Senior Manager - Impact and Partnerships at M-KOPA Solar

M-KOPA Impact, the impact measurement and impact projects team within M-KOPA, is looking for a Senior Manager- Impact and Partnerships with a strong track record in grant-raising and impact measurement to join its growing team.

The role will be two-fold:

• Impact Measurement and Communications: Owning and leading all impact measurement and storytelling to investors and the wider world and actively working to refine M-KOPA’s impact narratives, all the while working to improve credibility and industry alignment of our impact metrics
• Partnerships: Leading all grant-raising pursuits from end to end, starting with building leads for grant financing primarily from private foundations and corporates, qualifying those leads, and taking them to contract signature.

Roles and Responsibilities

Impact Measurement and Communication:

Partnerships

• Be M-KOPA’s impact measurement champion - influencing teams to embed impact goals and measurement across the organization
• Owning delivery of M-KOPA’s impact reporting to investors and the wider ecosystem, including leading M-KOPA’s annual impact report
• Continuously improve and execute an overall strategy for the collection and analysis of impact data, both quantitative and qualitative, from different sources
• Staying abreast of, and applying, best practices in impact measurement to the role, including saying familiar with industry standards and aligning M-KOPA’s practice to these.
• Working with independent impact measurement providers and with impact project teams to share and disseminate high-quality, data and evidence-based impact narratives.
• Collaborate with the senior management team to lead and manage a strong pipeline of projects that leverage concessional funding (grants) and M-KOPA’s unique capabilities to deepen impact in an existing area (e.g close the gender gap in smartphone ownership) or support new product development (e.g electric mobility financing). Your key role is leading the grant fundraising process and managing funder relationships.
• Lead, manage, and develop and strong grant fund opportunities that align with the company’s impact pillars/themes
• Manage the end-to-end fundraising cycle, including writing proposals and working with project teams to define the scope and budget for projects
• Lead on managing operational relationships with funding partners, developing them to become long-term partners
• Supporting the project management team with reporting to funding partners (working with other members of staff who will lead on the provision of content).

Skills and experience required:

• A minimum of 4 to 6 years experience, ideally a mix of impact measurement and business development/grant fundraising experience
• 1 to 3 years of industry/sector experience and/or a strong understanding of the African context;
• Strong proposal/project/sales pipeline management skills;
• Prior experience working with development organizations and foundations is an advantage;
• An entrepreneurial nature and strong business acumen with an understanding of social enterprises or private sector development in emerging markets;
• Exceptional communications skills with the ability to create compelling and concise narratives for a range of audiences using Word and PowerPoint;
• Superb problem-solving skills and the ability to see ‘the big picture;
• Strong organizational skills and ability to prioritize to meet deadlines in a fast-moving environment;

In addition, the candidate will have:

• Strong relationships with development donors and corporate philanthropists.
• Passion for the role of mobile technology in development.
• Comfortable working with remote teams, startups, and/or social enterprises.
• Understanding of the donor landscape (aid agencies, private foundations, multilateral, etc.) is desirable