Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies 1 million smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. Our 8,000+ team is drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. With operations across six core countries in Africa, we make farmers more prosperous by providing quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural training to improve harvests. On average, the farmers we serve harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund. 

To learn more about our work, take a look at our Why Work Here blog for more information.

About the Role

One Acre Fund is looking for a Strategic Partnerships Manager to join our Business Development team. You will lead in the learning and benchmarking the strategic, administrative, financial, and staffing capacities required to prime moderate to complex multi-year, multi-million-dollar funding opportunities from priority public donors. You will report to the Director of Global Government Partnerships to conduct the benchmarking, and secure funding opportunities that model best practices in managing prime partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Strategy 
  • Work with Head of Public Portfolio to design long-term mission fundraising strategy (country/regional offices) 
  • As part of this strategy, conduct benchmarking and analysis on strategic, administrative, financial, and staffing capacities required to become a major prime, and overall strategic fit between One Acre Fund priorities and prime opportunities. 
  • Consolidate the analysis and provide a recommended subbing/priming roadmap to leadership.  
  • Implement the strategy to sub/prime. 
• New lead development 
  • In line with mission strategy (see above), build on One Acre Fund's current in-country fundraising success and identify prime or sub grant opportunities of $5M per annum or greater, and lead on applications: 
  • To ensure greater success of winning awards, following best practices including: 
  • Ensure strong strategic alignment between the funding opportunity and One Acre Fund's work,
  • Advise on the right grant mechanisms and negotiate the terms and conditions for grant agreements,
  • Support the country teams to identify and develop strong relationships with potential sub-awardees,
  • Grant management including sub-awardees management, compliance and reporting, and
  • Capacity strengthening of One Acre Fund and partners to ensure delivery of the grant results and position favorably for prime opportunities.  
• Cross-team collaboration
  • We would expect that within one year, this role would have scoped and hired for at least one direct report, dependent on fundraising momentum. 
  • Collaborate with Business Development colleagues, senior decision makers, country teams in the benchmarking exercise and decision. 
  • Lead on co-creation of new grant proposals with field leads. 
• A spokesperson for the farmers
  • One Acre Fund contributes to global discussions around agricultural development. You will:
  • Represent us at relevant events in Africa,  US, Europe and other regions.
  • Identify and pursue additional opportunities to advance our reputation.

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• Have 10+ years  experience in international business and grants management.
• Have experience in securing and administration of complex USAID-funded grants of over $7M that involve sub-awardees.
• Have knowledge of rules and regulations of public donors, and ability to advise the most suitable grant mechanisms/instruments.
• Have a high level of English fluency. An additional European language (French, German) is ideal. 
• Ability to travel for in-person donor meetings or networking opportunities, roughly 30% of the time.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Nairobi, Kenya or Kigali, Rwanda or Washington, USA. For US-based candidates, we would expect 4-6 weeks of travel per year.

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Eligibility

This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Kenya, Rwanda or United States of America

Application Deadline

30 November 2024.

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here ([email protected]), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.