Principal Specialist, Fundraising (Universal Energy Facility)

Job Description

We are looking for an experienced and motivated professional who can join the Results-based Financing (RBF) team and work from home.

The Principal Specialist will create and implement fundraising strategies in support of the organisations fundraising goals for the UEF, working collaboratively with the UEF Senior Director, SEforALL’s CEO/SRSG, the Resource Mobilization and UEF management teams to establish new donor relationships and manage engagement with a portfolio of donors and prospects.

The successful candidate will be an experienced professional with at least 10 years of experience in fundraising that totals at least USD 100 million in the past five years, a Master’s degree in a related field, knowledge of energy access and energy fundraising landscape in developing countries, as well as excellent partnership management skills.

Duties and Accountabilities

The main tasks of the role include, but are not limited to:

• In collaboration with resource mobilization and leadership teams, actively build a donor pipeline, advance the engagements and steward leading prospects through the full fundraising cycle
• Lead in developing compelling pitches, decks and other communication materials that help build relationships and generate prospects
• Develop funding materials including slide decks, concept notes and proposals that meet SEforALL quality standards and articulate clearly SEforALL’s and UEF’s case for support.
• Oversee the writing of proposals with overall responsibility for ensuring proposal process is aligned to internal processes, and that proposal development is proactive and anticipatory.
• Manage negotiations with donors and oversees contracting, and ensures relationship management with key donors
• Partner with the UEF and communications team to keep abreast of UEFs and SEforALL’s progress, crafting suitable messaging for key updates and donor communication.
• Input and maintain clean, accurate prospect and donor data to enable the Resource Mobilization team to efficiently fundraise and report on outputs to volunteer and institutional leadership (Salesforce).
• Conduct and support grant writing, negotiation, contracting and project set-up for successful funding approaches and to see through all steps to successful conclusion
• Support Resource Mobilization team and programme leaders with prospect research and meeting preparation/follow up including drafting briefings and meeting notes.
• Support SEforALL’s inclusion in key platforms that can facilitate philanthropic fundraising
• Facilitate knowledge building and knowledge sharing in own work area to bring about awareness and understanding, as well as utilise SEforALL systems and processes to share the knowledge.

The ideal candidate would have:

• Master’s degree in Public Policy, International Relations, International or Sustainable Development, Business Marketing or Administration, Economics, Energy, or a closely related field.

• A minimum of 10 years’ experience in a partnership development and fundraising including a track record of initiating, leading and closing negotiations that total at least USD 100 million in the past five years
• Working experience in Sub-Saharan Africa is considered a strong advantage.
• Prior experience working within the UN-system, international organizations and with broad partnerships is highly desirable as is experience working with energy sector stakeholders.
• Familiarity with energy fundraising landscape including funding processes, particularly sovereign donor and philanthropic funding.
• Proven ability to build, manage and develop key stakeholder, donor and/or investor relationships at the seven and eight figure levels.
• Working knowledge of energy access, with particular emphasis in developing countries considered a strong asset.
• Demonstrated experience in translating highly complex issues across multiple systems into straight forward and actionable plans to complete a task.
• Excellent partnerships and ability to build relationships with development partners, governments, and private sector foundations.
• Interest and aptitude in prospecting, cultivating, and managing new donors.
• Experience in operating across multiple time zones and with distributed teams
• Strong IT skills including Outlook, Word, Excel (including reports/macros/graphs, advanced formulas and pivot tables) and Power Point.
• Professional level command of written and spoken English in report writing for both general and executive audiences. Fluency in German and/or French is considered highly desirable.
• Ability to perform under pressure in a fast-paced environment and demonstrated ability to prioritize in an ever-changing environment that requires high flexibility and a commitment to high quality results.
• It is imperative the incumbent has high emotional intelligence and is able to work well with a diverse and distributed team, and prioritizes integrity, respect and a positive team-oriented environment

General Competencies for the Role

• Innovation and Adaptability: Has expert skills and commitment to search for and produce innovative and creative approaches to activities. Is flexible to evolving circumstances, as well as actively helps others in doing so
• Resilience and Emotional Intelligence: Has expert knowledge in the concepts of resilience and emotional intelligence. Is able to remain calm in challenging situations, to cope with setbacks, is responsive to the emotions of others and maintains a very high level of performance.
• Analytical and Strategic Thinking: Has an expert level of analytical and strategic thinking skills. Gathers and processes demanding information, develops innovative solutions and contributes by presenting topics/approaches in cross functional groups as well as decision making teams
• Collaboration and Partnership: Demonstrates expert initiative and abilities to collaborate and form partnerships in own area of responsibility, across teams and externally. Builds and maintains effective relationships at all levels inside and outside the organisation. Displays team-oriented attitude contributing to creating a positive team spirit.
• Lead and Empower: Builds alignment and commitment and demonstrates initiative and role model behaviour in working with others. Takes responsibility for own work activities and personal actions and carries out the commitments agreed upon. May supervise volunteers and other junior staff members under their responsibility.
• Political and diplomatic understanding: Has an expert level of political and diplomatic understanding
• Communicating information: Has expert skills in communicating information and uses the skills effectively in the own scope of work and regularly in others’ work. Actively promotes improvement of communication skills within the team.
• Research and Analytics: Has expert skills in research and analytics. Promotes the use of data within the team and to contribute to wider decision making.
• Project Management: Has expert skills in project management. Plans and organises their own work using project management tools in support of achieving the team’s objectives. Actively promotes use of project management as a tool to enhance efficiency. Sometimes manages own projects and programmes.
• Client Orientation / Striving for Excellence: Has expert skills in client orientation and strives for excellence. Serves as a role model and contributes to the development of a client orientated attitude in their team. Ensures long-term relationships internally and externally through developing suitable services.

Salary information

SEforALL has adopted its own salary scales corresponding to the SEforALL grading system. The minimum yearly salary for this position is EUR 76,001. The actual salary offer will be determined within the scale depending on the successful candidate’s qualification and experience, and applying the principle of internal equity. In addition to the base salary, SEforALL staff receive a benefits package that includes contribution to pension, contribution to health insurance & homeworking allowance.

About the Organization

Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) is an international organization working with leaders in government, the private sector and civil society to drive further, faster action toward achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), which calls for universal access to sustainable energy by 2030, and the Paris Agreement, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit climate warming to below 2° Celsius.

Achieving these goals will require a radical rethink of the way we produce, distribute and consume energy. SEforALL is at the heart of this foundational shift to ensure no one is left behind. Drawing on data and evidence, we identify a critical path to success in achieving SDG7.

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Sustainable Energy for All initiative in 2011. Now an independent organization, we maintain close links with the UN, including through a relationship agreement, partnerships with UN agencies and with SEforALL's CEO acting as the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. These roles include advising the UN Secretary General and his staff on issues relating to sustainable energy and the implementation of SDG7 and supporting the coordination of sustainable energy issues in the United Nations system.

The ambitions of SDG7 are extraordinary. Aiming to achieve them in the context of the Paris Agreement on climate change involves transformation at a scale never undertaken before. Swift action must be taken by leaders in governments, private sector companies, institutions, financiers, development banks, unions, communities, entrepreneurs and civil society. As we enter the final decade to achieve SDG7, SEforALL has strategically chosen to strengthen global agenda-setting while expanding its activities to an engagement model that prioritizes data-driven decision-making, partnerships with high-impact countries and implementation on the ground. The new SEforALL three-year business plan outlines “results offers” that scope out our planned interventions and demonstrate to our funding partners the impact of their support. http://www.seforall.org