Grants & Partnership Coordinator (m/f)

Description

• Feed the Future Mozambique Agricultural Innovations (FTF Inova) seeks to increase equitable growth and incomes in the agriculture sector in Mozambique by stimulating purposeful business innovation and investment. FTF Inova leverages its activity fund to strategically buy down the risk of innovation
• FTF Inova works to change attitudes and behaviors in Mozambique’s agricultural sector through partnerships—it does not usually work directly with farmers because, as a five-year donor-funded program, it does not have a permanent role in the market system. It does most of its work, therefore, in close collaboration with agricultural market actors, primarily in the private sector. These market actor partners range widely, from national agricultural input distributors to small agro-dealers, from major commodity buyers to vendors of agricultural equipment, and from community radios to universities. FTF Inova’s goal is not to “reach” a specific number of farmers or improve the performance of a specific crop, but instead to change the way the whole system works so that as it continues to evolve, it is more productive and beneficial for smallholder farmers. Developing formal partnerships helps ensure the sustainability of FTF Inova’s work by giving ownership to the market actor and clarifying what both parties bring to the table
• In order to coordinate its partnerships with its whole team and manage each partnership in compliance with USAID technical requirements, FTF Inova has created a partnership facility—a collection of partnership instruments, policies, and procedures—to govern how it does partnerships. This partnership facility is meant to ensure that FTF Inova’s partnerships are developed according to good principles of facilitation, that they are feasible for both FTF Inova and the partner, and that they are well documented. The partnership documents also serve as an essential coordination tool for the FTF Inova team, including technical management, monitoring and evaluation, and operations staff. Please read more about FTF Inova’s overall partnership approach in the series beginning here: https://www.marketlinks.org/post/working-private-sector-systemic-change-why-build-partnership-facility-first-place
• Each partnership is overseen by a portfolio manager, who has overall accountability for the partnership. However, as FTF Inova moves into the second half of its implementation phase, the number of its partnerships has increased substantially, and portfolio managers require additional assistance with the administrative and coordination aspects of managing the partnerships in their portfolios. One objective in particular is for portfolio managers to make room for more face time with partners in order to maximize FTF Inova’s learning opportunities and improve partner relationship management, even as the project begins to go to scale
• Additionally, in the end of September, USAID augmented FTF Inova’s activity fund with additional resources to design and implement a challenge fund focused on stimulating solutions to constraints in the domestic supply chain of agricultural commodities and foodstuffs, particularly those relevant to the ongoing Covid–19 health and economic crisis. This challenge fund will necessitate a particular focus on rapid outreach, partnership development, and issuance and development of grants
• Job description: In order to support FTF Inova to accomplish its objectives, the Grants & Partnership Coordinator will provide administrative support to the Challenge Fund Specialist, a part-time remote resource deployed to manage the challenge fund, as well as to portfolio managers. The Grants & Partnership Coordinator will ensure that assigned grants and partnerships are clearly articulated for the grantee or partner, coordinated across the FTF Inova team, and documented according to the appropriate timeframe. The Grants & Partnership Coordinator will also play a relationship-management role with partners and grantees, in support of the technical lead for that partnership or grant
• Reporting: The Grants & Partnership Coordinator will report to the TBD, with a ‘dotted reporting line’ to the Challenge Fund Manager, since the Grants & Partnership Coordinator is expected to initially spend 60%–90% of his/her time in support of Challenge Fund activities

Duties

• Specifically, the Partnership Coordinator will be expected to:
• Contribute as needed across the FTF Inova team to help it and its partners achieve their objectives
• Participate in and contribute to FTF Inova internal learning initiatives
• Serve as a role model within the FTF Inova team for good market-systems-development facilitation principles (read more about facilitation here: https://beamexchange.org/msd-competency/facilitation/)
• Support all administrative aspects of grant development for assigned grants, under the leadership of the Challenge Fund Manager
• Support all administrative aspects of partnership development for assigned partnerships, under the leadership of the Portfolio Manager
• Coordinate with operations and MEL staff on implementation of grant and partnership activities according to each assigned grant and partnership
• Support the Finance and Administration Officer, Challenge Fund Manager, and technical lead in all aspects of developing, implementing, monitoring, and closing out grants
• Track administrative requirements for each grant or partnership assigned, remind colleagues about required updates, and help carry out budget and implementation plan updates, site visit reporting and documentation, and modifications
• Assist with quarterly financial forecasting exercises as needed
• Ensure timely and orderly administrative close-out of assigned grants and partnerships
• Assist portfolio managers to store notes and reports in the appropriate FTF Inova document-storage platform (e.g. TAMIS, Slimwiki, One Drive, etc.)
• Organize and coordinate meetings, workshops, and other events, as required and as time allows; (the Partnership Coordinator will occasionally be expected to manage the logistics of a meeting or event, with overall oversight from the Portfolio Manager, grant technical lead, Challenge Fund Specialist, or other FTF Inova staff or consultants)
• Assist MEL staff with data collection as required and as time allows
• Manage the processing and documentation of the partnership application process (i.e. through the APPA window) on a monthly basis
• Provide other administrative and coordination assistance to the portfolio manager(s) and Challenge Fund Manager as required

Requisites

• Successful candidates for this position must have the following qualifications:
• Excellent spirit of collaboration and dedication to teamwork
• High energy and strong work ethic
• Understanding of the challenges involved in managing small and medium-sized businesses in Mozambique
• Excellent organizational skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Proficiency in use of MS Office programs, especially MS Word, and MS Excel and MS PowerPoint
• Experience using a formal structure for document storage and management
• Meaningful experience planning, executing, and tracking activities involving many individuals or organizations
• Ability to work in both an English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking workplace; and
• Good command of written English and Portuguese for the purpose of drafting formal documents
• It is preferred that the candidates also have one or more the following qualifications:
• Educational or professional experience in a customer-service role; and/or and/or
• Educational or professional experience managing or coordinating large events; and/or
• Personal or professional experience in a rural environment; and/or
• Professional experience working for or interacting with a small business; and/or
• Meaningful experience in a role with a donor-funded project related to administration of contracts or grants; and/or
• Some experience using project-management software or other databases for managing and documenting workflows; and/or
• Strong MS Excel skills; and/or
• Strong written English, with experience writing legal or contractual documents from templates

Notes

• Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
• FTF Inova provides equal employment opportunities to all employees/Consultants and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws
• This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, and transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training