Technical Advisor Organizational Capacity Strengthening, Small Grants Program

POSITION: Technical Advisor Organizational Capacity Strengthening, Small Grants Program

REPORTS TO: Small Grants Program Project Manager

LOCATION: East Africa

HIRING NEED: March 2025 – December2027; 80% position, reducing to 50% in last year

BACKGROUND

CORE Group fosters collaborative action and learning to improve and expand community-focused public health practices. Established in 1997 in Washington D.C., CORE Group is an independent not-for- profit hybrid, membership organization, and home of the International Community Health Network, which brings together over 15,000 global health practitioners- CORE Group member organizations, scholars, advocates, and donors to support the global health of underserved women, children, adolescents, and communities around the world. Learn more here: www.coregroup.org.

Following upon a successful phase 1 of a small grants program in South and East Asia, CORE Group is developing and implementing Phase 2 of a participatory 3-year small grants program to advance Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) programming, policy, and interventions in priority countries within East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Malawi) by providing financial, SRMNCAH technical, and organizational resources to local women-led, youth-led, people with disabilities-led organizations, and other community-based organizations. This approach will strengthen local and national organizations’ technical and organizational capacity to design and implement community-based solutions to SRMNCAH challenges, focusing on gender transformation, quality of care, and health equity.

The project will primarily focus on the overall outcome of: Community-based solutions for SRMNCAH developed in this project strengthen the national health system to become sustainable in the longer term.

Additionally, the project has the following objectives:

Objective1: To strengthen the technical and organizational capacity of selected partners implementing SRMNCAH programs

Objective 2: To provide critical financial resources to women-led, youth-led, people with disabilities-led organizations, and other minorities-led organizations to implement SRMNCAH programs.

Objective 3: To construct an improved grantmaking mechanism for RMNCAH through a participatory approach of all the parties involved in the small grants program.

Objective 4: To implement successful RMNACH interventions in three selected countries, with a particular focus on women and girls.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Technical Advisor – Organizational Capacity Strengthening, Small Grants Program will be responsible for leading the organizational assessment, capacity strengthening and development of civil society organizations (CSOs) that are awarded small grants under the 3-year SRMNCAH Small Grants Project. The CSOs will be implementing SRMNCAH interventions, however, participatory CSO organizational strengthening is also a main objective of the project, as well as localization, equity, and decolonization in small grants programs.

The Technical Advisor – Organizational Capacity Strengthening will work closely with the Project Manager to coordinate outreach to civil society during the small grants process and associated capacity strengthening activities. This includes participatory assessment of institutional development needs of local organizations, providing training to CSOs to strengthen their capacities in organizational systems, planning, budgets, gender policies, governance structures, strategic planning, safeguarding policies, communications, and policy and programs infrastructure, and more.

• Additionally, the Technical Advisor

Organizational Capacity Strengthening will work with the Project Manager on creating the long-and short-term project strategy, developing the monitoring, evaluation and learning process, report writing, external relations, donor relations, and other aspects of the project, related to the strengthening of the organizational capacity of CSOs.

• Salary range: $55,000

$60,000 annual salary plus employee benefits. (This reflects the 80% position)

RESPONSIBILITIES

General responsibilities will include, but not be limited to the following:

Provide CSO Organizational Capacity Strengthening technical support for project-subgrantees

• Identify institutional development needs of local CSOs sub-awardees, in a participatory assessment;
• Develop and coordinate relevant training programs to respond to the needs identified during the assessments.
• Provide skills training to CSOs to strengthen their organizational management and accountability.
• Coordinate with the Project Manager for all aspects of project planning, monitoring, and evaluation, to achieve project results.
• Develop an overall capacity-building strategy that will sustainably strengthen the capacity of CSO sub-grantees.
• Establish collaborative partnerships with implementing sub-grantees, technical experts, and other stakeholders.
• In collaboration with the Project Manager, develop an internal and external learning agenda to capture all aspects of learning from the start of the project, in the organizational capacity strengthening areas.
• Provide technical support to staff and local partners in ensuring capacity strengthening activities are promoting best practices as appropriate to the needs of the organizations.
• Ensure appropriate mix and balance of training, technical assistance, coaching, mentoring, and information sharing.
• Ensure a gender-transformative approach to the organizational capacity strengthening of the project through clear protocols, guidelines, SOPs, etc., in collaboration with the Project team.
• Develop and draft program work plans, reports and other documentation as needed, such as training and resource materials, presentations, etc., in collaboration with the Project team.
• Contribute to the robust participatory M&E framework, that ensures accountability, learning, and monitoring for the organizational strengthening aspects of the project
• Monitor and track organizational needs and improvements to document organizational strengthening.
• Support communications and advocacy on the project including the collection and dissemination of success stories and lessons learned related to organizational strengthening.
• Contribute to the creation, collection, and documentation of knowledge about the project through the analysis of the project strategies, approaches and ongoing experience for lessons learned, best practices, and use this knowledge for information sharing, planning future strategies, and possible scale up, specifically for the CSO organizational strengthening of the project.
• Implement innovative approaches to ensure the effectiveness of training and organizational capacity development initiatives.

Partnership development & external relations

• Participate in and lead external meetings and conferences, as requested, to share the organizational capacity strengthening progress and learning for the project
• Collaborate in regional and global forums and convenings on CSO organizational strengthening, convene civil society organizations around organizational strengthening issues related to the project, and ensure decolonization and equity approaches to all partnerships with global, regional and country-level partners.
• Develop and maintain relationships with the CORE Group Working Group Co-chairs, and relevant CORE Group members working on localization, CSO organizational capacity strengthening, and other relevant topics
• Maintain external communication with the donor and other stakeholders, in conjunction with the project team, as requested.

REQUIREMENTS

• Master’s degree in international studies, organizational management, administration or similar educational training.
• Minimum of five years of experience providing organizational capacity-building support through training, consultations and other mechanisms to CSOs with varying levels of organizational capacity. Capacity experience can include assisting organizations with internal policies, structural organizational strengthening, human resources, finance, business development, and other topics that enable organizational strength.
• Minimum three years substantive training experience, including the design, facilitation and delivery of participatory trainings and training-of-trainer workshops for adult learners.
• At least three years of project management and/or supervisory experience.
• Experience providing capacity strengthening around policy advocacy, research and publication, coalition building, and media engagement.
• Proven project management skills including project development, monitoring and evaluation and report writing.
• Demonstrated experience with gender transformative approaches, equity, localization and decolonization principles and approaches.
• Proven interpersonal and written/oral communication skills and the ability to lead/work with diverse and multidisciplinary teams; Experience leading and working with remote teams, delegating effectively, and managing multiple time zones.
• Experience working with an international non-governmental organizations is desired.
• Experience in Microsoft Suite, Office365, video conferencing software, and project management software (Mondays.com).
• Ability to multi-task, solve problems and manage multiple deadlines.
• Must have the ability to work with flexibility in a team setting.
• Oral and written fluency in English required; Knowledge of French, Swahili or other local languages is preferred.
• Based in East Africa with work authorization.

Individuals from the Global South are encouraged to apply, as well as women, people living with disabilities, indigenous persons, and members of the LGBTQI+ community.