Consultant - Sprout Platform Business Development and Partnership at Mercy Corps

Purpose / Project Description:

Sprout, The Open Content Agriculture Platform, a project of Mercy Corps Agrifin (MCAF), is partnering with KALRO to provide a content marketplace/exchange for expert content developers to offer high quality digital-ready, farmer-friendly content that can be used free of charge by content distribution partners. The goal of Sprout is to enable MCAF partners to cost effectively, acquire and use this content is to build productivity, earned income and resilience of farmers at scale.

Consultant Objectives:

• The consultant will support the Sprout Platform expanding into markets and geographies. To support this effort, the consultant will identify new partnerships and opportunities to extend Sprout offerings.

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will:

• Maintain current partner relationships and identifying areas for potential engagement
• Contact and engage with potential content providers and FFO partners to identify content needs and ensure they are able to properly leverage Sprout
• Communicate Sprout Platform vision and mission to partners, and be able to effectively communicate how to leverage Sprout services to ensure partners are able to efficiently utilize the Sprout Platform and expand the reach of the platform to markets and geographies
• Plan and oversee marketing initiatives, that include digital marketing, through Sprout Newsletter, social media and Conferences/webinars
• Identify organizations and partners that can contribute and/or leverage the Sprout Platform, and update Sprout Platform Content Priority Spreadsheet.
• Lead in the Sprout Platform find new funding opportunities via proposal writing and development.
• Contact potential partners to establish relationship and coordinate follow up meetings to gather content and service/product needs.
• Actively contribute in product development meetings and engagements

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will:

• Coordinate and conduct Sprout Platform introductory meetings to a minimum of 10 unique and new partners, capture their partner information, content needs, and update information into the Sprout Partner Spreadsheet
• Capture and document pertinent information from new partners and organizations meetings and share with the Sprout Team, and input new requests into the Sprout Partner Spreadsheet.
• Gather partner requirements and coordinate with content transformation team for content acquisition and transformation
• Develop and socialize June/July/August Newsletter

Timeframe / Schedule:

• The consultant will be engaged for a period of 40 billable days and the timelines will be as follow:
• Sprout partner content needs spreadsheet – Due July 31th 2022
• Meeting minutes from Sprout Partner follow up calls and needs assessments - Due July 31th 2022
• Develop and socialize June/July/August Newsletters – Due August 30th 2022
• Meeting mins from Sprout Platform introductory calls – Due August 30th 2022

The Consultant will report to:

• AgriFin Elias Nure - Sprout Lead
• The Consultant will work closely with:
• The Agrifin Technical team

Required Experience & Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business or a similar area
• About five years of proven sales experience in business or a related area
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, both written and verbal, in order to express technical and nontechnical concepts clearly and concisely
• Technical skills required to create proposals and find solutions to meet client requirements, such as using software programs and machines
• Excellent organizational skills to meet goals and set priorities
• Be proactive, organized and handle work under stressful and uncertain environments
• Previous experience working with MC AgriFin, and their network of 150 partners highly preferred
• Previous experience supporting partners integrate, port, and leverage the Sprout Platform and the Sprout Learning services
• Able to manage team and clients remotely: