The Strategic Partnerships Manager (Business Development and Communications) role at World Relief is crucial for driving the organization's growth and visibility in the East Africa region. The position requires a blend of strategic relationship building, aggressive business development, and effective communications and marketing leadership to secure funding and enhance World Relief's brand amongst professional audiences and donors. The incumbent must be committed to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief.
Role & Responsibilities
The responsibilities are divided into three core areas:
Partnership’s Development and External Engagement (30%)
- Develop and Nurture Key External Relationships: Identify, cultivate, and maintain strategic relationships with key external stakeholders, including institutional donors, foundations, private sector, government agencies, and industry influencers that lead to quantifiable co-creation opportunities.
- Strategic Liaison: On behalf of the Country Director, serve as the primary point of contact and representative for the organization in external forums, conferences, and high-level meetings.
- Lead Partnership and Alliance Management: Develop a data-driven client management process to manage the lifecycle of all external partnerships, from initial contact and negotiation to formal agreements and ongoing relationship management.
- Drive Thought Leadership and Brand Visibility: Collaborate with the Country Director and Programs Manager to develop and execute a proactive external engagement strategy. This includes identifying speaking opportunities, participating in panels, and co-creating content with partners to enhance the organization's reputation and reach amongst professional audiences and donors.
Business Development (50%)
- Lead Landscape Analyses: Conduct landscape analyses, trends, and competitive intelligence to identify the most strategic partnerships with public and foundation donor markets, with a focus on fostering local partnerships.
- Support Technical Teams: Support technical teams to draft high-quality positioning materials as necessary, including capability statements, impact briefs, and fact sheets that articulate the technical value proposition and past performance.
- Promote Donor Relations: Lead on promoting donor relations; participate in calls with select donors, represent World Relief at donor meetings as needed; and communicate relevant priorities to donors and internally.
- Track Opportunities: Lead the tracking of donor, potential donor, and umbrella websites for Requests for Applications (RFAs) and proposal submission opportunities aligned with World Relief’s priority sectors.
- Conduct Background Research: Conduct background research on proposal opportunities to determine World Relief’s competitiveness and strategic positioning and develop robust Go/No-Go recommendations for the Senior Management Team (SMT).
- Lead Capture Management: Lead and manage the full cycle of proposal development (Capture Management), including capture strategy, management of proposal teams, calendars, and deadlines; strategy development with technical teams; partner identification and negotiations; recruiting; writing support and submission.
- Quality Control: Support the programs team to ensure quality design & draft non-technical sections of concept notes and proposals and/or serve as a point of quality control for all proposals.
- Financial Liaison: Liaise with finance teams to ensure standard budget allocations and relevant approval in proposals.
- Accountability: Accountable for tracking the process from assignment (concept note, EOI, proposal development) to submission through business development tools & processes.
- Process Improvement and Capacity Strengthening: Lead on process improvement and capacity strengthening by developing and modelling the use of BD tools, templates, shared workspace, and work processes that result in streamlined and efficient proposal development and teamwork. Ensure documentation and resources needed for proposal development are up to date and filed appropriately in the knowledge management system.
Communications and Marketing (20%)
- Strategic Communications, Marketing & Brand Leadership: Provide strategic direction to develop and implement an integrated communications, digital, and external engagement strategy that elevates the WR brand profile. This includes developing a clear brand vision, crafting compelling messages, ensuring excellence in all communications materials, and building a strong media and influencer network to position WR as a thought leader.
- Content Creation Oversight: Oversee the creation of compelling content, leveraging digital storytelling, multimedia assets (video/infographics), press releases, articles, and briefs, ensuring all content clearly articulates WR's impact and technical value proposition.
Qualifications and Experience
- University education in a relevant field required (social sciences, communications & marketing, applied sciences, business, or similar).
- An advanced degree or professional qualifications are an added advantage.
- Minimum of 7 years of experience in development contexts with extensive proposal writing experience with institutional and foundation donors.
 Kenya.png){kind=logo}
