ACT Alliance is recruiting a Head of Strategy and Partnerships

Major functions summary

Head of Strategy and Partnerships leads the ACT secretariat team which supports the alliance’s humanitarian, long-term development and advocacy work with a focus on developing and strengthening strategic partnerships to enhance this work.

Duties and responsibilities

• Leads the development and strengthening of strategic partnerships for the alliance to enhance the scope, scale and funding for the work of the alliance
• Leads the implementation of the alliance fundraising strategy
• Enables the ACT Alliance relevant secretariat colleagues to broker strategic partnerships and access funding opportunities within the area of their work, including the General Secretary and the Director
• Support the alliance in overall strategy development
• Leads the ACT secretariat policy and programmes team which supports the alliance in humanitarian, long-term development and advocacy work
• Works closely with the secretariat’s regional representatives in developing regional networks and partnerships that will enable furthering the alliance’s work as well as identifying funding opportunities
• Ensures close ties between the policy and programmes team and the communications team in order to ensure adequate “packaging and marketing” of content-related work aimed at external donors

Competences and behaviours

• Committed to the values of the ACT Alliance and takes pride in delivering on agreed priorities according to the highest standards individually and as part of a global team
• Proactively finds innovative and creative solutions, is efficient and reliable, adapts to change and uncertainty, is decisive and acts with integrity
• Builds effective internal and external relationships, involves others when solving problems and treats others with consideration and respect in an alliance where faith is a key ingredient of people’s lives
• Passion for building and developing core skills for the role and contributes knowledge outside of immediate own role
• Effectively motivates, influences and develops others, drives high performance, inspires people to follow them and acts as a role model

Key working relationships

• Brokers strategic partnerships with key external organizations
• Liaises with external stakeholders (UN agencies, governmental representations, INGO networks and INGO peers) particularly in Geneva and New York and supports the Regional Representatives to do the same in regions
• Leads the ACT secretariat policy and programmes team and liaises with other staff as relevant, particularly the General Secretary on external relations and Regional Representatives to ensure a coherent global approach with regional variations
• Liaises with ACT members and ACT forums on policy and programmes issues, through secretariat staff or directly
• Is member of the ACT core management team and the global management team
• Facilitates the Alliance Advisory Group on Fundraising and its linkages to other advisory groups
• Reports to Director/COO

Supervises:

• Global Advocacy and Policy Coordinator
• Global Humanitarian Coordinator
• Sustainable Development Policy & Practice Coordinator

Technical skills and experience

• A minimum of ten years of relevant work experience, including significant management, partnership brokering and fundraising experience
• Demonstrated and proven track record related to brokering strategic partnerships and tapping into funding opportunities as well as demonstrated access to networks relevant to ACT Alliance
• Ability to analyze changing operational contexts and policy developments and to optimize and take advantage of emerging opportunities, particularly for fundraising
• Ability to turn strategies into plans and actions
• Highly developed interpersonal and communications skills including influencing, negotiating and coaching
• In-depth knowledge of issues relevant to the mandate of ACT Alliance including a good understanding of the role of faith-based organizations in emergency response, long-term development and advocacy
• Ability to manage and lead in networked working environment
• Relevant academic degree with excellent communication skills
• Excellent knowledge of English language, working knowledge of French or Spanish an asset

Location to be confirmed:

ACT secretariat offices are located in Geneva, New York, Amman, Nairobi, San Salvador and Bangkok. ACT Alliance EU is based in Brussels. Location in one of these offices or elsewhere will be negotiable.

About ACT Alliance

ACT Alliance is a coalition of more than 140 churches and faith-based organisations (FBO’s) working together in over 100 countries to create positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people regardless of their religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, race or nationality. ACT Alliance is supported by 25,000 staff from member organisations and mobilises about $1.5 billion for its work each year in three targeted areas: humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy. ACT Alliance is deeply rooted in the communities it serves. It has earned the trust and respect of local people long before large international interventions scale up, and remains steadfast in its grassroots commitments for many years after world attention has shifted elsewhere.

For more details about the general work of ACT, please click on this link: https://actalliance.org/

How to apply

Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV and a cover letter, in English and by email only, to recruitment@actalliance.org by Friday 18 March 2016. Please put “Head of Strategy and Partnerships” in the subject line.

Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.