United States of America: Senior Health Business Development Advisor

Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, our mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. We are on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. Through 28 regional offices in cities across the United States, the IRC also helps refugees resettle in the US and become self-sufficient. We are committed to a culture of ambitious leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a dedicated advocate for the most vulnerable.

The IRC’s vision is to lead the humanitarian field by implementing high-impact, cost-effective programs for people affected by crisis and by using our learning and experience to craft policy and practice. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Program Quality Unit (PQU) provides technical assistance to our country programs and shares what we learn to influence humanitarian policy and action.

The PQU has three central objectives:

1. Guide program design to achieve outcomes by incorporating the best available evidence
2. Build technical capacity of country program staff to implement, measure and continuously improve programs
3. Influence the IRC, peer agencies and donors to use validated interventions and generate new evidence to achieve change in peoples’ lives

The Health Technical Unit (HU) is organized in four sectors; primary health, reproductive health, environmental health, and nutrition. In 2018 the HU supported programming in 6 regions and 29 countries.

Established in January 2016, the IRC's Global Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Nairobi and Amman. It has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing all funding from statutory donors. The AMU is organized into five directorates: Donor Relations & Analytics; Grants Management & Frameworks; Compliance and Policy; Business Development; and Training.

Length of assignment: 9 months. May be flexible with location base.

Specific Responsibilities

In this role you will support the HU and country programs in business development and proposal preparation to win large funding opportunities, primarily from government and statutory donors, but also from private donors. Your responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Proposals: In-Depth Technical Leadership Support (up to 40%)

• Identifying funding opportunities that are strategically aligned with country SAPs and organizational Business Development Strategy, including multi-country or multisector business opportunities
• Leading technical design of proposals, including incorporating inputs from several specialized technical experts as well as field staff
• Writing and editing technical sections of proposals when these form meaningful part of evaluation criteria/are non-standard, or a country program or AMU does not have the capacity
• Interpretation of donor solicitations and guidelines to ensure proposed activities are aligned with donor instructions
• Identifying technical resources for proposal development and clearly define roles and expectations of different TAs
• Support with technical inputs to teaming arrangements
• Coordinating all technical proposal reviews and ensure appropriate TAs are involved
• Consolidating technical inputs in case of multi-country/sector work
• Working with recruiters to identify key personnel and tailor CVs
• Reviewing of budgets; both for donor responsiveness and matching to theory of change and technical needs and narrative

Proposals: Technical Quality Assurance (up to 25%)

• Ensuring that technical narrative aligns with donor and specific call priorities and restrictions and uses language in line with donor strategies
• Review final proposal before submission
• Review of budgets both for donor responsiveness and alignment to technical narrative

Proposals: Partnerships (up to 10%)

• Drafting and/or review of technical scope of work for teaming agreements
• Participate in and provide technical input into identification, vetting, and negotiations with consortia partners
• Coordinate and review technical inputs from partners on proposals
• Review partner budgets for technical appropriateness

Capacity development (up to 10%)

• Contributing to organizational self-assessments and providing recommendations on organizational capacity building and systems development for enhanced competitiveness in the health sector
• Collaborate with AMU and HU grants managers to identify and position for upcoming opportunities, including developing and maintaining profiles of key partners
• Prepare and maintain capacity statements, donor and external facing materials to increase visibility and target key upcoming opportunities or priorities in partnership with Health Unit grants team
• Partner with AMU to develop capacity building for technical advisors on bidding and implementing large multi-year opportunities including commercial contracts including overview sheets on donor technical strategies and standard language

General business development (up to 15%)

• Work with AMU and other TUs to finalize go/no-go decision-making process for HU-led grants
• Represent IRC/participate in strategic donor/NGO events and provide feedback to appropriate staff
• Support the implementation of IRC’s business development strategy and definition of the TUs role
• Maintain regular engagement with AMU (both regional, specialist, and strategic program teams) on BD strategy and pipeline opportunities
• Liaise with other IRC departments and teams on donor intelligence activities
• Lead development of standard guidelines for TU staff working on proposals in collaboration with AMU
• Support TA identification of and preparation for upcoming donor engagement opportunities

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Deputy Director, Health Unit; and Deputy Director, Specialist Team, AMU

Position directly supervises: N/A

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal: Regular communication with all HU staff. Close relationships with regional and country program teams as well as AMU. Interaction with other departments as needed such as communications, advocacy, finance, HR, and Global Supply Chain to ensure systems are supportive of technical and implementation competencies.

External: Serve as IRC program representative in interactions with donors, peer organizations, academic partners, consortia members, and foundations.

Job Qualifications

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Degree (minimum BA) or equivalent experience in a field relevant to IRC’s work; preferably in a health/nutrition/WASH related field
• You are able to facilitate project design processes, including applying theories of change and project logic to design, and develop work- and management plans accordingly;
• You have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the capacity to effectively handle a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment and negotiate with both internal and external stakeholders;
• You demonstrate ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in ‘remote’ and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals;
• You work productively and accurately while under deadline in a dynamic, demanding environment;
• Flexible work attitude: you enjoy working in a team environment and independently and ability to meet unexpected demands;
• You can synthesize technical information from a wide range of technical advisors into a coherent narrative
• You multi-task and prioritize effectively;
• You work well both autonomously and under remote management;
• You can travel at times with minimum notice and for prolonged periods of time;

Experience:

• You have at least five years experience in developing and managing successful health, nutrition, or WASH project concepts and funding proposals for multi-million dollar humanitarian / development work (for international NGOs) from governmental donors – including DFID and US Government (USAID, OFDA, BPRM, etc.) commercial contracts and accountable grants/cooperative agreements
• You possess experience (at least eight years) of working in development and/or humanitarian contexts on health/nutrition/WASH projects, preferably for an INGO or international organization (e.g. UN, major donor), preferably with some time spent in the field; line-management experience and longer term field posting in a relevant context preferred
• You are experienced in building partnerships/consortia for development and humanitarian funding as well as negotiation of programmatic contractual arrangements with partners.
• Experience in strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.
• Experience in proposal budgeting is preferred.

Language:

• The ability to work (read and write) in English is required. French is an advantage.

Working Environment: You may travel up to 50% travel in this position.

https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/jobdetails.aspx?site=1&c=rescue&id=3659