Development Associate at One Acre Fund

Job Description

One Acre Fund is devoted to improving our level of service to Africa’s smallholder farmers season after season. We are constantly growing in scale, impact, and sustainability; our ability to do so reliably and rapidly depends on raising an ambitious level of external funding.

We are seeking a highly capable and motivated individual to support our growing fund development team in both grant writing and reporting. We want someone who has a true passion for writing, and in particular for communicating complicated ideas in a simple way. Prior experience with grants is not required in this role – being a structured and inspiring prose writer and having a good business mind are the most important prerequisites. This person must be able to step back, understand our programs and needs, and write a strategic appeal that is well-tailored to the grant opportunity at hand. This role will likely start by writing proposals and reports for smaller grants but quickly move into the $500,000+ gift range. Beyond the scope of writing, this role will also provide support in our donor relations management process, working directly alongside account leads to ensure that our donor relationships remain close, consistent, and mutually beneficial.

This is a career-track position, with significant growth potential to take on ownership of high-level writing and reporting functions. In the long term, this position has multiple pathways to management, based on performance – including managing other team members and/or managing an independent portfolio of donor relations.

Primary Duties And Responsibilities

• Write concept notes and proposals for grants. Some key characteristics of our writing:
• We tailor our language to each new funder. Most of our funders are quite sophisticated, which keeps our proposal-writing dynamic and our work interesting.
• We emphasize clear logical flow in our writing and make heavy use of hard M&E results and projections, business rationale, and a farmer-facing perspective
• We often prepare for our writing with significant research and outreach to One Acre Fund’s field teams; an ideal candidate would be a skilled and enthusiastic researcher.
• Write high-quality reports for funders. One Acre Fund values our current funders above all others, and we work very hard to provide them with compelling, accurate, and transparent reports about our the progress and results of our field programs.
• Understand our core business intimately. We are seeking someone with a strong business mind. The professional funders we work with do not just want smooth prose – they want business rationale and a tailored message. This position would receive in-depth exposure to our field program to help build an understanding of our operations.
• Organize and execute complex projects. Our team does not have a top-down culture. We would like to hire someone who can independently drive forward execution of complex and multi-stage writing projects, with the support and input of colleagues and team leadership. This person should expect to fully own the role.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests deeply in building management and leadership skills. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through regular management consulting-style career reviews and mentorship sessions. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we discuss personal goals and work collaboratively to craft roles, stretch opportunities, and career pathways that each person can be passionate about.

Qualifications

We are seeking an exceptional professional with 2 - 5+ years of work experience and a demonstrated long-term interest in international development. We are looking for truly extraordinary candidates who will help take our organization to a new level of impact and scale. This is a competitive posting for a career-track role with a minimum initial commitment of two years. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Required: Either substantial field experience or 1+ year of professional writing experience in a related field. Ideally both!
• Very strong communication skills. At its core, this position is about communicating complex ideas in simple prose. We are looking for candidates who derive great satisfaction from this act and can demonstrate their ability to do so – in short, we are seeking writers. In your writing samples, we will be looking for confident, clear, error-free prose.
• Genuine interest in international development/agriculture. We are seeking someone with a demonstrated connection to international development/agriculture, who is truly passionate about working every day to positively impact the hardest-working farmers on the planet. Direct experience in this field is a big plus.
• Strong ability to understand business. We would like to hire someone who will truly understand our operations, and be able to communicate their ins and outs simply and effectively.
• Skill in graphic design/desktop publishing is also a plus.
• Strong undergraduate background. Candidates with graduate degrees also encouraged to apply.
• We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with patience and a humble approach to service to join our growing family of leaders.

Language: High level of English fluency required.

Preferred Start Date

Immediate

Location

New York, NY strongly preferred. Kigali, Rwanda or Nairobi, Kenya optional.

Compensation

Commensurate with experience, and dependant on location

Benefits

Health insurance in our group plan, 401k contributions, education savings contributions, flexible work environment, strong maternity/paternity benefits, sabbatical policy, and others

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes, but for Kigali location only.

East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.