignment to response strategy and other active awards/ proposals
- Working across teams to ensure timely technical and financial reviews and ensure feedback is incorporated into the final proposal
- Securing all needed approvals prior to submission
- Support on in-country knowledge management systems around resource development (ensuring documents are posted on AMS as applicable, maintaining proposal libraries, documenting lessons learned, etc.)
- Negotiate donor terms and conditions in coordination with CO and Grants and Contracts staff
- Complete administrative functions related to agreement review, processing and grant activation
- Adapt to new processes and systems as they are developed
Award Management
- Serve as a main point of contact managing the complete life cycle of awards from opportunity to close-out
- Ensure effective project start-up involving country office and relevant technical staff
- Work collaboratively with Country Offices (COs), Regional Offices (ROs), other SC members, and relevant partners and sub-grantees to ensure high quality, timely and compliant program implementation
- Support CO capacity building with training on donor requirements
- Assist COs with master budget planning, cost allocation, monitoring of award budgets, and maintaining an updated funding tracker
- Work with Finance and relevant member humanitarian technical staff leads to monitor rate of spending in COs and home office and to ensure expense charges are allowable and reasonable; follow up to ensure errors are corrected
- Monitor award implementation, reporting and procurements; provide needed compliance support to country offices
- Ensure submission of timely, accurate, high quality reporting to donors as well as input to internal agency reporting requests
- Maintain effective communications with Save the Children members, providing them with timely updates on their awards and flagging potential issues promptly including the need for amendments or modifications.
- Ensure timely project closeout according to SC policies and procedures
- Build and foster positive relationships with donors at field level and award management staff at similar organizations.
- Support the agency to maintain knowledge management systems
- Minimum 3-5 years grant and program management experience in humanitarian or international development, field level humanitarian experience strongly preferred
- Demonstrated experience working across the full cycle of grant/award management from proposal and budget development through to reporting and closeout.
- Proposal and grant management experience with one or more major humanitarian donor; OFDA, BPRM, ECHO, DFID, UN, etc.
- Experience working on large proposals in a consortium
- Previous emergency response experience required, first phase experience preferred
- Proven ability to track, manage and represent large and diverse funding portfolios.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate across teams effectively problem solve to ensure efficient and holistic award oversight.
- Excellent analytical, organization, communication and management skills. Must have attention to detail and ability to multi-task.
- Excellent written English and computer skills, advanced proficiency in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and ability to master SC systems.
- Ability to travel a minimum of 60% of time as required in international locations to support award management and proposal development, typically to places facing a humanitarian crisis on short notice.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in field related to development, humanitarian work or business administration.
- Ability to speak French, Spanish, or Arabic
- Meaningful work, with a knowledge that you are changing the lives of children all around the world
- A family friendly work environment
- Highly collaborative and innovative teams
- Generous paid vacation days, holidays, family leave days, and sick time
- Healthcare plans including medical, dental, and life insurance
- Retirement savings account with matching company contributions
- Structured and formalized management development and coaching programs for mid and senior level managers
- Extensive e-learning opportunities on a variety of topics offered through our affiliation with several prestigious universities as well as language learning opportunities