Associate Director of Development at Kidogo Innovations Limited

About the Role:

At an exciting time of growth, Kidogo seeks an Associate Director of Development to lead a comprehensive fundraising effort. In close partnership with a highly engaged CEO and Board, this position will build upon our strong foundation of institutional funders – including the The Lego Foundation, Jasmine Social Investments, and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation – to secure the support needed to fine-tune our model and further prove out our impacts on early childhood development, health, and income generation of our “Mamapreneurs”. Joining a close-knit international team and overseeing a development team member at our HQ in Nairobi, this position will make a significant impact on Kidogo's ability to serve 100,000 kids by 2027. This position reports to the CEO.

To help you thrive in this role, you will have the following assets:

• Team: A leadership team that understands fundraising is a team effort and will support you in executing the strategy, and a Development Associate in Nairobi who will support you by gathering updates, stories for donor reports and proposals.
• Impact: Early evidence shows 80% of Kidogo kids meet developmental milestones. Kidogo's nutritional interventions reduce stunting by 23% and wasting by 32%.
• Scalability: We use an innovative social franchising approach to identify, train and support female entrepreneurs (Mamapreneurs) to start or grow childcare micro-businesses. Through this approach, Kidogo is one of the fastest growing childcare networks in the world, growing from 47 to 538 in just the last year alone.
• Reputation: In April 2022, CEO Sabrina Habib spoke at the White House with First Lady Dr. Biden, Ambassador Power, and Melinda Gates where Kidogo was hailed as a trailblazer in the ecosystem, positively impacting children, and improving women’s economic empowerment. In Oct 2021 Melinda Gates called out Sabrina Habib and Kidogo during the Her Power Summit, describing how she loves "seeing innovative solutions on the ground that both address childcare but also address getting women back to work.”

Your responsibilities will include:

• Work in close partnership with the CEO and Kidogo’s fundraising advisory team to design and implement a comprehensive fundraising strategy that drives growth and sustainability, with a goal to raise $8M in renewals and new gifts between 2022-2027.
• Maintain and grow a portfolio of existing major foundation funders, leveraging the CEO and Board in donor stewardship and retention. Develop donor-specific strategies, meeting preparation and follow-up with the goal of increasing all current donors.
• New Donors: Lead the research, qualification, and management of a robust pipeline of new donor prospects. Perform due diligence, conduct outreach, and design cultivation tactics that reflect an understanding of the prospect’s interests and fit with Kidogo’s various programs and impact areas.
• Serve as chief grant writer taking ownership of letters of inquiry, proposals, renewals, and reports, tightly managing a fundraising calendar to ensure the team is working against a defined timeline and assigned tasks.
• Maintain a stewardship calendar to ensure all donors and partners are engaged, kept updated and feel valued.
• With support from Kidogo’s graphic designer, develop written and visual content in the forms of donor communications, pitch decks, e-newsletters, social media content, and website updates.
• Design and implement processes for donor data and moves management tracking, pipeline management, and reporting. With support from your development team member, maintain and improve this system over time.

Who we are looking for:

• You are a well-aligned match with Kidogo’s mission and values. You are excited to scale a solution to help solve the childcare crisis in the lowest income communities across East Africa.
• You have experience in fundraising for global development nonprofits, including working with a global team. Experience with bilateral and multilateral aid is nice to have.
• You are a skilled writer, relationship-builder and communicator with at least 5 years experience raising grants from foundations, governments and individuals. You are eager to head our development efforts, and raise $8M over the next 5 years in philanthropic capital to grow from serving 10,000 to 100,000 children.
• You are a thoughtful relationship builder who develops rapport easily and fosters long-term connections. You are a natural networker with the ability to deepen existing relationships and develop new ones.
• You have a solid understanding of social enterprise models and the metrics our donors look for (e.g. financial sustainability, impact per donor dollar, cost to serve, grant subsidy per customer).
• You are skilled in analyzing, breaking down, and communicating complex ideas in ways that inspire others to action. You create high-quality and compelling materials that clearly articulate the “why” behind an organization’s mission and impact. Extensive grant writing/reporting and collateral production experience is required.
• You enjoy both the behind-the-scenes and donor-facing aspects of fundraising.

You will fit in the well with the Kidogo Family, if you are:

• A natural leader: You inspire your teammates to stretch themselves, challenge their assumptions and constantly improve through direct mentorship, and serve as an example. You create a sense of mutual accountability, inspire action and follow up effectively to ensure momentum.
• Fiercely compassionate: You exercise empathy and treat all people with respect and dignity. You combine the urgency of getting things done while appreciating the complexities of working in informal urban settlements.
• Visualize the path to the goal: You are highly strategic. You understand how decisions get made; you can take in multiple inputs simultaneously, make decisions with imperfect information and chart a path forward for your team. You stay focused on the most important things, not getting lost in the noise.
• Adaptable / Agile: You have a willingness to learn and adapt. You are comfortable revisiting and refining aspects of a program and iterating based on lessons learned during the development lifecycle.
• Intrapreneurial: You see solutions, not challenges. You have a gritty, experimental spirit and actively find opportunities to reach our goals in more effective ways by exercising creative resourcefulness.
• Doer: You are efficient, organized and use your time effectively. You can juggle many projects of varying urgency and importance simultaneously and can prioritize effectively. You seamlessly balance both urgent short-term tasks with larger long-term projects.
• Wear multiple hats: You can see problems from different perspectives and can balance competing demands (i.e., sustainability and quality). You are also comfortable juggling detailed tasks one minute and more significant strategic questions the next.