Grants Officer at Options Consultancy Services Limited

Responsibilities:

Support the delivery of the small grant scheme and mechanism based on recommendations from grants scoping exercise and best practices

• Support the Grants Lead with the small grants scheme setup: application, review, selection process, and tracking and monitoring systems. This may include communicating with relevant stakeholders and potential applicants.
• Under the direction and support of the Grants Lead, utilise the finance management monitoring tools and any necessary tracking tools, and develop any new tools as required.

Oversee and manage the grantee finances

• Oversee overall progress of the grantee’s implementation against budget, simultaneously coordinating with the Grants Lead and the wider grants team, to have an understanding of implementation progress, including progress against the work plans and performance objectives.
• Work with the grants team to ensure the grantee's budgets are reasonable and in line with the work plan, contract and programme criteria, including Conducting budget reviews at the proposal review stage against historic costs available, prevailing market prices including consideration of completeness of costs to determine the reasonableness of the costs/estimates included in the proposal budgets; review budget notes/narratives at proposal stage to ensure their completeness and alignment with the costs estimates included in the proposal budget; and recommend budget revisions to the Grants Lead for consideration and inclusion in the package for submission to the Grants Review Committee.
• Follow the established guidelines for grant management, including compliance, financial, and administrative requirements.
• Conduct, under the supervision of the Grants Lead, the due diligence and contracting of grantee organisations as per the granting guidelines Work with the grants team to ensure effective risk tracking and escalating any potential issues to the Grants lead

Capacity building and learning

• Support the implementation of capacity-building plans for grassroots grantee organisations;
• Support the capacity assessment and capacity building of grantee organisations;
• Continuously support grantees’ cross-learning by facilitating and capturing best practices and knowledge sharing;

Monitoring and Evaluation of grants and client reporting

• Support the MEL team is closely tracking and monitoring awarded grants against MEL plan targets;
• Undertake routine on-site monitoring visits to grantees;
• Ensure complete and timely technical narrative and financial reporting from grantees on the programme according to the grants scheme’s requirements and guidelines;
• Support financial management and reporting of grantees and submission of timely and accurate financial reports to Options;

Other

• Ensure that all work is aligned with the Programme’s Do No Harm, Safeguarding and Emotional Wellbeing Framework
• Represent the Programme in meetings, public events or conferences as required
• In the spirit of teamwork, provide flexible support to colleagues across Options and the consortium

Person specification:

• Significant experience in managing programmes and grants, with a proven track record in disbursing grants directly to grassroots organisations in remote and diverse contexts, across a multi-country programme (minimum 4 years).
• Proven experience in designing robust granting mechanisms from inception
• Significant financial management experience, as well as budgeting, work planning, and fraud prevention and management
• Experience in designing and coordinating the delivery of grassroots capacity-building plans.
• Proven experience in risk and change management.
• Experience in contracts and contracting
• Experience in Monitoring and Evaluation
• Excellent grants and financial management skills