ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• Develop and implement a grants management system that ensures compliance with USDA and Winrock’s regulations and project requirements. 

• In close cooperation with the technical team, identify potential partnership and grants opportunities to support project’s activities and objectives. 

• Support the technical team to develop terms of references and/or technical specifications for potential grant opportunities, draft requests for applications or annual program statements and disseminate information about the grant opportunities and supervise the application review process.  

• Develop and maintain relationships with potential and current grantees and partners to ensure proposed grant activities match the grants strategy and the Project’s objectives.   

• Assist grant applicants to apply for a unique entity identifier (UEI) as needed  

• Conduct pre-award assessments of potential grantee organizations, in addition to compliance checks during implementation and at close-out, as needed and identified in the Grants Manual and in coordination with the Operations Director.  

• Ensure proper negotiation of the terms and conditions for grants. 

• Prepare grant packages including the grant agreements and supporting documents and coordinate with home office project management and awards management staff in the review and approval of the grant package. 

• Provide trainings to project partners to build their capacity in grants management and reporting requirements.    

• Manage grant pipeline through the use of a grant tracker before and after award. 

• Collaborate with the technical and MEL teams to develop and implement monitoring plans to track the progress of grant-funded activities, ensure technical team review of programmatic reports and deliverables, and conduct regular field visits to verify the implementation of grant activities. 

• Follow-up with grantees as needed to ensure compliant submissions of required programmatic reports, financial reports, and other deliverables included in the grant agreement.  

• Facilitate review of grantee financial reports/invoices and payment by finance staff 

• Manage administrative close-out processes of grants. 

• Maintain accurate documentation and filing of grant documents, ensuring adherence with donor and Winrock requirements. 

• Identify and share best practices for the implementation and management of grants.  

• Coordinate with project technical team to develop other partnership documents including but not limited to MOUs. 

 Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

QUALIFICATIONS AND BACKGROUND: 

Education:   

Bachelor’s degree in economics, finance, business administration or a related field.   

Experience:  

Minimum 6 years of experience in soliciting for grantees, awarding grants and managing and mentoring grantees for results in donor funded development projects.  

Experience in USDA/USAID regulations and procedures, preferred 

 Knowledge, Skill & Ability Requirements:  

• Strong writing and proofreading skills, with attention to detail. 

• Sound knowledge of U.S. government rules and regulations (2 CFR 200), especially those pertaining to USDA.  

• Ability to work as part of a team and have good interpersonal communication skills.  

• Good Microsoft Office skills (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams).  

• Excellent written and spoken English skills.  

• Strong workflow management skills and ability to handle multiple tasks at the same time and meet tight deadlines. 

• Willing and able to travel throughout Malawi.