Senior Finance and Grants Manager at Mercy Corps

Program / Department Summary

Mercy Corps is implementing a multi-year, 7 million USD Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) program funded by USAID. This program will engage local and national government, local civil society organizations and communities to mitigate the drivers of recruitment and building institutional capacities in P/CVE and in the delivery of support and services that will support local resilience.

The Finance and Grants Manager will provide overall leadership and oversight for the finance and grants management team under the program. They will empower the team ensuring that staff are familiar with policies and procedures related to finance and grants management, while providing quality control to ensure robust, flexible, and adaptive support to program activities. The Finance and Grants Manager must be fluent in compliance matters and help the senior management team to ensure the award is implemented in accordance with award requirements, Mercy Corps policies, USAID regulations, and local law.

Key responsibilities

Strategy and leadership

• Work with the country Senior Management, M&E and finance team members to ensure that program deliverables are aligned with value-for-money objectives and that financial milestone are proportionate to program milestones.
• Provide financial perspective in management and decision-making for the program to enhance Mercy Corps’ adaptive management.
• Ensure that all MC financial systems are efficient and are based on smooth-running infrastructure that facilitate timely and efficient program implementation.
• Provide regular review of field operations to ensure cost-effectiveness and provide guidance on improved operational practices for value-for-money.

Financial Management

• Support the program’s leadership in managing all financial operations of the program, including accounting and reporting, cash management, and budget management.
• Work with field office management teams to establish financial reporting and management systems that ensure the safety and security of MC financial resources including cash assets and records.
• Manage financial operations and reporting of majorly SAUTI program and offer support to other country programs.
• Provide monthly management reports to the Finance Director in Kenya, Chief of Party and relevant program leadership, including expenditures by fund and county, sub grantee reporting and other financial information, in a timely and accurate manner.
• Participate in developing of annual fiscal year budgets with the Finance Director and Country Director and implement grant budgeting and forecasting systems with Program Technical Leads.
• Ensure that monthly transactions are reviewed and entered in the General Ledger accurately and on timely basis.
• Provide financial advisory on overall strategic program decisions.
• Oversee the monthly review and reconciliations of balance sheet accounts (receivables, payables, advances, bank & cash reconciliations, etc.) and all the donor related expenditures.
• Review payment documents, national staff payroll and other supporting documents ensuring their compliance with the local laws, donor regulations and MC Kenya internal policies.
• Be prepared to respond to any budgetary and financial inquiries from the donor, consortium members and Mercy Corps senior management within East Africa and headquarters in Portland (USA) and Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Review the cash flow projections and request for funds from the country office.
• Ensure that the project financial operations are in compliant with all Donor and Mercy Corps policies and procedures.
• Review and track expenses and proper documentation as per Mercy Corps procedures and donor requirements for record keeping and accountancy.

Grants Management

• Provide direct oversight of sub grants and finance team including staff of consortium partners.
• Oversee and coordinate management of sub-grant agreements and financial management of sub-grants.
• Work with the program teams to verify and track budget and expenditures vis-à-vis sub-grant awards and ensure proper reporting, documentation and overall deliverables are reviewed by the program’s Senior Management and signed off on prior to issuance of payment.
• Ensure consistency across sub-grantees on basic provisions and highlight issues that could be viewed as bias or discrepancies.
• Provide regular reports on program issues, recommendations that need to be considered for operational adjustment.
• Work with Mercy Corps team members and sub grantees management teams to conduct ad-hoc audit review of field operations.
• Coordinate MC expenditure verification and program audits.
• Other financial and sub grant tasks as required.

Team management

• Create a work atmosphere conducive for professional growth and development of personnel at all levels by implementing and ensuring all staff are effectively using the performance planning and management system, establishing performance expectations, and regularly providing constructive feedback.
• Promote accountability by conducting staff annual performance reviews with direct supervisees and ensuring that supervisory staff do the same.
• Contribute to country team building efforts and ensure the integration of all team members into relevant decision-making processes.

Security and safety

• Conduct yourself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING 

• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
• Ensure that Community Accountability Reporting Mechanism (CARM) is operationalized within the program. Designate a CARM focal point for the program and ensure that program stakeholders are proactively informed of the program CARM feedback channels.
• Develop a CARM sensitization plan for feedback channels, in coordination with CARM and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) teams, to ensure the harmonization of messaging.
• Ensure that appropriate action is taken for all programmatic feedback Grades 1-4 and that it is appropriately incorporated into program activities and overall implementation strategy.

Supervisory Responsibilities

The Finance and Grants Manager will supervise the Finance Officer (s).

 Accountability

Reports Directly To: Director of Finance and Compliance

Works Directly With: Chief of Party, Program Partners, Mercy Corps Kenya Operations Director, Mercy Corps Global Compliance team

Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, business administration, public administration, economics or other relevant field; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of ten years of experience implementing donor-funded development projects, to include project administration, operations and procurement, supervisory experience and proven ability to manage teams of professionals to produce key results.
• Detailed knowledge of donor rules and regulations, preferably with experience implementing a US government-funded contract.
• Demonstrated record of results-driven project management and an ability to creatively solve complex organizational issues and foster ownership within teams; and
• Strong writing skills and experience in developing budgets and report writing.