Senior Grants Officer - Beirut

Job Description

Based in Beirut, this position will be a critical part of the IRC Lebanon grants team. Reporting to the Senior Grants Manager, this position will work closely with seven programmatic sector leads, finance, and operations on compliance, donor regulations, reporting, and business development. In addition, this role will work alongside the Partnership unit to ensure that IRC’s local partners are effectively engaged at each stage of the award cycle in alignment with the IRC’s partnership strategy. The Senior Grants Officer will provide vital support to the Grants team, leading on streamlined reporting, monitoring, and tracking responsibilities.

Major Responsibilities:

Grants Management:

- Manage a series of grants from philanthropic or institutional donors, from supporting an initial go/ no decision through proposal development, reporting, financial management, MEAL indicators to close out and lessons learned sessions. - The Senior Grants Officer will apply IRC’s project cycle management tools to monitor the progress of each grant under their purview and support the Grants Managers and Senior Grants Manager in the project cycle management process related to their grants. - Work with the Project Support Manager to track the spending on all IRC Lebanon grants and support the program teams in addressing under or overspending. - Lead on internal Grants planning documents including grants tracker and deadline forecast and prepare updates for the IRC Lebanon office to ensure full awareness of upcoming deadline. - Work closely with Partnership colleagues to ensure forward planning and preparation for donor report writing, adherence with IRC regional and headquarters requirements and timelines, and timely submission of sub-grantee reports. - Participate in weekly and monthly grant monitoring meetings to ensure awards are implemented in compliance with the IRC and relevant donor regulations and to ensure strong financial management, proper operational openings and closings of grants, and monitoring and evaluation of programmatic progress. Support the follow-up on action points from meetings.

New Business Development:

- Work with the Senior Grants Manager to support proposal development processes for new opportunities, including preparation of information for a go/no go decision, coordination of inputs from program coordinators, Partnerships and Monitoring and Evaluation colleagues, and ensuring online documentation of all stages of the process, including IRC’s OTIS pipeline award management system. - Assist in compiling and editing budgets and ensure communication and coordination between all departments (finance, programs, and operations) in drafting and development of budgets according to both IRC and donor regulations.

Compliance and Knowledge Management****:

- Develop a broad and deep understanding of donor policies, regulations, and procedures and build this knowledge among grants team members. - Proactively identify compliance risks throughout the portfolio and advise programs, operations, finance and senior management on necessary actions. Assist program technical leads and operations staff with understanding the reporting and other compliance requirements on their grants.

Qualifications

Work Experience:

- At least 2-3 years prior professional experience in a similar post (preferably NGO or UN agency). - Demonstrated successful experience developing projects for public and private donors. - Demonstrable understanding of project planning and management cycles, including planning and budget development processes. - Experience managing awards from a variety of donors, including European and US public donors.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

- Very strong verbal, writing and editing skills. - Highly proficient in Microsoft Office suite. - Excellent time and process management competencies and strong organization. - Flexibility to adapt to changing requirements. - Ability to work well under unstable security, administrative, and programmatic pressures. - Demonstrated ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels.

Language Skills: Excellent written and spoken English

Preferred experience & skills:

- Experience of education, health, livelihoods and/or protection programming in Lebanon - Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven ability to prioritize and deliver on time. - Ability to work both independently and in a dynamic, cross-functional global team structure. - Ability to manage and work through change in a proactive and positive manner.

Working Environment: Standard office working environment (with possible remote working arrangements).