Business Development Specialist II At Catholic Relief Services

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

Job Summary:

CRS’ Institutional Donor Engagement and Advancement (IDEA) department advances the agency’s strategic position by engaging new and existing institutional donors to acquire and steward resources that deliver excellent programs to advance Vision 2030, CRS’ Agency Strategy. Teams within the department focus on three main areas: engaging donors and strategic partners, acquiring new business, and delivering on the outcomes as outlined in the institutional award agreements, in compliance with donor requirements. The Business Development (BD) Specialist is part of IDEA’s Growth Strategy and Support Unit (GSSU), which is a team that provides high-quality surge support to CRS country programs, regions and HQ teams on strategic funding opportunities. The position will provide specialized assistance in all dimensions of the BD cycle to cross-disciplines and cross-functional teams. Open to the position being be based in CRS’ Baltimore headquarters as well as for the position to be telecommuting.

Responsibilities:

• Provide BD expertise in positioning, capture planning and proposal preparation for specific opportunities with institutional donors (government and inter-governmental award issuing organizations, as well as foundations, corporations and other awarding non-governmental organizations). Emphasis will be on US government donor agencies (including USAID, CDC and the Department of State) across both assistance and acquisition mechanisms.
• Serve as a proposal coordinator or other lead role on a proposal team, ensuring the timely submission of high-quality proposals that are responsive to donor requirements, applicable regulations, and CRS’ technical and cost standards.
• Lead and support proposal budget processes, working with technical staff, management and partner staff to integrate inputs into a responsive, cost competitive proposal budget.
• 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 in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing within their country program or portfolio.
• Support and guide identification of partners and negotiation of CRS’ role on proposal consortia, ensuring a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
• As appropriate, support senior management to cultivate and strengthen institutional relationships with institutional donors, partner organizations and other stakeholders.
• Serve as a GSSU Regional Point of Contact with one or more CRS regions, maintaining regular contact with Regional BD Managers to identify surge support needs and serving as a resource for targeted BD guidance.
• Actively contribute to CRS’ Business Development Community of Practice and advance CRS’ Business Development practices through contributions to strategic initiatives and annual summits.

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

Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 20%.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture.
• Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
• Excellent negotiation skills.
• Strong communications and presentation skills.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in international development, international relations, or related field. Master’s degree a plus.
• Minimum five years of international development experience.
• Three years’ experience in a developing country preferred.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position his/her organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships.
• Demonstrated experience leading and producing competitive applications and proposals in programming contexts similar to CRS. Strong preference for experience leading complex US government proposal processes, including in response to USAID RFPs.
• Demonstrated experience developing budgets for a variety of donors including USAID; experience with both cooperative agreement/grant and contract mechanisms highly desired.
• Comprehensive familiarity with a broad range of institutional donor technical and cost requirements, with a strong preference for those of key US government donor agencies (USAID, CDC, Department of State).
• Knowledge of and experience with both USAID RFP and RFA funding mechanisms highly desirable.
• Familiarity with relevant institutional donor regulations, policies, procedures and priorities.
• Demonstrated experience managing teams and processes, leading teams to produce deliverables under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality. Experience providing remote support to diverse teams strongly preferred.
• Experience in developing content for and facilitating trainings related to key business development practices. Knowledge of adult learning approaches desired.
• Knowledge of CRS programs, justice agenda and Catholic Social Teaching principles a plus

Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.