Business Development Associate

International Rescue Committee is among the world’s leading nonprofit humanitarian relief and development organizations. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC’s mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. The organization is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. Through 26 regional offices in cities across the United States, we also help refugees resettle in the US and become self-sufficient.

We’re striving to build an organization that is a supportive, kind and inspiring place to work. We encourage bold leadership, innovation, creative partnerships and accountability to those we serve.

The Global Awards Management Unit (AMU)

The AMU is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Nairobi, Berlin and Amman with staff presence in many other locations around the world. The AMU has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing funding from statutory donors. The Unit is organized into six directorates: Business Development, Strategic Partnerships, Compliance & Policy, Training, Partnerships and Operations and Planning. The AMU’s mission is to lead IRC’s work to engage and influence government donors, secure funding, and enable compliant and effective program delivery for our clients.

Business Development (BD)

The Business Development Team, within which this role sits, leads IRC's public business development working with country programs and technical units globally. The team strives to secure the right funds in the right way to achieve IRC’s impact strategy for our clients.

The BD team raises the funds to deliver to those in greatest need. We strive to increase the scale, consistency, duration, and diversity of our funds and the competitiveness of our bids to ensure the effectiveness of our work.

Alongside our traditional humanitarian portfolio, we have a ‘long term funding strategy’, to grow levels of long-term funding through contracts and awards from traditional development sources. This has already brought considerable success.

The team works to strengthen IRC’s long-term business development capacity and learning, by sharing best practices and building upon proven approaches. We develop tools and processes that strengthen and simplify our business development efforts, and work with training colleagues to improve capacity across the organization.

We prioritize effective partnerships and collaboration, internally and externally, locally and internationally. This includes strengthening the engagement and representation of national partners in our program design and team structures, as well as using our organizational connections with peers and donors to maximize successful business development and impact for clients.

The Purpose of the Role

The Business Development Associate will support a dynamic team that leads IRC’s new business throughout from opportunity tracking and capture planning to proposal development, and submission. Working as a critical part of the BD Specialist Team the BDA will provide support for some of IRC’s largest and most complex business development opportunities. This support includes creating presentations to summarize funding opportunities, drafting proposal annexes, developing highly attractive proposal visuals, copy editing, and other tasks. The BDA will serve an important coordination function, helping to ensure that IRC’s BD teams and internal partners (Technical Units, Country, and Regional Teams) are aware of public funding opportunities and have visibility over the opportunity pipeline. The BDA will also help capture and manage data about opportunity pursuits, and outcomes, for the Specialist Team. This position has room for growth within the team and the ideal candidate will have an enthusiasm for learning (particularly about public funding and international development), testing ideas, and fostering a strong and collaborative team culture.

Key Working Relationships

Country Teams, Technical Units, Senior Programme Development Advisors, Programme Development Advisors, BD Directors, AMU BD Team, AMU Program and Awards Support Team

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Bid support and compliance (70%)

• Works closely with Proposal Managers on distinct tasks essential for a high-quality proposal including copy editing, developing text boxes, and occasionally drafting annexes based on pre-developed content.

• Conducts reviews, evaluating draft proposals against requirements set forth by the public donors (with a focus on USAID and FCDO). Liaise with colleagues in compliance as required.

• Reviews requests for proposals and drafts kick off presentations, summarizing key components of the call for multi-cultural audiences.

• Occasionally serves in support role for other IRC donors including ECHO, SIDA, World Bank and others. Support may include short term research, proposal submission, or quality review.

Business Development process improvement and knowledge management (15%)

• Contributes to and models the use of standard business development processes, tools, templates and information.

• Tracks upcoming funding opportunities, summarizing the key components in pre-developed templates, and distributing them to relevant colleagues.

• Supports data entry into key databases, ensuring records are up to date and in the appropriate workflow stage.

Partnerships and Strategy (5%)

• Conducts desk research and landscape analyses to identify most strategic partnerships in FCDO and USAID markets with a particular focus on fostering local partnerships.

• Strengthens collaboration with internal stakeholders including country teams, technical units, and other team members.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field, including international relations, political science, public administration, and communications with one to three years of professional work experience.

• Demonstrated interest in international development and enthusiasm for research, writing, and coordination. Lived experience in the countries IRC works, studies, volunteer positions, and internships abroad are all strongly valued experience.

• Strong analytical reading skills and writing skills.

• Demonstrated ability developing, time-sensitive, high quality presentations to multi-cultural audiences.

• Experience managing the full cycle of projects with multiple stakeholders, including tracking deliverables, sending regular updates, and demonstrating strong knowledge management and organization throughout.

• Experience entering data and managing large datasets using Excel, Salesforce, or other platforms.

• Strong communication skills and ability to distill concise, timely, messages to multi-cultural audiences.

• Fluency in English with proficiency in one other language (French, Spanish, German, Arabic) highly desirable.

• Desire to learn more about proposal development and public funding.

IRC strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.

IRC will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application and/or interview process, and for essential job functions if appointed to a role. Please contact us if you may need such adjustments.

COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement:

In accordance with IRC’s duty to provide and maintain a workplace that is free of known hazards and our commitment to safeguard the health of our employees, clients, and communities, IRC requires new hires to furnish proof of vaccination against COVID-19 in order to be considered for any in-office or hybrid positions. All IRC US offices require full vaccination to attend any in-office functions (e.g., meetings, trainings).

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusivity:

IRC is committed to building a diverse organization and a climate of inclusivity. We strongly encourage applications from candidates who can demonstrate that they can contribute to this goal.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

US Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days (depending on role and tenure), medical insurance starting at $145 per month, dental starting at $7 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus a 3-7% base IRC contribution (3 year vesting), disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

Compensation:

Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

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