Business Development Manager - West Africa (interim) at VSO

Purpose of Role

• To provide business development leadership and coordination for identified VSO Country Offices (Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone); responsible for optimizing income generation and business development from a diverse range of donors in support of VSO’s programmes and regional operations

Responsibilities
Funding strategy aligned to programme priorities:

• Lead on researching new funding opportunities, strengthening and sustaining partnerships with INGOs, private sector, government institutional donors, trusts and foundations and major donors that have a regional presence.
• Provide intensive support to regions and country offices to develop, implement and monitor ambitious funding strategies that deliver agreed restricted income targets.
• Liaise with donor managers and ensure funding strategy aligns to programme priorities; work with regional teams/country offices to ensure funding plans reflects programme strategy and appropriate national and regional donor mapping is up to date
• Contribute to a global, coordinated fundraising strategy, centered around VSO’s Core programme areas and Signature Programmes and ensure consistency and coherence in funder and partnership engagement across funding portfolio in region

Pre-positioning, donor and partner engagement: Externally:

• Support CO staff to identify priority partners and support on this engagement including with I/NGOs and other development actors, government etc in support of joint programming and consortia opportunities;
• Prepare materials needed to facilitate donor engagement and bolster VSO’s reputation and credibility with potential funders and consortia partners.
• Provide leadership and support to advance VSO’s visibility and reputation with identified strategic partners globally (among donor communities, private sector and development networks) in support of joint-bid opportunities at the national and regional levels;

Prepositioning: internally:

• Share analysis on funding opportunities, Pipeline Matrix, and pipeline health (proposal tracker) with regional and country teams to inform regional planning and prepositioning
• Ensure that an accurate and timely overview of funding priorities and pipeline health and analysis are shared across VSO’s business development colleagues to ensure smooth and effective prioritization of funding opportunities;
• Support VSO country offices to develop signature packages, the local contextualisation of flagships frameworks and donor engagement plans ensuring full donor intelligence gathering, learning and sharing across VSO’s business development colleagues to ensure smooth and effective prioritization of funding opportunities;
• Support VSO country offices to develop signature packages, the local contextualisation of flagships frameworks and donor engagement plans ensuring full donor intelligence gathering, learning and sharing
• Maintain up to date concept note bank and Priorities Matrix ; showcase projects at internal marketplaces, provide quarterly analysis and recommendations to strengthen strategic business development

Bid development:

• Evaluate bids against country / programme strategy to support their go / no go decisions
• Participate as member of bid team including as: proposal lead, reviewer, content provider; facilitate proposal development workshops as needed in country portfolio as well as others in the global VSO network

Other:

• Participate as a core member of the Funding Strategy and Engagement team (within the Programme Funding Department) to share learning and harmonize processes and support a VSO-wide approach to mobilizing resources and building strategic partnerships.
• Support capacity building and training of country office teams and local partners in business development and funding

Key Performance Indicators
Strategic planning:

• All countries have funding strategies which demonstrate a clear path to year on year growth in income to advance strategic priorities
• Robust and ongoing monitoring of strategies which enable the focus countries to meet the target of 80% of overall CO expenditure funded from restricted income

Funding opportunities:

• Number of proposals submitted
• Quality/Success rate of proposals increases

The region’s donor base is deepened and diversified:

• The number of major donors, trusts & foundations and institutional donors (directly or via NGO partners) supporting focus countries increases
• VSO’s existing donor and strategic partner relations in the region are managed effectively and are sustained

Role in VSO’s global business development efforts:

• Appropriate project outline information is developed and shared across VSO networks
• VSO Donor Managers across VSO are fully engaged in the region’s fundraising effort Region’s fundraising effort informs - and is informed by - VSO’s global fundraising experience
• Fundraising activity in the region is tracked, analysed and key metrics reported on.

Capacity building:

• Increase in confidence in country office teams in relation to funding strategy development, partner and donor engagement and proposal development

Competencies:

• Working together: Strength Successfully works with Country, regional and global teams and develops others’ team-working skills
• Communicating & influencing: Strength Inspires others by: advocating plans and ideas within and outside VSO; maintaining a wide, influential network; coaching
• Managing Knowledge: Adds value Proactively seeks out new knowledge sources and uses and shares this effectively
• Striving for excellence: Strength Leads initiatives to improve monitoring, evaluation and learning; is a role model for continuous learning and improvement.
• Managing Resources: Strength Leads others to pursue significant funding opportunities; dins creative ways to allocate funds on complex projects effectively
• Managing People: Adds value Builds an effective team with clear objectives; allocates work appropriately and deals with poor performance
• Developing People: Aware Is a role model for coaching, mentoring and developing others
• Leading for the Future: Adds Value Builds confidence and excitement in VSO’s work and vision, both internally and externally; leads innovative projects.
• Thinking Strategically: Adds Value
• Understands the context of own role; considers impact of own work on that of others
• Delivers Results: Strength Analyses objectives, considers options, plans and manages appropriately; holds self and team accountable for achieving goals

Skills/Experience Required:

• Experience of developing funding strategies and delivering income against targets
• Proven ability to research new funding opportunities and to make appropriate judgements about their potential to realise significant restricted income
• Experience of establishing and cultivating strong donor relationships that have delivered substantially increased income
• Proven track record in writing winning donor proposals for donors including USAID, EC, UKAID, SIDA and UN Agencies - including proven ability to develop log frames, monitoring frameworks, and theories of change
• Experience of preparing compelling, high quality documentation (concept notes, presentations, proposals, budgets, reports, logframes, theories of change etc) for different donor and partner audiences
• Familiarity with M&E tools; theories of change, monitoring frameworks, and basic evaluation techniques
• Strong interpersonal skills, including written, verbal and presentation skills used in international settings – experience of leading and facilitating workshops and training
• Ability to be self-directed and take initiative within organisational mandates – strong administrative and organisational skills
• Experience of establishing partnerships between organisations including teaming agreement and consortia bid development
• Strong administrative and organizational skills: ability to be selfdirected and take initiative
• Strong analytical and financial and skills

Qualifications required

• Educated to post-graduate Degree level in International Development-related discipline
• IT skills including fluency in Microsoft Office suite and database usage
• Experience of living and working internationally (4+ years required)
• Fluency in English (written and spoken). Portuguese, French or other language desirable
• Ability to travel globally (estimated 3050% travel required.

Interview/Assessment date(s)
13th December, 2016.

Start date
18th November, 2016

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