Grant Writing and Donor Management Officer BirdLife International

BirdLife Europe is a Partnership of 45 nature conservation organisations with almost 3,000 staff, 1.9 million members and more than 6,000 reserves covering over 300,000 hectares in Europe, Central Asia and Israel. The European and Central Asian Division is an international team of permanent staff who collectively provide a wide range of experience and skills within the fields of ornithology, conservation, management, fundraising, advocacy, communication, administration.

BirdLife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources through global Partnership of over 100 countries. BirdLife Europe is the coordinating and servicing body of BirdLife International and acts as Regional Office.

Overall purpose of the job
The Grant Writing and Donor Management Officer is responsible for planning and managing all aspects of grants development and for producing strong and continuing philanthropic returns to the BirdLife Partnership.

In particular this person will prepare and submit funding applications and reports to institutional donors in order to expand and strengthen funding for the BirdLife Partnership, including secretariat operating costs.

Main duties/work programme responsabilities
General tasks

The Grant Writing and Donor Management Officer

• Develops grant proposals, inclusive of research, proposal writing, submission and reporting.
• Coordinates the planning, writing and review editing of assigned proposals, completes final proposal and support documentation, assuring timely submissions and appropriate follow-up.
• Generates and distributes accurate and timely reports on the status of related grants to senior management in BirdLife Europe
• Acknowledges all charitable contributions with appropriate written recognition.
• Utilizes database tools to capture prospective funder profiles, keeps track record of funding opportunities and proposals, arranges contacts, etc. Assure database is set up and maintained.
• Assists with the creation of grant budgets and budget reports.
• Determines grant administration requirements upon successful grant award, in coordination with BirdLife Europe admin and legal department
• Work with internal program and account managers to assure monitoring is established and carried out according to requirements.
• Prepares and files compliance/progress reports and assures information is accurate and timely for special audits required by appropriate agencies, assisting BirdLife Partners and staff in this area if needed
• Produces detailed multiannual fundraising plans, identifying areas for growth and development and outlining measurable objectives and review the success and achievements against agreed targets
• Helps develop BirdLife’s Partners fundraising capacity through innovative tools and new ideas, identifying suitable funding initiatives, calls for proposals etc.

Specific tasks

• Researches opportunities and submits applications to several European Union budget lines (especially environmental ones) for the BirdLife Europe Partnership and for other BirdLife global and regional programmes
• Secures the BirdLife Europe core funding application (LIFE+ “NGO operating grants” budget line), submitting high quality applications and reports within the agreed deadlines.
• Supports senior management in developing sponsorship or strategic partnership proposals to new Corporate donors whose priorities match those of BirdLife.
• Helps develop and implement concepts for BirdLife fundraising events in Europe, with special attention to Brussels, in collaboration with relevant BirdLife staff
• Participates in the BirdLife Fundraising co-ordination team and reports back to Senior management
• Participates in the day to day work of the organisation – such as reporting, attending team meetings, contributing to publications and taking a flexible approach to general administrative and support tasks.

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How to apply
Please submit a full CV and a comprehensive cover letter (including the qualification scores) setting out your reasons for applying for the post and outlining the qualifications experience knowledge and skills that you feel you can bring to the role. Please highlight both in the CV and the cover letter the amount of funds you have been able to raise over the last 5 years. Please note that without this information your application will be automatically discarded.

CV and cover letter (including the qualifications score) shall be submitted in English to europe@birdlife.org. Please name CV and cover letter in the following way: “your name CV grant writer” and “your name cover letter grant writer”. Deadline is the 16th October 2011 at midnight. Please consider that applications received after the closing date will be automatically discarded.

Possible interview days: 3 or 4 November 2011 (9am – 3pm)

Short listing and interviews
Short listing is based on CV and cover letter. Successful candidates will be asked to attend face to face interviews and perform an additional test. Please note that due to the large number of expected applications, only successful candidates will be contacted.