Grants Management Specialist - HQ
Support grants management and provide technical expertise in humanitarian sector
Overview
Support grants management and provide technical expertise in humanitarian sector
You have:
- At least a bachelor’s degree in relevant field
- At least 2 years of field experience from a country or regional office in a humanitarian/development organization
- Excellent communication, coordination, and collaboration skills
- Sound understanding of Grants Management and the grants management phases
- Willingness and ability to travel to DRC COs and ROs
- Proficiency in written and oral English
- Experience working with EU donors (specifically ECHO) and US donors (BHA, BPRM)
- Skill in crafting effective prompts for AI models such as ChatGPT
- Experience organizing and implementing online & live events
Contract
This is a DRC - National contract. More about DRC - National contracts.
Do you want to take on a global leadership role where you collaborate with country operations and shape the grants management function in one of the leading NGOs globally? Do you enjoy working at HQ and traveling to field locations to support country offices? Are you passionate about grants management and business development in the humanitarian sector? If yes, then we encourage you to apply for the Grants Management Specialist position at DRC HQ.
****Who are we?****
DRC operates through grants, contracts and funds managed directly at HQ and through grants, contracts and funds managed in country and regional offices. The Grants Management Unit (GMU) manages and supports the various granting modalities to differing degrees.
The GMU comprises Grants Management Specialists covering country (legal entity) portfolios split between the 4 regional offices. The GMU is led by the Head of Unit (HoU) and supported by a Global Grants Advisor and a Student Assistant.
****About the job****
****Purpose of the role****
The Grants Management Specialist (GMS) will support the Regional Offices (RO), Country Offices (CO), and HQ in grants management by providing technical support, expert advice, capacity building on the Grants Card-Dynamics, compliance and quality checks or HQ-submitted grants, the GMS is further accountable for updating and managing the data record in DYN. Throughout the project cycle on an HQ-submitted Grant, the GMS works closely with relevant grants, program and finance colleagues in both HQ and the field including participating in monthly Budget Follow-Up (BFU) meetings and general financial aspects of grant management such as milestone and payment (instalment) settlement.
The GMS has a control and oversight function for all field grants in their portfolio countries through DYN and BI tools and provides ad hoc support to field-based grants colleagues. The GMS further ensures that relevant colleagues across their assigned portfolios are empowered to understand and implement grants management processes in DYN and global DRC policies and procedures pursuant to grants. The GMS is expected to be deployed to COs in case there is a need for gap-filling, substitution, and technical support.
******Daily grants management and administrative technical support:******
- In close coordination with the relevant CO, updating grants information, incl. uploading of relevant documentation in Dynamics for HQ submitted grants within their assigned geographic portfolio.
- Management of instalments by ensuring payment requests are submitted in a timely manner matching the instalment schedule in DYN and following-up/cleaning-up on unallocated or unsettled instalments.
- Reaching out to donor representatives when needed and maintaining professional communication.
- Quality check of submission of proposals and reports via donor compliance for the HQ donors to the extent which necessary documents are received within agreed upon timeline and in line with the contract.
- Instalment management, incl. resolution of unallocated instalments (Annex 2).
- Work in close coordination with Business Controller and Senior Operations Advisors (SOAs) at HQ to further support Country Missions.
- Ownership of electronic grant management forms, incl. e-CT forms.
******Expert Advice and Guidance:******
- As Grants Card Superuser, provide expert advice to CO on the usage of the grants card on Dynamics.
- Support CO grants management focal points in finding and filling out the necessary HQ documents for in-country submitted proposals.
- Provide daily support to solve incoming issues/inquiries from COs from their assigned portfolio, facilitating the communication between them and the relevant stakeholders.
- Provide support to COs in ensuring up to date and complete information in DYN for field grants through creation and monitoring of BI reports.
- Support to field grants focal points within their portfolio including administrative tasks such as payment requests, authorisations, and DYN creation and vetting of implementing partners.
- Provide advice on donor compliance issues in coordination with Donor Compliance team at HQ and the Global Grants Advisor.
- Raise grants and contract management risks to the relevant Senior Operations Advisor (SOA) and provide inputs in the case handling.
- Guide and advise CO grants focal points on project and grants data quality by using the Grants PowerBI and the project and grants data quality PowerBI.
******Substitution, surge capacity and technical support******
- Support COs in filling the CO grants management role when approved and agreed upon by and between the HoU, relevant GMS and CO SMT and in line with the substitution modality/SoP.
- Provide advanced technical assistance to CO in cleaning data, grants card, quality of data and trainings when agreed and approved by GMS, HoU and CO SMT.
- Provide coverage for other GMSs on deployment by temporarily taking on parts of their portfolios.
About you
To be successful in this role we expect you to be detail-oriented, patient, and persistent, flexible to respond to urgent request from both field colleagues and HQ management and having a solution-oriented attitude.
Moreover, we also expect the following:
Required
At least a bachelor’s degree in relevant field
At least 2 years of field experience from a country or regional office in a humanitarian/development organization (either as a national staff or as an expatriate) – preferably in a grants or program position.
- Excellent communication, coordination, and collaboration skills.
- Sound understanding of Grants Management and the grants management phases.
- Willingness and ability to travel to DRC COs and ROs.
- Proficiency in written and oral English.
Desirable:
- Experience working with EU donors (specifically ECHO) and US donors (BHA, BPRM)
- Prompting for AI Chatbots: Skill in crafting effective prompts for AI models such as ChatGPT, using Microsoft's Bing, or Google's Bard.
- Experience organizing and implementing online & live events
All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the lead, Collaborating, Striving for excellence and Demonstrating integrity.
We offer
Contract Length: Permanent
Working hours: 37 hours per week including lunch
Workplace: DRC Head Office, Borgergade 10, Copenhagen, Denmark
Start date September 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter.
Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and the AC organisation.
This is a national position for which local terms and conditions apply. Please note that you need to have the right to work in Denmark (through nationality or obtaining a work visa) to be considered for this role.
Application process
All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV in English. Apply online via the link on our page Current Vacancies at www.drc.ngo.
Closing date for applications 1st of August 2023. We expect interviews to be held on the 9th of August 2023.
Further information
For questions regarding the vacancy please contact The Head of Grants Management Unit, Ali Al Mokdad at [email protected]
For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.
Potential interview questions
| Can you describe a time when you had to handle a complex grant management issue? | This question assesses your problem-solving abilities in the context of grants management. | Provide a specific example demonstrating your critical thinking and the outcome. |
| How do you ensure compliance with donor regulations when submitting proposals? | This question gauges your understanding of donor compliance processes. | Pro members can see the explanation. |
| Describe your experience working with country offices in grants management. What challenges did you face? | Pro members can see the explanation. | Pro members can see the explanation. |
| What strategies do you use to train others in grants management processes? | Pro members can see the explanation. | Pro members can see the explanation. |
| Can you share an experience where you provided technical support to a colleague or team? | Pro members can see the explanation. | Pro members can see the explanation. |