Director of Resource Mobilization (RM) and New Business Development (NBD)

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Director of Resource Mobilization (RM) and new business development (NBD) for Save the Children (SC) Ukraine supports the Country Director (CD) and the Senior Management Team (SMT) ensuring the funding viability of the country office (CO) by leading on mobilizing resources and fundraising opportunities through building strategic relationships with SC Members, donors, funders, partners and other stakeholders.

The Director of RM and NBD has the overall responsibility for cultivating, building, and providing strategic leadership to SC Ukraine on raising sustainable funding resources. These resources encompass a wide range of key stakeholders, that include SC Members, existing and prospective and emerging donors/institutions, multi-laterals, UN agencies, various inter-governmental bodies, corporate entities, private fundraising, etc.

Within SC Ukraine matrix approach the Director of RM and NBD works with: Country Director, Deputy Country Director – Operations, Deputy PDQ Director, Finance Director, Director of ACCM, Director of Awards, Director of Recovery and Resilience, Area Directors and Heads of Programme.

The desired outcomes of the role include:

• Enhanced donor relationships leading to increased funding opportunities.
• Diversified funding options and decrease dependence on specific donors.
• Enhanced financial resilience through long-term funding strategies.
• Increased success rate in securing funding.
• Efficient and structured NBD system is in place that can support in identifying and pursuing funding opportunities.
• Equipped staff with NBD skills for effective fundraising.

This position demands a highly motivated, detail-oriented individual able to solve challenges and communicate effectively in a humanitarian crisis context, while also proving capable to think beyond the ongoing emergency response to position Save the Children for longer-term, recovery-oriented funding opportunities. The MR and NBD Director has to prove outstanding strategic thinking ability to ensure that SC Ukraine portfolio remains responsive to children’s and families’ needs, is attractive to donors by showing value and high quality, and is sustainable in the long-term to support a child-focused recovery process in Ukraine.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Strategic direction and funding portfolio management

• Provide leadership in CO’s efforts to achieve greater programme results at scale through the successful pursuit of strategic funding opportunities, as well as through developing, diversifying the portfolio and maintaining strategic relationships with key donors, SC Members and stakeholders.
• In line with the Country Strategic Plan (CSP), responsible for the development of the CO’s funding strategy, developing an engagement plan across Members, donors, implementing partners and other necessary stakeholders.
• Conduct donor scoping, monitor funding trends, strategic plan period and facilitate structured donor and SC Members engagement.
• Create and manage an efficient RM and NBD system and tools (portfolio analysis, donor landscaping, scoping of funding, engagement plans, trends analysis, etc.) to grow and diversify CO’s funding and institutional partnerships to resource the CSP.
• Ensure that RM and NBD processes are aligned with defined priorities (of donors, SC Members, and CO CSP), demonstrate impact and offer value for money.
• Submitted proposals contribute to minimize the funding ambition gap by strategically allocating sectors by area offices.
• Establish a systematic collaboration with the Director of Recovery and Resilience on development-focused programming, which also informs the CO engagement with Ministries, development partners and donors (in-line with and contributing to the CSP).
• Support CO SMT’s decision making to form programming partnerships/alliances which strengthen both programmatic and resource mobilisation outcomes.
• Act as a source of knowledge, information on internal RM processes, and donor intelligence, requirements, compliance considerations, etc.
• Participate in relevant external roundtables, high level meetings, conferences and events.
• Lead on the development and institutionalization of a resource mobilization culture within the country office, including defining and advising on the supporting tools and processes for this purpose.
• Proactively engage on a strategic basis with institutional donors at country or regional level to facilitate technical programme exchanges, influence policy and thinking, and identify key areas of potential cooperation, including programme funding.

