Catholic Relief Services Jobs in Ghana

Catholic Relief Services Business Development Specialist II, Ghana & Liberia Jobs in Ghana


Business Development Specialist II, Ghana & Liberia

Job Title: Business Development Specialist II, Ghana and Liberia

Department/Location: Tamale, Ghana

Position Type: Regular/Full time; Accompanied

FLSA: Exempt

Band: D

Reports To: Regional Business Development Manager with matrixed oversight from Ghana & Liberia Country Representatives.

Background
Catholic Relief Services began working in Ghana in 1958. For more than fifty years, CRS Ghana has enjoyed a tradition of cooperation and partnership with the Catholic Church and Government Ministries.

Over the years, CRS’ operations have evolved from relief to social development by improving health status, advancing the quality of and access to basic education, social justice, global solidarity and the enhancement of food security in Ghana.

CRS employs an integrated approach to help poor and vulnerable people lead full and productive lives with a focus on our signature areas of agricultural livelihoods, health and emergency response and recovery.

We plan and coordinate programs in the country’s 19 Dioceses and one Vicariate, bringing public- and private-sector actors together for community-based development. CRS implements programs through partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including the Government of Ghana, local NGOs, international NGOs, churches, and public and private sector partners. Our current work in Ghana focuses on: agriculture and livelihoods (including SILC); health (including WASH, MCH and HSS); and youth engagement.

CRS first began working in Liberia in 1957, with a permanent country program office opening in 1990. During the ensuing 14+ years of conflict and war, CRS was one of the few agencies to maintain a constant presence in the country, providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to tens of thousands of people.

With the establishment of peace, CRS and partners focused increasingly on reconstruction and development activities, working in health, agriculture, livelihoods, peace and justice, and micro-savings.

With the onset of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak, CRS Liberia began working with our local health partners to ensure access to safe health care, support EVD triage and isolation and carry out EVD related community outreach and hygiene promotion activities. In addition, CRS continues to support immunization programming through support to a local platform of civil society organizations.

The Business Development Specialist will operate as a member of both CRS’ West Africa team and CRS’ global BD community, providing direct support to strategic growth opportunities as well as helping to strengthen BD-related systems, processes, relationships and staff capacities in Ghana and Liberia.

This is an exciting and dynamic post for an experienced Business Development professional with the drive to represent and lead CRS programming transformation and growth.

Primary Function
The BD Specialist will maintain CRS’ competitive positioning for and pursuit of institutional donor resources, with an emphasis on competitive funding mechanisms, through representation and leadership in both countries.

He/she will define, monitor and update the business pipeline and ensure that CRS is best positioned to pursue relevant opportunities. With a core function of identifying opportunities and leading the production of high quality applications for donor funding, this position will provide specialized assistance across the BD cycle:

  • providing guidance and leadership for strategic growth planning
  • leveraging CRS’ competitive position and program results to attract new funding
  • managing functional teams to identify
    and capture funding opportunities
  • incorporating best practices into growth-related business processes and proposals
  • building relationships with current and prospective donors
    developing/managing strategic alliances and/or coalitions with other organizations
  • monitoring donor trends, including corporate and other non-traditional sources
  • The BD Specialist will train and mentor staff to improve their skills in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing, including the production of well-developed, polished English marketing materials for external donors.
  • He/she will support CRS with marketing events, communication pieces for stakeholders in coordination with the CR, HOPs and Program Managers, to enhance visibility and serve external information needs.

  • Other roles include: working closely with the Regional BD Manager and other BD colleagues around the region on planning, intelligence gathering, sharing lessons learned, and pursuing opportunities; ensuring that high-quality studies, research components, and documenting of innovations are completed and presented to donors and other interested audiences; ensuring reports and responses to donors are of high quality, in the correct format and responding to donor requirements; and managing the project development budget.

    Job Responsibilities

    Prepositioning

  • Develop and maintain key relationships with donors, collaborating organizations, and private sector actors with an eye toward opportunity identification, shared value creation, strategic alliance formation, and global brand positioning.
  • Research, analyze and plan for new funding opportunities, competitive intelligence, and CRS’ competitive positioning on a continuous basis within the marketplace in a timely manner.
  • Support effective internal communication and information management processes to ensure access and use of BD information by relevant stakeholders within the agency, including maintaining an up-to-date opportunities matrix.
  • Work with the Regional BDM, CRs, and HOPs to identify international partners and negotiate CRS’ role on proposal consortia, ensuring a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
  • Foster a culture of business development within the country program by contributing to the development and dissemination of standardized BD materials (learning resources, guidelines, tools and templates, and online information) and build capacity of country program staff on their application, through staff mentorship, modeling of good practices, and training.
  • Lead the country programs’ functional teams to develop appropriate and effective fundraising and positioning strategies involving donor research and intelligence, product development, marketing, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship, as needed.
  • Lead the country programs’ opportunity pipeline tracking and analysis, including portfolio trends, proposal submissions and performance, and growth projections.
  • Capture Planning and Proposal and Concept Note Development

  • Provide BD skill and capacity to guide and/or lead teams in opportunity analysis, capture planning, proposal preparation (includes proposal development budget, human resource needs, proposal development timeline, coordination with the Region and HQ, partner management, etc.), proposal development, proposal review, and after action review.
  • Lead the country teams to manage proposal processes, often as the Proposal Coordinator or Lead Writer, to ensure timely submission of high quality proposals that are responsive to and compliant with donor requirements and with CRS technical application and cost application standards.
  • This includes coordinating review timelines with Regional and Headquarters’-based staff, support personnel recruitment, budget development, non-technical proposal writing, and/or editing/packaging as part of proposal team.
  • Provide internal reviews of technical and cost applications prepared by other staff, reviewing for clarity, responsiveness, presentation, and compliance, in coordination with the HOP and Finance Officer.



  • Click here to post comments

    Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Jobs in Ghana.