VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

Position: Institutional Partnership Development Specialist

Vacant positions: One (01)

Type of contract: Fixed term

Working location: National Office

Supervisor: Head of Fund Development and Partnership

Deadline: 27th September 2026

Context of the position: 

SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda is an independent member association affiliated to the SOS Federation. SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda leverages existing community resources to strengthen quality childcare and protection through a holistic continuum of care tailored to orphans, vulnerable children, and their families. SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda actively advocates for the promotion of childcare and child protection. In Rwanda, SOS Children’s Villages operates in four Program Areas based in Gasabo, Gicumbi, Kayonza and Nyamagabe. To further fulfil the above-mentioned responsibilities, SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda is seeking for a competent Institutional Partnership Development Specialist, to base at its National Office Kigali, Kinyinya.

JOB PURPOSE

The Institutional Partnership Development Specialist mobilizes institutional funding for SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda and is a key contributor to the growth of the IPD funding portfolio and day to day donor relationship management with bilateral donors, international donors, embassies, diplomatic missions, foundations to significantly increase the financial resources for national programs. This role involves developing and implementing institutional partnership plans, developing funding proposals to expand the organization’s programs and contributing to donor compliance.

Main clients: 

• Internal – National Director, Deputy National Director – Operations, Director of Program Quality, Safeguarding and Partnership Development, Head of Fund Development and Partnerships, Program Managers, Project teams, finance team, and PSA staff
• External – Institutional Donors, Implementing partners, Government, NGOs, Embassies, Diplomatic Missions, Foundations

Key Performance Areas and Main Responsibilities:

Fundraising and Donor Liaison

• Develop and implement annual IPD plans in line with the national organizational strategy annual set targets.
• Ensure IPD annual targets are met according to the national organizational strategy.
• Identify monthly IPD funding opportunities from in-country, bilateral, multilateral, international donors, embassies, diplomatic missions and foundations to meet annual targets.
• Develop and write program ideas, concept notes, expression of interests, grant applications, technical project proposals for IPD projects while ensuring they are provisioned with available information prior to involving additional teams.
• Conduct comprehensive background research on relevant policies, political, economic, environmental factors, and existing strategies at national, sub-national, regional, and global levels to contextualize project proposal descriptions.
• Develop different project proposal sections, including risk factors, mitigation measures, sustainable development impacts, paradigm shifts, result frameworks, impact matrices, problem and objective trees, stakeholder analyses and others.
• Ensure the timely collection of content needed from program teams for high quality and competitive proposal development.
• Facilitate the development of project proposals and organize proposal development workshops with program team, partners and/or stakeholders, serving as the focal point for coordination and logistics.
• Together with the Head of Fund Development and Partnership and program team identify suitable lead applications, co-applicants and implementing partners to increase competitiveness in bid applications.
• Donor Compliance Monitoring 
• Regularly update the master partner landscape and partner mapping to reflect current information.
• Update IPD project grant compliance matrices to ensure adherence to donor requirements.
• Ensure that project one-pagers and program summaries are always current and accurate.
• Maintain an up-to-date master list of IPD grants, including grant descriptions.
• Facilitate project start following funding approvals.
• Monitor changes in IPD projects, advise the Program Team on documenting amendments, and communicate risks effectively.
• Monitor donor grant requirements to ensure compliance, providing advice on cost extensions, non-cost extensions, agreement addendums, and other contractual issues.
• Monitor project spending to prevent overspending or underspending and advise project teams accordingly.
• Oversee project implementation from compliance perspective, advising teams on contractual clauses, amendments, risk management, and supporting timely project delivery.
• Support Donor Monitoring Field visits: Coordinate with relevant team members and stakeholders, prepare one pager, arrange logistics, accompany monitoring field visits.
• Track donor monitoring network meetings, maintain detailed minutes, and keep records of donor interactions and follow-ups.
• Ensure proper documentation of all project amendments, and donor correspondence.
• Train project team on donor grant compliance, funding policies, donor relations, donor reporting, contract management, etc
• Prepare and submit IPD weekly, monthly updates and quarterly IPD reports

Donor Contract Management

• Prepare, coordinate, and develop partner due diligence reports and maintain filing systems.
• Develop and maintain a mechanism for management of IPD Partnership agreements and signature processes, including contract/partnership agreement preparation, and preparation of consortium agreements.
• Ensure all funding files (electronic, system and paper) are complete, filed and kept up to date.
• Register and update SOS Rwanda project proposal development information in ProDIGI software

Partnership Development and Networking 

• Establish and maintain regular contact with donors, attend donor forums, conferences etc
• Identify and engage with in-country donors, foundation, embassies, diplomatic mission, bilateral, multilateral, international donors, to proactively explore and secure funding opportunities for IPD initiatives.
• Develop partnerships and consortiums with other like-minded organizations and donors for purposes of bidding for large donor project proposals 
• Represent SOS Rwanda in sector level meetings (development and humanitarian/emergency) and other networking forums and use this to develop funding partnerships
• Organize partnership roundtable meetings and networking meetings
• Participate in regional IPD networking and training forums and contribute to development of new IPD strategies to improve practice

Formal qualifications and Experiencerequirements:

• Excellent English language written skills are required for development of proposals
• A holder of a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, Development studies, Economics or related field. Master’s degree will be an added advantage.
• Excellent know how of project proposal writing skills is required, especially in the sectors of Child Protection, Alternative Care, Youth Empowerment, Livelihoods, Education, Health
• He/she should have 5-8 years’ extensive experience in planning, securing and managing funds from institutional donors as well as a thorough understanding of writing of project proposal 
• Potential candidates should demonstrate evidence of medium/large proposals they have developed and won (0.5 – 2M USD)
• A thorough understanding of Project Cycle Management is an asset.
• Knowledge of Results-Based Management (RBM) approach is an additional asset
• The post holder should have the following competencies flexibility, self-drive, attention to detail, respecting tight deadlines, ability to work with different teams in a fast-paced environment and ability to work independently. 
• He/she should be highly proficient in MS Word, Excel, Power-point and the use of Internet for research. 

How to apply 

The interested Candidates in this position should send a detailed Curriculum Vitae with three (3) traceable professional references, application letter , Rwandan national Identity Card and academic certificates/degrees to sos.recruitment@sos-rwanda.org and properly fill the application form found via the followingLINKby not later than 27th September, 2026 at 5:00 pm Kigali time. 

Please mention in the subject of your email “IPD Specialist”.

Female candidates are encouraged to apply, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

“SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda/ International holds strict child safeguarding principles and a zero-tolerance policy for conducts of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse in the workplace and other places where the organization’s activities are rendered. Parallel to technical competence, recruitment, selection and hiring decisions will give due emphasize to assessing candidates value congruence and thorough background checks, police clearance reference check processes”. 

Done in Kigali on 17th September 2026.

Jean Bosco KWIZERA

National Director