[Hiring] Business Development Specialist II @Catholic Relief Services | CRS

Role Description

The Institutional Funding Department within CRS’ Global Resource Engagement and Mobilization Division works with teams across all CRS regions and program areas to strategically position and pursue funding with institutional donors. The Business Development Specialist II position sits within the global Business Development (BD) Service Team and leads the production of high-quality funding applications in support of CRS’ engagement with those institutional donors and initiatives involved in international development to serve the poor and vulnerable.

The position utilizes knowledge and skills to provide specialized assistance in all dimensions of the Business Development (BD) cycle across disciplines and functional teams.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

• Provide BD expertise to country leadership and proposal teams in positioning, capture planning and proposal preparation for specific opportunities with institutional donors (government, multilateral, foundations, corporations and other awarding non-governmental organizations).
• Manage pre-positioning, capture and proposal development processes to ensure timely execution and submission of high-quality proposals that are responsive to donor requirements, applicable regulations, and CRS’ technical and cost standards.
• Deploy as proposal coordinator, and advise on opportunity analysis, lead go/no-go decisions, capture planning, and coordinate partner inputs and proposal review panels.
• Deploy as a lead or support writer on proposals, contributing both technical and non-technical content and integrating inputs from staff and partners into a responsive, coherent proposal with a compelling vision and clear win themes.
• Deploy as budget lead or to support the lead in developing proposal budgets. Provide recommendations to develop a competitive proposal, as required.
• Guide and advise on partner identification and negotiating CRS’ role in proposal consortia. Ensure a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
• Liaise with senior management and donor engagement focal points to develop a resource mobilization strategy for a specific region, country, sector, or donor. Support senior management in cultivating and strengthening relationships with institutional donors, partner organizations and other stakeholders.
• Research, track and analyze new opportunities and CRS’ competitive position within the marketplace.
• Lead and/or support development of CRS BD tools, resources and guidance on BD best practices and CRS approaches across the BD cycle.
• Train and mentor staff, as needed, to improve their skills across the CRS BD Cycle, including in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing within their country program or portfolio.
• Work with appropriate staff to maintain data on past performance and corporate capacity, to provide timely information for proposal submissions.
• Actively contribute to CRS' Business Development Community of Practice and advance CRS' Business Development practices through contributions to strategic initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in international development, international relations, or related field.
• Minimum eight years of international development experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in international development, international relations, or related field.
• At least three years' experience in a developing country.
• Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position an organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships.
• Demonstrated experience leading and producing competitive proposals in programming contexts similar to CRS.
• Experience with both grants and contract funding mechanisms.
• Demonstrated experience leading project teams and processes to produce deliverables under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality.
• Experience providing remote support to diverse teams.
• Experience in developing content for and facilitating trainings related to key business development practices. Knowledge of adult learning approaches.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture.
• Familiarity with relevant institutional donor regulations, policies, procedures and priorities.
• Comprehensive familiarity with a broad range of institutional donor technical and cost requirements. Experience with pursuing funding with donors including World Bank, FDCO, EU, USG, foundations and corporations preferred.
• Strong relationship management skills. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Ability to strategically approach each relationship.
• Excellent negotiation skills.
• Exceptional writing skills with expert command of English grammar and AP style. Spanish, French, or another common institutional donor language a plus.
• Strong communications and presentation skills.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented mindset.
• Knowledge of CRS programs, justice agenda and Catholic Social Teaching principles a plus.
• Knowledge of MS Windows and MS Office packages, information management systems, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Required Languages

• Fluency in English required; working ability in Spanish and/or French preferred.

Travel

• Must be willing and able to travel up to 35%.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• None