Current Opportunities at World Resources Institute (WRI)

Job Highlight: 

• As the Development Specialist - WRI Africa, your primary responsibility will be to lead the proposal development process and manage local and regional partnerships to improve WRI Africa’s ability to attract and deliver large-scale funding in seven and eight figure range. Working with the Senior Development Manager, WRI Africa Programmes Teams, and other teams, you will help develop and implement strategies to achieve sustainable funding that aligns with the ambition and opportunities of WRI Africa's goals. You will have fundraising experience, and a proven record of accomplishment of securing grants from foundations, governments, and multilateral organizations. You will oversee prospect research, lead on proposal writing, internal project framing and support on donor stewardship. You will participate in joint fundraising across the organization to produce compelling multi-faceted proposals for major awards and enhance individual project and Africa office development strategies and proposals. You will also contribute to the development of relevant fundraising strategies related to WRI Africa's portfolio, and matrix into WRI's global development team to ensure coordination with other WRI Programs, Centers, and International Offices while ensuring following WRI's development processes.

You will report to the Senior Development Manager with a dotted line to the Deputy Regional Director.

Some international travel may be required. Fluency in French is a significant advantage.

What will you do:

Proposal Development and Internal Coordination (70%):

• Lead on drafting responses to funding opportunities based on inputs from WRI Africa Programmes Teams and ensuring submission of quality concept notes and proposals including accurate budgets.
• Oversee internal organization for bid development, ensuring strict adherence to established internal development processes.
• Draft strategic briefs and presentations to inform and guide important interactions and dialogues with prospective donors.
• Support annual and multi-year project planning efforts to ensure the development of aligned projects, and compelling offers, to ensure strategic engagement on fundraising priorities and opportunities.
• Communicate donor restrictions and reporting requirements; monitor compliance in collaboration with WRI Africa’s operations team
•  Ensure adherence to WRI’s fundraising & development guidelines and corporate vetting procedures, working with colleagues in WRI Africa and on the Global Development team
• Work with the Senior Development Manager to strengthen and lead fundraising coordination and proposal development processes in WRI Africa, with WRI’s Global Development team

Donor Stewardship and Prospect Development (30%):

• Support in identifying, and researching new major prospective donors and funding opportunities in the six and seven-figure range.
• Assist in the development and implementation of strategies aimed at achieving sustainable funding that aligns with the ambition and opportunities of WRI Africa.
• Contribute to the development and management of external partnerships to enhance WRI’s ability and position the organization to attract and deliver large-scale multi-year funding.
• Engage in direct fundraising activities such as proposal pitches, strategic partnership development meetings and donor cultivation engagements jointly with other WRI Africa Team members. 
• Directly support the WRI Africa programmes team in donor cultivation efforts with current and prospective donors, arranging meetings, leading preparations, and tracking donor engagement with an emphasis on enhancing relationship-building efforts.
• Actively manage a revenue and opportunity pipeline for WRI Africa on Salesforce and lead regular reviews with WRI Africa leadership to ensure a proactive strategy for revenue management and development is maintained.
• Support donor relationship management by working with program teams to track all donor outreach activities in Salesforce and ensure appropriate follow-up on donor requests.
• Provide expert development advice, including training and strategy development, to WRI Africa managers.

What will you need:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in environmental science, international development, public administration, social sciences or related subject required
• Experience: Minimum 5 years of relevant, full-time experience including 2 additional years of experience in a development position with major fundraising responsibilities
• International experience strongly preferred with prior experience of working in the development field and preferably in the international NGO sector is essential.
• Excellent prospect research skills; understanding of what constitutes relevant and strategic information and how to analyze the data to support prospect development
• Excellent proofreading experience to translate technical information into lay language; experience developing and organizing proposals for varying audiences
• Working knowledge of MS Office 365, SharePoint and Salesforce
• Excellent communication skills to diplomatically guide peers and directors through strategy conception to concrete proposed deliverables focused on impact at global scale
• Languages: English. Fluency in French both spoken and oral is an added advantage
• Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization

go to method of application »

• You will help WRI Africa shape our strategy related to urban data and guide the development of data products—both datasets and digital applications—to meet the needs of important urban stakeholders. You will ensure user research is at the heart of a data and product strategy. You will manage stakeholder relationships, make recommendations for digital products, and manage teams to support use of these products. You may also be called upon to directly manage the delivery of important projects. The near-term projects you will support have goals ranging from planning for sustainable urban growth; avoid extreme urban heat; fill gaps in data on African cities and climate resilience for the most vulnerable urban residents. You will sit in the Cities Program in WRI Africa and be affiliated with Urban Data & Tools team in WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and the WRI Data Lab.

You will report to the Director of WRI Africa Cities and work with the global manager of Cities Data and Tools and the Global Network Lead for WRI’s Data Lab.

What will you do:

Guide Strategic Direction of Data Products and Programs (40%):

• Develop a cohesive strategy for urban data and associated tooling in partnership with managers and technical teams
• Contribute to the design of new data applications and products, ensuring they stay true to a cohesive overall strategic direction and are responsive to user needs
• Manage small, matrixed teams of analysts, coordinators, and specialists, both internal and external resources, to achieve projects with oversight from managers
• Stay up to date with developments and changes in the landscape of data for African sustainable development, and ensure WRI’s strategy remains aligned. This will involve conducting market research for new tools and programs
• Work with senior staff from the Cities and Data teams on the strategic development and management of urban data work in Africa
• Support fundraising, including encouraging new project opportunities and prospective donors and preparing proposals
• Partner with internal staff to coordinate fundraising opportunities within the Africa Cities team related to urban data

Project and Product management (30%):

• Initiate new projects, creating initial work plans, budgets and organizational structures designed to align the project to goals and main success criteria
• Guide the delivery of large-scale products through the whole product lifecycle through best practices in technical delivery.
• Maintain clear and comprehensive project documentation
• Communicate work to non-technical, senior audiences internally and externally to ensure clarity and understanding
• Work with Monitoring and Evaluation teams to define methods and metrics for measuring product success. This can include product analytics and Indicators
• Oversee vendor procurement and relationship management, including contracts, creating work plans, and managing deadlines and budget

Relationship Management, User Research (20%):

• Develop relationships with stakeholders and current and prospective product users
• Collaborate with communications colleagues to lead outreach to reach target audiences and initiate opportunities for collaboration and engagement with partners
• Work with the Data Lab’s User Research Lead to organize and run events for user research and engagement, such as interviews, trainings or workshops
• Design and manage user research activities, with User Research Lead, to support the development and testing of products and services
• Monitor user engagement throughout the lifecycle of a product or service. Use these findings to inform ongoing development, engagement, continuous improvement and measurement, evaluation, and learning

Communications (10% of time):

• Communicate to internal and external audiences using clear writing, data visualization, and presentation skills
• Guide analysts in developing analyses and data communications materials required to meet project needs
• Lead the drafting of blogs, technical notes, and papers
• Apply basic knowledge of frontend frameworks for data visualization
• Apply basic knowledge of cartographic principles and map design tools and practices

What will you need:

• Education: A BA or BS degree in a relevant field 
• Experience: Minimum 5 years of full-time work experience. Implement user research best practices.
• Experience Lead technology product development, working with external vendors
• Coordinate partnerships of partners, donors, and governments
• Facilitate vendor procurement processes
• Experience with project management practices.
• Past work in an urban policy or planning context or with urban data.
• Languages: You have verbal and written proficiency in English  and additional fluency in more or more language spoken in WRI Africa focus countries
• Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization