Temporary Senior Grants Manager

POSITION TITLE:Temporary Senior Grants Manager
PROJECT NAME:ARC Somalia
LOCATION:Somalia/Kenya
REPORTING RELATIONSHIP:Country Director
LENGTH OF ASSIGNMENT: 3 months with possibility of extension
START DATE: February 15, 2015
END DATE: May 14, 2015
PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The Temporary Senior Grants Manager (TSGM) is responsible for providing efficient and effective management of the program’s overall grant portfolio. S/he is member of the country program core Senior Management Team. S/he is responsible for ensuring quality grant management including burn rates, developing the grant management capacity of staff, ensuring compliance with donor and internal organization requirements, coordinating grant information management and ensuring timely, quality reporting. The TSGM is an ARC key contact for donors and thus responsible for coordination and communication of information about donor relationships. S/he functions as a key liaison and assists ARC staff to ensure quality proposal development. This position is based in Nairobi, with extensive travel to Somalia.

MAJOR AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY PRIMARY DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

Grant Management Systems and Donor Compliance:

• Ensure full compliance with ARCs minimum operating standards for grant management and work with implementing partners.
• Organize and lead grant opening, mid-term review and closure meetings.
• Monitor and enable budget holders’ utilization of ARC processes and tools to ensure achievement of targeted burn rates for all grants.
• Coordinate grant management processes and requirements between staff in field offices, Nairobi and headquarters.
• Monitor expenditures to ensure compliance with contracts obligations and effective budget management practices.
• With the support of the Country Director and Finance Controller, maintain a culture of accountability among budget holders.
• Provide technical support to assess donor eligibility/allowability of planned expenditures and identify related compliance requirements.
• Maintain a grant management database.
• Maintain a reporting tracking system to ensure that responsible staff are aware of upcoming deadlines.
• Ensure quality of financial and narrative donor reports.
• Develop and maintain healthy, strong relationship with donors.
• Represent ARC as needed at donor and interagency meetings and working groups.
• Contribute to cross departmental activities such as development of country strategies, operational planning, etc.
• Manage contractual aspects of sub-grant/sub-contract relations in the Somalia program.
• Collaborate with headquarter M&E and other technical advisor to ensure quality programming.
• Compile and analyze grant portfolio data using such approaches and tools as: detailed implementation plans; spending projections; burn rates; cost coverage; donor mapping; fund tracking, etc.
• Work with program and finance staff to produce budget realignment and grant C/NCE requests.
• Maintain and manage the grant filing system to ensure that it provides easy and immediate access to information.
• Undertake other tasks as requested by the Country Director.

Grant Proposals (Design and Writing)

• Track and relay funding opportunities to relevant staff in a timely manner.
• In coordination with the Country Director and Program Coordinators, lead the proposal development process.
• Disseminate donor and ARC standards to relevant personnel at the beginning of the process.
• Ensure that information is provided in a timely fashion and relevant staff are involved in the proposal development process.
• Review grant budgets and analyze coverage of overhead and other shared program cost.
• Lead the process of proposal writing and development for all grants.
• Prepare and submit project progress reports for all grants.
• Verify completeness and of proposals and adherence to donor and ARC standards.
• Work with the appropriate HQ Program Development Advisors and Technical leads on proposals.

Staff Capacity Building

• Ensure budget holders, finance, and field staff have the knowledge and tools to comply with donor requirements and ARC grant management guidelines.
• Conduct regular visits to field offices and project sites to monitor performance and identify needs for ongoing capacity building in grant management.
• Conduct internal audits of grants processes and protocols to advise budget holders on compliance levels in the field bases.
• Develop and roll out donor compliance checklists as needed.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must have a minimum of 5 years of experience working with multi-donor, multi-site grants.
• Must have experience in a similar position: grant management, project design, proposal development (program narratives and budgets) in complex emergency or post-conflict settings, preferably with NGOs.
• High level skills in teaching, mentoring, capacity building and team development as regards management of accountability and compliance with to donor funding and grant management.
• Excellent organizational skills, ability to determine priorities and attention to detail.
• Must be fluent in English.
• Knowledge of institutional donors (United Nations, USAID/OFDA, BPRM, DFID, etc.) regulations, procedures and requirements a plus.
• Demonstrated success in establishing partnership management and monitoring protocols with local NGO partners.
• Ability to present, discuss and supervise compliance with grants monitoring protocols with team members of varying levels.
• High-level computer literacy; Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook required. Access or other database software an advantage.

HOW TO APPLY:

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