Grants Officer at Aurum Consultants

Responsibilities

• Ensure compliance with USAID and other Donors rules and regulations and legal and regulatory requirements governing the award.
• Serve as the activity’s compliance Officer to ensure program and sub-awardees adherence to all applicable regulations, and award terms and conditions, overall compliance in the activity implementation from the development of work plans and budgets, reporting, sub granting, and budget administration.
• Develop and embed best practices to comply with donor financial rules, supporting donor proposal budgeting, analysis of institutional income, donor contract expenditure tracking, monitoring and providing management information on key risks, contributing to the implementation of improved financial systems and processes to facilitate better donor reporting and compliance.
• Serve as a subject matter expert in USAID and other bilateral and multilateral funder regulations, responding to compliance-related questions, generating and/or reviewing sub-recipient agreements, and advising on various contractual matters.
• Guide/Coach the program and finance teams and lead the team in implementing consistent and effective practices and procedures. Ensure prescribed policies, procedures, and schedules are followed.
• Identifies and proposes solutions to mitigate specific USAID compliance and project management and execution risks, including on project audits. Applies solutions and follows up on corrective actions.
• Provide overall technical support in the management of sub-grants, facilitates training in program and finance management to sub-grantees, supports sub-partners on sub-grant management and assists in reviewing sub-grant agreements.
• Actively keeps informed of USAID related developments and advises the management on project management, execution and specific USAID compliance requirements.
• Report to the Board of Directors on the progress of the project, compliance matters, areas for improvement, significant deviations from programmatic objectives or policies.
• Work directly with organization’s outsourced accounting firm, to ensure accuracy of all financial reports related to the programs.

Qualifications

• Requires a Bachelor’s degree in Business, Procurement, Accounting, Finance, Management, Auditing, Economics to apply a working knowledge of the theories and principles in a specialised field or work discipline OR related field experience in administering rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation programs in Eastern Africa, with a preference for Kenya experience.
• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in the NGO sector in grants and compliance management positions including experience in award and sub-award management, administration, reviewing technical applications, budgeting, implementation and oversight.
• Working knowledge of pertinent regulations including OMB Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) and the Federal Acquisition Regulations and expertise in USAID Assistance and Acquisition rules and regulations.
• Demonstrated experience analysing financial documents and processes, interpreting contractual requirements and grants, operating instructions, policies, and procedure manuals.
• Previous experience building capacity of organisation staff on USAID compliance, policies, rules and regulations and ability to provide training on complex technical topics in an easy-to comprehend format for end users with basic, intermediate, and experienced topical knowledge.
• In-depth understanding and experience of working with proposals and contracts from institutional experience of a complex planning and budgeting processes including the ability to provide clear guidance on donor policies and procedures.
• Ability to work independently, draw on external networks, provide pragmatic advise and translate ‘donor compliance language’ to a non-specialist audience.
• Team player, good facilitator and an excellent oral and written communications skills in English