Vacancies at Village Enterprise

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and Expand Strategic Partnerships: Serve as the driving force behind Village Enterprise’s institutional fundraising strategy, with a focus on bi-lateral, multilateral, and philanthropic foundation partnerships.
• Secure and Steward Transformational Grants: Build and maintain a portfolio of high-value relationships, proactively pursuing seven-figure grants that fund strategic growth, innovation, and long-term impact.
• Own and Elevate the Proposal Development Process:
• Lead the end-to-end proposal process with excellence — from early-stage qualification and narrative framing to internal alignment, writing, budgeting, and final submission. You’ll ensure a collaborative, well-organized process that draws on program, MEL, and finance expertise, while keeping timelines, roles, and decision points clear.
• Collaborate Across the Organization: Work closely with global program, finance, MEL, and executive teams to shape funding proposals, align donor goals with program design, and ensure excellence in reporting and stewardship.
• Drive Global Visibility from a Local Base: Represent Village Enterprise in high-level donor conversations, global convenings, and collaborative initiatives — with a strong voice rooted in our work across East Africa.
• Build Systems and Strengthen the Team: Mentor junior staff and contribute to development systems that support partnership tracking, knowledge management, and continuous improvement across the institutional funding function.

Key Results

• Millions Mobilized for Mission-Aligned Growth – You will secure funding that expands our reach, strengthens local systems, and supports government-led and partner-driven scale across Africa.
• Resilient and Diverse Institutional Portfolio – Through your leadership, Village Enterprise will maintain a well-balanced mix of restricted and flexible funding from multilateral banks, major foundations, and bilateral donors.
• Cross-Functional Partnership Excellence – Program, MEL, and finance teams will feel deeply supported and aligned through your work — resulting in stronger execution, compliance, and shared success with donors.

Qualifications

• We value diverse experiences and recognize that strong candidates come from many paths. If this opportunity excites you and you believe you can succeed in this role, we encourage you to apply — even if you don’t meet every requirement.

The Ideal Candidate Will Have:

• Deep Passion for Social Impact and Systems Change – You care about ending extreme poverty and scaling solutions that are locally led and globally recognized.
• Experience Securing Large-Scale Funding – You’ve successfully secured significant institutional grants and have experience navigating donor priorities, theories of change, and proposal processes.
• Strong Strategic Thinking and Project Management Skills – You’re skilled at managing complex, multi-stakeholder processes with precision and a solutions-oriented mindset.
• Comfort with Complexity and Influence – You thrive in nuanced spaces, whether it’s aligning multiple partners around a single opportunity or navigating conversations with government agencies and major donors.
• Exceptional Written and Verbal Communication – You can turn data into compelling narratives and translate impact into fundable opportunities across a variety of audiences.
• Familiarity with African Development Contexts – You bring professional experience from within East Africa or have worked closely with governments, INGOs, or implementing partners in the region.

Education

• Master’s degree strongly preferred in a relevant field such as: International Development, Public Policy, Business Administration (MBA) or Economics, Nonprofit Management, Economics or Political Science
• A bachelor’s degree combined with substantial experience may also be acceptable, especially if supplemented by relevant certifications or fellowships.

Professional Experience

• 10+ years of professional experience, including:
• At least 5–7 years of experience in institutional fundraising or partnership development within the global development, humanitarian, or nonprofit sector.
• Demonstrated success managing donor portfolios that include bilateral (e.g., USAID, FCDO), multilateral (e.g., World Bank, UN agencies), and major foundations (e.g., Gates Foundation, Hilton, Skoll, Ford, etc.).
• Strong track record of securing large-scale grants, particularly multi-year grants exceeding USD $1 million.
• Experience working in or closely with programs based in Africa, preferably East Africa.
• Experience leading cross-functional proposal development, including budgeting and collaborating with technical, MEL, and finance teams.
• Experience managing or mentoring teams, with a focus on professional development and collaboration.

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• The Head of Research will play a critical leadership role in advancing Village Enterprise’s mission by ensuring the rigor, quality, and relevance of all externally conducted rigorous impact evaluation activities. This role will also oversee the organization’s innovations pipeline, ensuring that promising concepts are rigorously tested and provide evidence for scale. While the Head of Research will not directly lead program monitoring and evaluation (M&E)—which falls under the mandate of the M&E Lead—they will work closely with the M&E team and other internal and external stakeholders to support the development and implementation of program learning agendas, as capacity allows.

Responsibilities

• External Research Leadership and Management
• Form external research partnerships, including maintaining an active network with academic institutions, evaluation firms, and research consultants, and leading and disseminating formal requests for proposals. Serve as the primary liaison for those partnerships
• Ensure that all research conducted aligns with Village Enterprise’s strategic objectives, complies with ethical standards, and delivers actionable insights.
• Manage the design, implementation, and dissemination of rigorous research studies, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental evaluations.
• Oversee the development of research protocols, data collection plans, and analysis frameworks in collaboration with external evaluators.
• Facilitate the integration of research findings into organizational strategy and programmatic decision-making.
• Implement targeted training and knowledge-sharing initiatives to strengthen internal and partner team capacity to productively engage with Village Enterprise’s rigorous research programming
• Innovations Pipeline Oversight
• Collaborate with program and technical teams to identify priority areas for innovation and experimentation.
• Lead the identification of innovative solutions to poverty graduation following human centered design principles
• Lead the design, and testing of innovative approaches to poverty graduation following lean impact principles
• Ensure right-fit rigorous evaluation of fully developed innovations to determine their impact and potential for scale, working closely with external partners and Village Enterprise’s leadership. This includes, the analysis and reporting for internal experiments
• Implement targeted training and knowledge-sharing initiatives to strengthen internal and partner team capacity to productively engage with Village Enterprise’s innovations pipeline programming.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Dissemination
• Present research findings and insights to donors, partners, and policymakers through reports, presentations, and thought leadership engagements.
• Support the development of Village Enterprise’s position as a thought leader in the poverty graduation space.
• Build and maintain relationships with academic and research networks to stay at the forefront of industry advancements.
• Contributions to Learning Agendas
• Support internal project teams in developing and executing project learning agendas when time allows.
• Share best practices from external research to enhance internal learning frameworks.
• Communications, Fundraising, and Administrative
• Represent Village Enterprise in partnership/fundraising meetings and events as appropriate
• Support fundraising efforts as relevant
• Inform and monitor annual budget allocations for research and innovations pipeline activities
• Other administrative duties as requested

Requirements

Required Skills and Experience

• Advanced degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in Economics, Development Economics, Statistics, Development Studies, International Development, Public Policy, Design Thinking, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in research management, preferably in international development or poverty reduction.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and managing RCTs and other rigorous evaluation methods.
• Firm grasp of modern product design principles, methods, and approaches (ex., human centered design, lean impact, scrum)
• Proven ability to manage complex stakeholder relationships, including with external evaluators, academic institutions, and donors.
• Strong analytical skills, with a track record of translating complex research findings into actionable insights.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present to diverse audiences.
• Experience working in cross-cultural settings, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Proficiency in statistical software package Stata or R.