Child Safeguarding: Level 1 – The role holder will not have contact with children and/or young people, or access to personal data about children or young people, as part of their work.
Role Purpose: This role will support the Awards unit in the planning, securing and managing of both development and humanitarian awards.
This role will work collaboratively with Save the Children members and all departments of the Country Office program and support to ensure smooth management of development and humanitarian program awards, sub awards and contracts, focusing on donor compliance and accountability.
This position will also be responsible to build the capacity of staff, award information management and shares, and coordinates information across departments.
Scope of Role:
Reports to: Awards Manager
Key contacts: Budget Holders and Area Programme Managers, Director of Programme Development and Quality, Budgeting and Reporting Coordinator/Officers, Finance Director, SC Members.
Dimensions: Save the Children has been operational in Kenya since the 1950s, providing support to children through developmental and humanitarian relief programmes delivered both directly and through local partners.
Current programming focuses on child protection, child rights governance, education, health, HIV/AIDS, livelihoods, nutrition and WASH.
In 2012, as part of a global reorganization process, Save the Children combined the programmes of SC UK, SC Canada and SC Finland to create a single operation in Kenya.
In February 2014, we completed a second transition, which saw us join forces with the British INGO, Merlin, and merge their health and nutrition programmes with our own.
Save the Children now has an operational presence in Bungoma, Dadaab Refugee Camp, Garissa, Mandera, Nairobi, Turkana and Wajir.
We work through partners in many other parts of the country. We have a staff complement of around 300 staff and an operating annual budget of approximately US$20 million in 2015.
Staff directly reporting to this post: Awards Officer and AMS Awards Officer.
Key Areas of Accountability:
Proposal development
Lead the team that develops proposal budgets in consultation with the relevant teams such as finance, logistics, HR , procurement and PDQ
Take a lead in responding to clarifications from donors in regard to proposal budgets submitted.
Ensuring alignment between master budgets and proposal budgets submitted.
Support the Awards manager in following up on the status of proposals submitted and requesting and developing PAL budgets
Work closely with the Proposal Coordination Officer to ensure that proposals are updated on the funding tracker.
Support the Awards Manager in requesting for waiver’s to spend on NAF from the CD, awaiting FS approvals.
Awards Management
Take a lead in rolling out of the Awards progress review process and ensuring the process is embedded in all the field offices.
Provide detailed analysis of the Award progress review reports received from the field offices and provide feedback to the field teams.
Follow through on the award progress review meeting action points, work closely with budget holders to develop and implement remedial plans based on agreed action points and closely review achievements in the following month.
Working closely with the Awards Officers ensure award information during kick-off meetings including donor compliance requirements, budget management so that all relevant staff have a clear understanding of the donor and Save the Children processes throughout the lifecycle of an award (opportunity to close-out).
Provide information to the Awards Manager on new awards and the impact on the Master Budget.
Support the Awards Manager to respond to budget amendments and no cost extensions requests and ensuring they are flagged promptly to donors via the relevant Save the Children Member.
Support Budget holders in preparing the budget revision documents and ensuring that sufficient justifications are provided.
Support the Awards Manager to provide management information to SMT and Area Program Managers on award status/ progress and risks identified through the awards progress reviews. Prepare a portfolio analysis report on a monthly basis showing information on pipeline, active, awards under amendment, high risk awards and closed awards.
Support the Awards Manager to develop a donor income tracking schedule and follow up on locally received donor income.
Participate in award close-out meetings, supporting budget holders to ensure all tasks are completed as per the close out checklist.
Working closely with the AM officers, ensure awards are closed out within 3 months after their end date. On a monthly basis provide a status report of closed awards.
Support the completion of audits and evaluation of projects
Partnerships and Capacity Building
Work closely with the partnership officer to ensure that partner agreements are in line with donor and SCI requirements
Work closely with the Award officers to ensure that partner monitoring visits, capacity building on financial management, procurement, reporting requirement, award management and donor compliance issues are undertaken.
Build the capacity of budget holders on BVA analysis so as to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Award progress review process.
Build budget holders capacity on award management by conducting trainings on budget management, procurement procedures, donor compliance, reporting and all other award management aspects.
Support field offices through regular field visits so as to identify any challenges faced and come up with remedial actions/support.
Disseminate any donor compliance updates received to all relevant teams.
Donor Reporting
Ensure the latest donor reporting templates are used and shared during the kick-off meetings.
Work closely with the Reporting and Documentation Coordinator to review narrative and financial donor reports to ensure compliance and alignment before submission to member/donor.
Support the Budgeting and reporting team in responding to member/donor queries on financial reports submitted.
Document “lessons” or best practices learned in managing small, large/complex awards so as to inform go-no-go decisions for future funding opportunities.
Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development
Support the Award Manager to strengthen knowledge and capacity of staff across all functions to manage awards and comply with donor requirements as relevant to their role by providing induction, training and coaching consistent with their various roles and responsibilities.
Manage performance of direct reports
Effective use of the Performance Management System including the establishment of clear, measureable objectives, ongoing feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations;
Coaching, mentoring and other developmental opportunities, with a focus of building the capacity of direct reports on proposal budget development.
Recognition and rewards for outstanding performance;
Documentation of performance that is less than satisfactory, with appropriate performance improvements/work plans.
Desired Competencies
Delivering Results
Translates complex contextual information into planning and achieving results effectively
Ability to take a range of potentially complex and conflicting information and make decisions
Designs and reviews large and complex operations to ensure maximum impact
Ensures measures and metrics are in place to track performance in large and complex programmes
Establishes clear and compelling objectives with teams and individuals and monitors progress and performance
Holds others accountable for achieving results and challenges underperformance
Working effectively with others
Puts mechanisms in place to ensure effective collaborative working across boundaries
Enables people from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives to contribute to positive outcomes
Breaks down silo working and challenges behaviours that are not collaborative
Knows when to follow and lend leadership to strengthen other leaders
Problem Solving and decision making
Identifies and addresses root causes of long-term problems facing the country programme
Brings in external perspective to ensure strategic decision making remains relevant and future focused
Provides a strategic framework to support decision making
Explores and analyses external trends and their potential impact on strategic choices
Takes calculated risks and has the courage to stand by decisions despite resistance
Leadership and Developing Others
Delivers needs-based results in complex and fast-changing contexts
Evaluates the opportunities and risks of each idea and solution to make informed strategic decisions
Demonstrates managerial courage by willingness to confront difficult situations and take potentially unpopular decisions
Actively encourages a team environment where team members feel able to contribute, champion or challenge decisions
Conveys complex strategic issues with clarity, brevity and confidence
Develops and implements processes to ensure that the workplace is inclusive and the talents of individuals are harnessed to achieve individual and organisational success.
Qualifications and Experience
Essential
Graduate qualification in Finance management, Grants management or equivalent.
At least 5 years’ experience in a similar position.
Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
Experience with NGOs with increasing responsibilities including a proven experience of establishing and running the award management function in the field.
Knowledge of the requirements of major institutional donors including budgeting, eligibility issues, compliance management, and reporting.
Experience of engaging with donors at country strategy levels.
Experience of and well developed skills in staff management and supervision. Proven strong coaching and capacity building skills.
Very strong capacity for attention to detail, problem solving, and analysis of trends.
Computer literate with very strong excel skills.
Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people.
Patient, adaptable, flexible, able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in managing multicultural teams.
Desirable
Experience with Save the Children award management policies, procedures and systems and Save the Children’s award management system (AMS).
