Deadline: Ongoing
The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is currently inviting applications from the eligible applicants for the post of Business Development Specialist based in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
The Business Development (BD) Specialist, in conjunction with the Country Representatives (CR) and Head of Programs (HOP) in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia will provide strategic direction, lead resource mobilization efforts to meet annual growth targets, and support the diversification of revenue from institutional donors and non-traditional funding sources to achieve CRS’ strategic objectives in the three countries.
CRS is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States.
Key Job Responsibilities
The BD Specialist will perform the following functions-
- Research, analyze and plan for new funding opportunities, competitive intelligence, and CRS’ competitive positioning on a continuous basis within the marketplace in a timely manner. Support effective internal communication and information management processes to ensure access and use of BD information by relevant stakeholders within the agency, including maintaining an up-to-date opportunities matrix.
- Work with the RTA/BD, CRs, and HOPs to identify international partners and negotiate CRS’ role on proposal consortia, ensuring a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
- Lead the country program’s functional teams to develop appropriate and effective fundraising and positioning strategies involving donor research and intelligence, product development, marketing, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship, as needed.
- Lead the country program’s opportunity pipeline tracking and analysis, including portfolio trends, proposal submissions and performance, and growth projections.
- Support key staff to develop and maintain key relationships with donors, collaborating organizations, and private sector actors with an eye toward opportunity identification, shared value creation, strategic alliance formation, and global brand positioning.
- Provide internal reviews of technical and cost applications prepared by other staff, reviewing for clarity, responsiveness, presentation, and compliance, in coordination with the HOP and Finance Officer.
- Work with relevant staff to leverage CRS’ programmatic and operational results for marketing, positioning, and direct fundraising purposes, including maintaining data on past performance and agency capacity, publications and dissemination, and donor visits.
- Participate in quarterly program reviews and evaluations to ensure systematic documentation of program best practices and lessons learned by program staff, maintain a centralized system with access by all staff and disseminate as appropriate.
- In collaboration with the Head of Programs, establish effective systems to ensure timely reporting to donors, support other program staff in understanding funder requirements and ensure reports themselves are in the correct format, and edit sections of reports as needed.
- Provide specialized expertise in select areas of the BD cycle, priority program sectors and funding sources, and/or relevant cross-cutting skill sets, as a member of CRS’ global pool of BD talent. Contribute effectively to global strategic initiatives through a shared services structure.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must have-
- Master’s degree in business management, public health, international development, or related field.
- Minimum five years international development experience, including at least three years of work in a developing country.
- Significant experience developing successful proposals in response to USAID RFAs required; comprehensive experience with USAID technical and cost applications highly desirable.
- Experience pursuing USAID RFPs, non-USG funding mechanisms, and opportunities to create shared value cross-sector, e.g. in public-private partnerships highly desirable.
- Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position his/her organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships.
- Demonstrated experience leading teams and managing people and processes to produce complex proposals under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality.
- Experience with Salesforce or other CRM software, highly desirable.
- Experience with CRS programming approaches, standards and tools preferred;
- Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication and negotiation skills.
- Skills in Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint; Microsoft Publisher preferred.
- Strong written and oral English required.
How to Apply
Applications must be submitted through online process.
For more information, please visit CRS.