Fundraising and donor relationship

• Develop and review strategic/innovative approaches to fundraising to consolidate existing donors as well as to access new markets and donors, with focus on longer-term (and development) funding, while continuing efforts to consolidate emergency response funds.
• Proactively engage with relevant stakeholders, builds relationships, gathers business intelligence, and generates new funding opportunities from traditional and non-traditional donors to keep abreast of new and emerging trends in donor priorities, as well as in other forms of resource mobilization (e.g., social enterprise, private sector engagement, etc).
• Interact with UN and international/national NGO representatives, as well as relevant think tanks, academic institutions and other centres of expertise.
• Collect and analyze background information to develop donors’ profiles and perform analysis to recommend donors’ giving capacity and keep an up-to-date donors landscaping matrix.
• Develop donor engagement plans and use tracking tools to monitor progress against targets.
• Strengthen the CO capability on long-term capture planning for funding opportunities (i.e., competitor analysis, internal SWOT analysis, etc.).
• Contribute to ensuring that proposal design fosters sectoral integration and mainstreaming of cross-cutting themes.
• Contribute to ensuring that all proposals embed principles of safe programming.
• Develop donor specific communications/products.
• Ensure all staff in the NBD team are supervised and coached to facilitate their professional development and contributing to their well-being.
• Mentoring and coach NBD Coordinators and provide continuous capacity-building initiatives to empower the national team for independent and effective NBD operations.
• Develop and strengthen relationships with past, existing and potential donors through various means
• Build relationships with non-traditional donors and funders (e.g., social enterprise, private sector, philanthropy, corporate foundations and associations, etc).
• Prepare and produce funding and needs positions paper for internal and external purposes.
• Provide a regular update to ESMT on monitored funding trends, key prepositions, engagement calendars, recommendations for programme design.
• Maximize restricted resource mobilization and ensure core and restricted funding are mutually reinforcing.
• Work, in collaboration with the SMT and Advocacy and Communication team in-country and with RO, SCI Center and SC Members, to raise the visibility of Ukraine country office’s priorities and funding needs.

New Business Development/proposal development process

• Lead the proposal development process.
• Ensure that all developed proposals/concept notes are of high quality and are submitted timely, including assurance that proposals/concept notes are developed in line with requirements and programme management strategies, and that SC quality and technical standards are fully complied with.
• Build the capacity of relevant staff in proposal development, including the involvement of partners in the NBD process as per SC’s standards.
• Conduct, share and replicate lessons learn on effective resource mobilization, proposal development, win strategies and competitive approaches.
• Work across the SCI structures (RO, SCI Center, SC Members and other COs) in achieving the CO’s funding strategy.

Team management

• Lead the NBD Team to ensure that the resource mobilization function is fit for purpose, operating to the optimum level and that deliverables are well assigned and managed.
• Promote accountability and high performance, encourage a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and free up our staff to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for SC Members and donors.

Cross-cutting tasks

• Take responsibility for own professional learning and development.
• Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to safeguarding (child safeguarding and PSEA), code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures, in order to advance SCI’s global priorities, such as (but not limited to) gender equality, disability inclusion, safe programming and safeguarding, child participation.
• Work collaboratively to achieve shared goals and thrive on diversity of people and perspectives; know when to lead and when to follow and how to ensure effective cross-boundary working.
• Actively contribute to strengthening team spirit and cooperation within the PDQ Department Team.
• Ensure adaptability, flexibility, and ability to work on a wide range of tasks in a wide range of contexts with impeccable attention to detail and accuracy.

DISCLAIMER: The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties commensurate with their skills and experience.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Education to MSc/MA/MEng level in a relevant subject or equivalent field experience.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience, with 7 in senior management roles, in identifying and securing funds from varied sources.
• Proven experience of establishing and running the resource mobilization, new business development, donor relationship management function in the field.
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and supporting with the development of proposals/concept notes.
• Sound knowledge of the requirements of major institutional donors including key strategies, ways of working, eligibility issues, compliance management, and reporting.
• Experience of engaging with donors at country strategy levels.
• Proven track record of successful proposal development process to major institutional donors (ECHO, BHA, USAID, FCDO, etc).
• Significant and proven project/programme design competence, with hands-on ability to draft proposals from the scratch with minimum technical inputs.
• Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English.
• Ability to present complex information in a succinct and compelling manner.
• Highly developed networking skills and ability to form productive working relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Action-oriented analytical skills; demonstrated experience in setting up and maintaining quality assurance/funding management systems.
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
• Experience of and well-developed skills in staff management and supervision with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
• Strong coaching and capacity building skills.
• Patient, adaptable, flexible, culturally aware and able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
• Computer literate (i.e., WORD, advanced Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer, financial systems).
• A high degree of flexibility and adaptability in order to respond to changing needs and to sustain difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances. Ability and willingness to change work practices and hours in the event of major requirements, including travelling at short notice and for extended periods of time.
• Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
• Ability to organize a workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities.
• Commitment to and understanding of child rights, the aims and principles of Save the Children, and humanitarian standards such as the Sphere Charter and the Code of Conduct. In particular, a good understanding of the SC mandate and child focus and an ability to ensure this continues to underpin our support.

Desirable

• Experience in securing funds from corporate donors, and/or foundations.
• Experience working for an INGO or other humanitarian or development organisation in Ukraine.
• Experience of Project Management, M&E Management.
• Previous experience as member of Senior Management Team.
• Knowledge of Ukrainian language.