ISEAL is looking for a professional with experience in the administration of grant-fund projects to fill this new role. The Associate Manager, Grants Administration will support a range of ISEAL projects and programmes that champion innovation and improvements to sustainability standards and support multi-stakeholder efforts to address sustainability challenges, like deforestation, climate, inequality, and poverty. The Associate Manager will coordinate between project, fundraising, and finance staff to deliver on a range of operational and administrative responsibilities that are critical to the success of these projects. If you have experience administering complex projects funded through multi-lateral and bilateral donors and private foundations, this might be an exciting opportunity for you.
The Associate Manager will have a key role to play in ensuring donor compliance, budget management and reporting, working closely with project leads for each grant-funded project. As this is a new role and ISEAL is continuously improving project and grant management systems, there may be a need to create or adapt processes in liaison with colleagues.
We are looking for someone with existing experience in donor compliance, reporting, and budget oversight for complex, multi-year projects funded by international grants in multiple currencies, ideally in a sustainability or international development context. The ideal candidate will have a proven capacity to work across diverse programmes and functional areas and an ability to build strong internal relationships with colleagues engaged in project / programme delivery, finance, and fundraising.
With great attention to detail and strong analytical skills, the successful applicant will have a track record of reviewing donor rules and providing guidance on how to meet procurement, communications, data and other requirements and in setting up and managing effective systems, templates and processes. The final candidate will have demonstrable skills in taking projects/programme data and information and turning this into reports meeting the requirements of each donor and in supporting project leads with adaptive budget and project management over time. An interest in issues such as sustainability, international development or corporate responsibility will also be needed.
The key responsibilities we will entrust you with:
Operational project administration
• Oversee administration for several major, multi-component projects from different international donors liaising with multiple project leads
• Monitor expenditure vs. budgets, support project staff in understanding results and with implementing quarterly reforecasts, note variances and make recommendations to address emerging issues
• Oversee delivery of donor compliance processes:
o Prepare overview of key donor requirements and contract templates, liaising with Director, Finance & Operations and Manager, Partnerships
o Ensure project staff are familiar with requirements and support staff with their application
o Maintain procurement and contract templates
o Keep appropriate non-financial records for auditing purposes
o Prepare communications guidelines for events and deliverables and ensure relevant colleagues are briefed on their application
o Ensure compliance issues are raised and addressed in a timely manner with relevant team members
• Work with the Manager, Partnerships to support with the coordination of timely narrative and financial donor reporting
• Coordinate with project leads on data collection and reporting on logframes and M&E indicators
• Support project leads with consultant contracting, following ISEAL and donor procurement guidelines, and monitor contracts and payments
• Ensure project staff are familiar with "value for money” policy, track relevant information, and produce donor reports
• Collaborate with and support the finance team during grant-related audits
• Set up, monitor and update risk register for projects
Process improvements
• Support standardisation of organisation´s approach to project risk management
• Contribute to optimisation of budget templates and budgeting approaches (e.g., standardised costing) and other project management systems
Other process support
• Provide support in developing budgets for new grants
• Support organisation-level budget staff time reforecasting (beyond own projects)
General
• Be a collaborative and effective team member, liaising with colleagues at all levels across the organisation where needed
• Additional responsibilities as assigned by supervisor
Essential experience, knowledge and attributes
• Educated to degree level in a relevant subject and/or equivalent professional experience in related field
• Solid experience developing administrative procedures and budgets, and ensuring donor compliance for complex, multi-year projects funded by multi-lateral and bi-lateral donors and private foundations.
• Ability to communicate and work effectively with cross-functional teams and across organisation in a fully remote, international environment, including regular international calls across different time-zones
• Proven ability to communicate administrative and compliance requirements with project staff and build buy-in and engagement
• Track record of facilitating collection and provision of data and other inputs to high quality, complex donor reports
• Strong knowledge of nonprofit budgeting and budget management, including experience managing budgets in foreign currencies
• Strong attention to detail, analytical skills and ability to synthesise information clearly
• Advanced proficiency in excel and data manipulation and strong ability to detect errors in spreadsheets
• Excellent written and spoken English, good proofreading skills, and confidence in communications with peers and external partners
• Proficient IT skills, familiarity with virtual meeting tools (e.g. Teams, Zoom, etc.)
Additionally desirable
• Familiarity extracting data from financial or customer relationship management systems
• Report design and formatting skills
About ISEAL
ISEAL supports ambitious sustainability systems and their partners to tackle the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges – from the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis to human rights and persistent poverty. ISEAL Community Members include many of the most respected sustainability schemes worldwide and are active across a diverse range of sectors. Read more about us on our website www.iseal.org.
ISEAL´s culture and how we will help you thrive
Our values are Connection, Empowerment, Inspiration, Wellbeing, Effective Working and Creativity.
These are traits we value in each other and in the organisation overall and we instil these in all our processes and interactions.
The issues we work on are of a global nature and our team reflects this, with individuals from many different backgrounds and nationalities. We know this diversity adds to the high quality of work we deliver as an organisation and through our commitment to diversity and inclusion we want to add strengths and perspectives in our team with each recruitment. Diversity for us includes race and gender identity, age, disability status, sexual orientation, religion and many other areas forming part of someone´s identity. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer.
As an organisation, we also support our people in their personal and professional development, with specific budgets and processes enabling individuals to take advantage of growth and development opportunities.
We offer 25 days of annual leave, to which we will add a day a year after 2 years (to a maximum of 30 days), as well as an extra five days as a one off once you have been with us for a full five years.
We recognise individuals’ preferences when it comes to where and when to work through a hybrid working model with a minimum of 4 days per month in the London office as well as the opportunity to apply for flexible working arrangements to suit individual´s needs.
Other relevant information
Term: This is an initial contract of one year with the possibility of extension
Salary: £43,000-48,000 p.a. depending on experience (full time, 37.5 hours per week)
Location: London is the preferred location. Applicants will need to provide evidence that they are entitled to work in the UK. An ability and willingness to work in a hybrid work environment is required.
International travel: The post holder may be required to undertake occasional international travel
How to apply
Please use this link to apply: https://wkf.ms/3tMUmcg
Specific enquiries about this role and the application process can be sent to recruitment@isealalliance.org.
Deadline for applications is 23 November 2023, 5pm GMT.
Please note that we will only contact shortlisted applicants.
