Grants & Programmes Manager

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About the Organization

Better Cotton is the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. Our mission: to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. In challenging times, we are meeting the challenge head on. Through our network of field-level partners we have trained over 2.5 million farmers - from the smallest to the largest - in 23 countries in more sustainable farming practices. A quarter of the world’s cotton is now grown under the Better Cotton Standard. We have united the industry’s stakeholders behind our efforts, from ginners and spinners to brand owners, civil society organisations and governments. Everyone who cares about cotton and its sustainable future can now be part of something better.

Job Description

As Grants Manager you will work closely with a portfolio of in-country programme partners that the Better Cotton GIF funds. You will assess applications for funding, review project reports, and, together with the Programmes team, play a key role in recommending what funding and support should be committed to them. As the GIF funds the programme partners of the main GIF fund directly, you will need to be able to manage all the processes efficiently while at the same time building solid, trusting and collaborative relationships with grantee management. We are also looking for someone who can bring fresh ideas to improve the way we fund. The ideal candidate will have lived in South Asia and/or Sub-Saharan Africa or visited them extensively. If you have a particular expertise in gender, climate change, soil health, pest control, or smallholder livelihoods, that would be an enormous advantage.

This challenging role offers excellent opportunities for personal and professional development, together with a competitive benefits package.

Job Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Better Cotton GIF team to manage GIF grant-making workflow and calendar, including:
• Coordinating application processes, including managing incoming grant proposals.
• Assessing grant applications to the Better Cotton GIF– analysing the quality and potential impact of proposals and organisational viability; obtaining appropriate advice and references; reaching a judgement or recommendation for submission to the Field Impact and Investment Committee and handling relationships throughout the process until the application is either successful or declined.
• Supporting regular meetings of the Field Impact and Investment Committee which is responsible for approving the investment portfolio.
• Preparing and sending funding agreement letters to grantee partners
• Managing and monitoring grants, through the review of reports and project visits, to ensure their effectiveness and delivery against project design and targets.
• Support programme partners to innovate, introduce new solutions to challenges and deepen the impact of their projects 
• Ensure project budgets are developed and spent appropriately and in-line with project plans
• Maintain the GIF grant management platform: Ensuring that all grant and grantee information is entered consistently and accurately. Regularly proposing ways to better track grants, budgets, and managing the database.
• Collaboratively evaluate, develop, implement new and refresh ways of managing the Fund’s workflows, processes, policies and procedures to improve efficiency and accuracy, but also to improve the experience for grantees and/or support programme delivery.
• Capturing and analysing information on the delivery of programmes and reporting on progress to the relevant stakeholders.
• Work closely with the Better Cotton country team Programmes teams to support their relationships with GIF funded partners, through coordination around grant management and programme review processes.
• Support the Monitoring and Evaluation team to ensure that MEL processes and frameworks are effectively used with partners, and learnings integrated into programme implementation. Support the delivery of project baseline and endline evaluations.
• Keep abreast with developments in the cotton/environment sectors to inform the Fund’s future grant programmes.
• Each Grant Manager also takes responsibility for one of the smaller sub funds and one or more other areas of work according to interest and/or need, for example, livelihoods or gender, or workers

Education Qualification/Required Skills & Experience

The selected candidate will have the following skills, knowledge, and experience:

Essential

• Degree in Agronomy, International Development, Anthropology or other relevant subject, or equivalent work experience
• A minimum of 10 years of project/grant management experience gained in the not-for-profit sector 
• Experience of rural development, gained through project or grants management of projects in SS Africa or South Asia
• Effective in developing relationships with organisations at all levels – and with the personal credibility, communication and analytical skills to provide advice and support on the challenges they face
• Cross-cultural understanding and perspective and the ability to communicate with, and learn from, a wide range of partners and colleagues
• Good understanding of logframes, other project design tools, and project MEL
• Experience reviewing budgets and financial reports
• An ability to work creatively and flexibly in a small team, supporting other colleagues, and with a strong personal commitment to learning and improvement

Desirable

• Expertise in smallholder agriculture
• Fluency in written and spoken French
• Experience of providing support to partners on organisational development
• Experience of communicating with donors and reporting on grant use

For more information please check the Link

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