Philanthropic Funds Manager at Water.org

Summary

The Philanthropic Fund Manager within the Global Impact department is primarily responsible for developing, managing, and reporting on philanthropic funding that Water.org raises to support our programmatic work across the globe. The Philanthropic Funds Manager will partner with the departments’ senior leadership as well as act as a strategic business partner and advisor to the Strategic Development team to define the vision and potential themes for each philanthropic fund (such as gender, climate, financial institutions, etc.), provide guidance on the scope and prioritization of interventions and determine appropriate timelines for each philanthropic fund.

The Philanthropic Fund Manager will leverage advanced proficiency and subject matter expertise in grant/fund management, program design and stakeholder management to drive end-to-end philanthropic fund management processes covering intervention development and management. In addition, the successful candidate will partner with Strategic Development to ensure regular performance and financial reporting to donors and related content.

Key Responsibilities

Philanthropic Fund Management (45%)

• Partner with Global Business Development global product teams (Financial Institutions and Infrastructure) to establish themes for each fund as well as criteria and guardrails for interventions.
• Establish and operationalize new philanthropic funds within agreed timelines as well as overseeing day-to-day execution of each fund.
• Develop and implement due diligence process to review and approve appropriate interventions.
• Establish and implement a clear process for reviewing and providing feedback on proposed interventions to ensure they meet criteria and guardrails.
• Establish detailed budget for the philanthropic fund by both expense category and by year.
• In partnership with Finance, establish expense tracking process for each philanthropic fund.
• Establish and implement communications plan with regional teams to review. intervention performance to date and escalating exceptions to relevant stakeholders.

Philanthropic Fund Reporting (30%)

• Partner with Finance to develop regular reporting on actual vs. budget expenses,
• Partner with Strategic Development to establish timelines and processes to collate feedback from various internal teams on philanthropic fund performance; review and ensure feedback meets the organization’s donor reporting standards.
• Partner with Global Impact Operations team to ensure effective tracking and internal reporting of philanthropic fund progress.
• Provide regular reporting updates to senior leadership both within Global Impact and for the organization’s Executive Committee as part of the monthly operating review process.

New Philanthropic Funds Development (25%)

• Partner with Chief Global Impact Officer, Global Business Development team and Regional Directors to define the ‘investment theses’ to activate strategic directions and help attract pipeline of philanthropic revenue to drive execution and positioning the organization’s unique value.
• Partner with Director of Global Impact Business Development and Strategic Development team to develop a value proposition for each philanthropic fund, including key donor messaging, vision, high level goals etc.
• Set out key requirements for the effective ongoing management of the philanthropic fund, including high level budget, intervention priorities and guardrails, reporting requirements and high level KPIs. Partner with Strategic Development to ensure fundraising activities comply with these requirements.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree and/or equivalent related working experience.
• Minimum of ten years of progressive experience developing and overseeing international development projects and/or managing philanthropic funds in impact investing sector or within a social impact organization/NGO with oversight of project due diligence, project management and stakeholder management, including:
  • Demonstrated track record of building and scaling project/program management processes to successfully deliver impact and related business results across diverse, geographically dispersed teams. Able to successfully manage oversight of multiple projects from initiation to close out.
  • Working knowledge of fund management principles and methodologies, including exposure to impact investing trends and priorities.
  • Proficient with MS Office software and related applications, with an ability to translate disparate information and data into clear, compelling visualization of programmatic and financial performance.
• Superior communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills, with demonstrated experience working in a global, multi-stakeholder environment.
• Language(s): Proficient (written and verbal) in English

Preferred:

• International NGO experience.
• Working experience within the Water and Sanitation sector and/or working with financial services and products.
• Multi-regional experience is strongly preferred.
• Language(s): Proficiency (written and verbal) in other languages is a plus!

Travel Requirement:

Up to 5% of domestic and global travel.