Regional New Initiatives Specialist, Asia - UK, NL or US
Location: Edinburgh, London, UK, or NL,
Position Status: Full-Time, open term
Salary range: London: circa 47K - 55K; Edinburgh : circa 41K- 47K, NL: circa 47K - 54K
Apply with CV and Cover Letter by September 30th
The applicant must have the independent right to live and work at the location of assignment (ie., not require visa sponsorship)
General Position Summary
The Regional New Initiatives Specialist will be a member of the regional management team and, as such, will work particularly closely with the Deputy Regional Director (DRD). His/her primary focus will be on program development including: (i) tracking the pipeline of potential new business opportunities for the region and supporting country teams in prioritizing and preparing for them; (ii) supporting program development efforts throughout the region; (iii) helping to enhance the overall state of practice vis-à-vis proposal development within the region; and (iv) enhancing partner relations, with a particular emphasis on helping to diversify the agency’s partnerships in the region. In addition, he/she will be responsible for helping implement various other activities within the Asia region that are part of the New Initiatives work plan.
Essential Job Responsibilities
PROGRAM/PROPOSAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
- Support the application of the agency’s best practices in proposal development efforts.
- Support the development of competitive proposals for large (USD 5mil - 20mil) opportunities that require resources and capacity beyond what is available at the country level following Mercy Corps’ best practices in proposal development, team management, and the relevant sectoral area.
STRATEGIC PRE-POSITIONING
- Track donor trends for potential opportunities that busy country teams might not be able to monitor or respond to at the time.
- Work closely with field leaders to influence their engagement and support of program pre-positioning, development and implementation.
- Support targeted assessments that will help create funding opportunities or increase the competitiveness of Mercy Corps in future bids.
- Facilitate strategic planning and capacity building sessions with country programs.
- Identify and nurture strategic partnerships with other relevant organizations, universities and research institutions that result in stronger and more impactful program development efforts.
- Coordinate between country teams, TSU, and other HQ teams as needed.
DONOR ENGAGEMENT
- Keep up to date on relevant donor strategies being developed or applied by significant governmental, academic, and non-profit groups.
- Cultivate and nurture donor relationships that positively impact Mercy Corps ability to grow its climate programming,
- Lead and support efforts to influence donor planning and help Mercy Corps access funding, including the presentation of concepts and ideas.
BUILD REGIONAL CAPACITY
- Contribute to and maintain regional Business Development Tracker to learn and improve on proposal success rates, trends for donor funding, and lessons learned from the proposal process to better support the teams in prepositioning for future calls.
- Build capacity of Mercy Corps’ staff within the region to work on proposals and run strong proposal and program development processes through mentoring or tailored training activities,
- Contribute to activities that raise overall agency state of practice (e.g. developing improved reference materials for proposal writers, capture learnings and results from our programs, and/or assisting with networking activities).
- Provide a link for flow of important information and idea-exchange between the Asia region and the agency overall.
Knowledge and Experience
- BA or MA in social science, international development or other relevant field;
- 5-7 years’ experience in program design and proposal development in a wide variety of sectors and geographic locations.
- At least 2-3 years’ experience in field-based program and staff management, with regional knowledge of Asia region.
- Experience with emergency response.
- Proven ability to work productively with a wide variety of stakeholders to run both participatory process and meet tight deadlines with an emphasis on producing quality products.
- Experience with a wide range of donors including USAID and European institutional donors.
- Familiarity with other donors, including corporate donors, a plus.
- Experience developing and strong understanding of budget and cost proposal submissions, and personnel and staffing requirements for USAID, OFDA, EU (ECHO and DEVCO) FCDO, and other institutional donor proposals.
- Strong representation and relationship-building skills including professional representation (e.g. donors, partner agencies, host governments, etc.)
- Strong negotiation skills and experience developing multiple-partnership arrangements for proposal development.
- Ability to lead teams, handle negotiations and facilitate planning processes.
- Ability to work effectively under tight deadlines and in sparse working environments.
- Exceptional written and interpersonal communication skills an absolute must.
- Native-level spoken and written English.