Business Development Manager at North Star Alliance

Duties and Accountabilities

• We are looking for a senior, strategic and hands-on Business Development Manager with loads of experience, and a can-do mentality, who will:

Funding Strategy and Opportunities:

• Provide support in reviewing and implementing the 2022-2025 fundraising strategy.
• Forecast programs and identify funding opportunities with a focus on evolving donor priorities.
• Ensure a thorough understanding of the funding environment and position North Star Alliance competitively.

Donor Engagement:

• Stay updated on relevant donor calls for proposals and align them with the mission and goals of North Star.
• Lead donor engagement meetings in collaboration with the Director and senior managers.
• Participate in external meetings, events, and visits to identify potential institutional and private donors.

Proposal Development:

• Identify and secure new projects, developing high-quality proposals aligned with the organization’s strategy.
• Coordinate the decision-to-bid process, establishing the organization’s strategic position for opportunities.
• Develop proposal writing outlines, calendars, and lead proposal teams.
• Ensure compliance throughout the pre-awarding stages of grant management and project cycle management processes.
• Liaise and coordinate with programmatic and technical experts for successful proposal submissions.

Partnership Development:                         

• Identify strong partner organizations for grants and establish strong consortia.
• Lead partner relations and negotiations during the proposal process, including partner packages and monitoring partner deliverables.
• Establish new funding relationships for the organization.

Resource Development Plan:

• Understand the current program portfolio to execute the organization’s resource development plan.
• Regularly update plans and communicate progress to the director.
• Formulate program core capacity statements to enhance the organization’s strategic positioning.
• Conduct routine field visits to assess program needs for successful proposals.

Education and experience

• Master’s Degree in a relevant field (Programme management in a large NGO, MPH, MBA, Business Administration, International Development).
• Proven experience in grant management, proposal writing, and donor engagement.
• Proof of Strong understanding of the funding landscape and donor priorities.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills.
• Minimum of 5 years of (project) management experience with a successful track record in leading multi-disciplinary projects and fundraising efforts with a proven track record in building partnerships and raising and managing grants.
• Experience in working internationally across a variety of countries (preferably sub-Saharan Africa)
• Experience in working with virtual teams internationally, in a matrix set-up is an advantage
• Knowledge of the health sector and the NGO sector is welcome.
• Experience in developing log frames and Gant charts

Competences and qualities

The Business Development Manager has strategic and tactical insight and works easily on all levels; from strategic lead of the project to detailed tech work. Being the senior responsible for making this project a success, needs to be combined with a ‘roll up your sleeves’ attitude, and willingness to ‘put your feet in the mud’.

• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making – Gathers inputs, assesses risks, considers impact and articulates benefits of decisions for internal and external stakeholders over the long term.
• Written and verbal communication – extremely clear, understandable, motivating, and supportive communication skills to all levels of the organisation in fluent English.
• Accurate and diligent –flexible to work off hours; uses cross-checks, validation and verification to ensure the highest data quality.
• Structured and consistent – the ability to develop templates and present data in a structured, logical and consistent manner in a Microsoft Office environment (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
• Relationship Building – establishes rapport with people easily, developing and maintaining a network of contacts that can provide information, help and access to others.
  • Displays tact, creativity – demonstrates good judgment and can build consensus and knows when a situation needs to be escalated or mediated.
  • Organisation – establishes a systematic course of action for oneself or others to ensure the accomplishment of a specific objective. Determines priorities and allocates time and resources effectively, with meticulous attention to detail.
  • Client orientation – can manage a variety of duties maintaining quality and meeting client and stakeholders’ needs.
  • Team player – willingly cooperates and works collaboratively toward solutions that generally benefit all involved parties and accomplish group objectives.
  • Passion – is enthusiastically committed, shows the ability to persevere be productive under pressure and maintain confidentiality.
  • Cross-Cultural Skills – has strong cross-cultural competency and the ability to merge” their different worldviews into a “third” way of thinking beyond the constraints of each individual’s cultural conditioning.

Functional contacts

• Reporting to the Management Board (Directors)
• M&E and IT colleagues across the organisation
• Communications colleagues
• Matrix team members
• Other colleagues in regional offices (Kenya and South Africa) and Blue Box clinics (across multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa)
• External stakeholders