Business Development Manager

The Business Development Manager will identify and track funding opportunities, facilitate donor engagement, assist in fundraising strategy development, and coordinate proposal preparation for significant and strategic funding. The role requires creativity and innovative ideas to present program strategies to attract donor support and effectively grow the portfolio, based in Niamey with frequent field travel.

Responsibilities

• Ensure the country office has a comprehensive business development strategy approved by SMT, aligned with the country strategy, effectively implemented and monitored.
• Identify, research, and disseminate information on new funding opportunities from bilateral, multilateral donors and other institutions.
• Use creative approaches to link program objectives to donor priorities and effectively influence donor strategies.
• Develop relationships with external stakeholders and potential partners for large or strategic funding opportunities, either as lead or sub-recipient in joint ventures.
• Track and disseminate upcoming funding opportunities, donor engagement, and proposal development process.
• Provide regular updates to the Country Director and SMT on funding portfolio status and key trends.
• Assist in developing funding strategies for thematic program plans and cross-sector integration reflecting ambitions and creativity to achieve more for children.
• Participate in key donor meetings as needed to foster collaboration and long-term engagement.
• Review and evaluate innovative new partnerships and ensure Save the Children maximizes opportunities to showcase and replicate the Theory of Change.
• Explore and test potential partnerships with the private sector.
• Actively seek donor information on new opportunities or partnerships.
• Ensure key contacts, required formats, and donor strategies are up to date at the country office level.
• Lead development and regular updating of donor engagement strategy to help grow Niger portfolio in line with national strategy.
• Cultivate excellent working relationships with donor agencies at regional and national levels, collaborating with the Director of Program Development and Quality.
• Accompany National Director, program managers, Technical Advisors and others on donor visits at national and regional levels as needed.
• Plan and initiate regular update visits with key institutional donors in Niger.
• Work with colleagues to set ambitious donor engagement goals and influence their strategies.
• Represent Niger office in donor forums, workshops, and relevant conferences where new development opportunities may be formulated.
• Support coordination of proposal development processes for all funding opportunities with technical specialists, MEAL, operations (field inputs, logistics requirements, costs, etc.), security, grants and partnership team, finance and human resources (staffing needs).
• Produce proposal development schedules and track timelines, ensuring and facilitating coordination among teams (technical experts, operations, finance, supply chain, HR, security).
• Coordinate budget development in collaboration with finance, technical, operations, supply chain teams and other stakeholders.
• Write key proposal sections such as capacity statements, country context, and program experience, relying on expertise of technical specialists, MEAL, operations, finance, HR, and security.
• Build staff capacity to facilitate effective proposal design workshops in person and online, and facilitate design workshops when called upon, including work plan development and lessons learned.
• Participate as a generalist in proposal development meetings and discussions.
• Ensure all proposals meet Save the Children quality standards and donor requirements.
• Ensure all appropriate donor and Save the Children resources, templates, and tools are available to relevant staff and clear understanding of donor requirements.
• Maintain strong knowledge management systems to support intra-country communication and continuous learning.
• Ensure proper archiving of all proposals and associated documents.
• Organize post-submission reviews and lessons learned exercises to improve future proposal quality.
• Support analysis and reflection on pipeline development, funding strategy, and donor engagement plans.
• Contribute to improving proposal and reporting quality control tools and processes.
• Strengthen program teams' capacity to develop quality proposals and reports.
• Support partner selection in joint proposals.
• Support development of MoUs and other agreements.
• Support collaboration evaluation for better learning.
• Coordinate with Awards team the reporting schedule process including submissions to Awards.
• Work with operations (field and program managers), awards, TS and MEAL to coordinate timely and quality narrative reporting for specific projects according to CO reporting structures.
• Follow up with finance for financial report development.
• Organize after-action review meetings for better learning.
• Support review of quality control for high-risk reports.

Requirements

• At least a master's degree in international relations, humanitarian studies, or a relevant field.
• Minimum of 8 years demonstrated experience in coordinating and facilitating proposal development with donors including humanitarian, multilateral agencies, donor companies, and/or foundations.
• Experience in project management (project management methodology, Theory of Change approach, and logical framework).
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems through critical thinking, analysis, clear path definition, and securing buy-in.
• High attention to detail and ability to lead key tasks to completion on time under significant pressure.
• Highly developed networking skills and ability to build productive working relationships with a wide range of internal colleagues and stakeholders (e.g., program, technical, grants, compliance, finance, program operations, member offices colleagues).
• Good personal organizational skills including time management and ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure.
• Well-developed interpersonal and communication skills.
• Proven ability to write compelling, competitive, and compliant narrative proposals for institutional donors.
• High degree of flexibility and adaptability to respond to changing needs, including willingness and ability to modify work practices and hours in major emergencies, including short-notice and long-term travel.
• Experience in report writing, project budgets, or proposal development.
• Fluency in French (mandatory) and English (strongly recommended).
• Experience in INGOs, NGOs, or non-profit sector and excellent understanding of operational issues (desirable).
• Familiarity with local context and funding landscape (desirable).
• Detailed understanding of funding mechanisms for development work such as Save the Children (desirable).

Skills

• Proposal Development
• Donor Engagement Strategies
• Project Management
• Theory of Change
• Logical Frameworks
• Critical Thinking
• Networking Skills
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Time Management
• Report Writing
• Budget Preparation
• Narrative Proposal Writing
• Fundraising Strategies
• Humanitarian Funding Management
• Multilateral Donor Collaboration
• Compliance Knowledge
• Operational Understanding
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Travel Management

Languages

French, English