Job Description

Requisition ID: req2833
Job Title: Development Officer, Innovation
Sector: Research & Development
Employment Category: Fixed Term
Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: USA-New York, NY - HQ

Job Description

Background:
The International Rescue Committee helps people whose lives and livelihoods are affected by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, today’s IRC is at work in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, helping restore safety, dignity and hope.

IRC is a global humanitarian organization with unique capabilities, including the Airbel Center: a team with a special mandate to design and scale new products, services and systems that address major humanitarian challenges.

By combining new disciplines (human centered design, innovative finance, machine learning) with IRC’s extensive field operations and technical expertise, the Airbel Center generates solutions with the potential to improve the lives of millions of people affected by conflict and disaster.

Job Overview:
Based at IRC’s Headquarters in New York City, the Development Officer, Innovation plays a key role within IRC’s fast growing innovation team. Ths mission of the Development Officer is to secure revenue and take other actions to accelerate a growing portfolio of innovation projects.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to learn about design and innovation techniques from seasoned design professionals, help us shape and plan innovation projects for success, and learn the ins and outs of the strategic and operational aspects of innovation projects.

Reporting to Airbel’s Director of Development, your mission will be to lead the development of funding roadmaps with project leads; build out prospect lists and pipelines, and increase the volume of grant proposals. Together we will develop transformative investment opportunities and secure the resources we need to advance the development of exceptionally promising innovation projects across the IRC.

The Development Officer will be a key player in fundraising and program development for a number of projects in the Airbel Center portfolio, and throughout the project lifecycle (from inception to design, testing, and ultimately scale-up). Although all Airbel Center projects are focused on improving outcomes for refugees and people suffering the effects of conflict, each project has unique fundraising needs and pathways to scale. The Development Officer is a focused and dynamic professional who applies a combination of entrepreneurial and business development disciplines to get results.

The Development Officer is not exclusively a non-profit fundraising professional (though the strongest candidates will have some experience and track record). This role requires someone who is equally adept at talking and doing; who can get up to speed with new technical literature quickly; who relishes the idea of taking on new projects, and who brings a combination of focus and energy to develop winning proposals.

You could fundraise for any number of teams. Why IRC and Airbel? Because here you have found a team doing real edge work at the frontier of global development and humanitarianism. You won’t just be a grant-writer. You will be a full member of a dynamic innovation team tackling some of the hardest social problems in the most challenging environments around the world. You will collaborate with almost every member of the team, playing key roles in program development, budget development, storytelling, pitching, bootstrapping, and whatever it takes to increase project definition, advance the vision, and make it happen.

Major Responsibilities

Business development
* Lead the development of funding roadmaps with project leads, and achieve jointly set targets
* Research and donor landscape analysis
* Prospect and pipeline development

Writing and program development
* In all forms of media, enhance our case for support and make people want to be a part of our work
* Lead teams of stakeholders to collect and synthesize data for grant proposals and budgets
* Be “lead writer” on project grant proposals _ convey the essence of Airbel projects with elegance and also precise technical detail. Bring equal parts attention to detail and creative flair.
* Generate writing and content for concept notes, partner communications, donor reports and special projects

Donor stewardship
* Communicate professionally and sensitively with prospective partners and donors
* Identify ways the team can develop and strengthen relations with donors and institutional champions
* Collaboratively develop systems and traditions that keep supporters engaged and informed

Key Working Relationships:
* Position Reports to: Director of Development, Airbel Center
* Position directly supervises: none
* Indirect Reporting: Institutional Partnerships and Philanthropy; colleagues in AMU

Other Internal and/or external contacts:
* Chief Innovation Officer
* Core Airbel Team
* Technical Unit Directors and Team Members
* Airbel Advisory and Board Committee Members
* Country Program Staff

Job Requirements:

Minimum Requirements
* Superb writing skills and spreadsheet mojo
* Background in technology, innovation and/or international affairs
* Bachelor’s degree with 3-5 years of professional experience in an entrepreneurial or non-profit environment, with a minimum of 2 years in a fundraising or business development role
* Excellent organizational skills; Ability to multi-task, learn quickly, and work independently and productively in a fast-paced and detail-oriented environment.
* Flexible work attitude; the ability to work proactively in a collaborative team environment and problem solve with minimal guidance
* Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to effectively liaise with and motivate a variety of people in a multi-cultural environment and across various time zones
* Ability to travel domestically and internationally on occasion.

Preferred Requirements
* Experience fundraising for international development, human rights, social justice and US immigrant communities.
* Fluency in French and/or Arabic
* Work in humanitarian setting or development contexts
* Experience/familiarity with NGO setting

Working Environment:
* Standard office work environment

About the Organization

From emergency response through post-conflict development work, in a great variety of roles around the world, the International Rescue Committee’s 8,000-plus staff is a force for humanity and hope. If you’re skilled and passionate, we’d like to add your energy to ours.

Careers at the IRC are as wide-ranging and far-reaching as our work. Encouraging staff development through promotion, transfer and rehire, the IRC nurtures long-term career paths and helps employees grow within the organization.

At any given moment, on any given day, all around the world, IRC staff members are restlessly and effectively working for the sake of the most vulnerable among us—to restore and renew hope, dignity and freedom.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.