Funding and Reporting Manager Full Time

VACANCY: FUNDING AND REPORTING MANAGER

Reports to: Park Manager
Location: Majete Wildlife Reserve

African Parks (AP) is a not-for-profit organization that takes on the complete responsibility for the
rehabilitation and long-term management of National Parks in partnership with governments and local communities. We currently manage 22 National Parks and Protected Areas in 12 Countries covering over 20 million hectares in: Angola, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Funding and Reporting Manager (FRM) is accountable for effective and compliant delivery of the
Park’s grant portfolio, high- quality reporting for internal and external purposes, and both identifying as well as effectively relaying the park’s funding needs. It is a critical, multi-faceted position which links the park’s strategy and operational reality with funders, partners and the teams at APN Headquarters, most notably Fundraising, Communications and the Business Intelligence Unit. The role requires strong writing and coordination skills, a good grasp of grant regulations and interests of donors, experience in budgeting and monitoring and evaluation, a passion for capturing the ecological, social and economic impact of the park.

The role involves close collaboration with the Park Manager, Finance Manager as well as the other Heads of Department responsible for implementation of park projects on the ground.

Primary Functions and Responsibilities

• Oversees the park’s grant portfolio, monitoring effective and compliant delivery of respective projects. This includes working closely with the Finance Manager to ensure correct allocations of donor funding and tracking burn rates, coordinating grant work plans and briefing the Heads of Department on key deliverables, providing required partner visibility and monitoring risks to grant project components’ delivery. The incumbent represents the park in regular updates debriefing APN funding and finance teams on grant delivery, key operational updates and risks.
• Understands, monitors and maps the park’s funding needs, and effectively develops well – written and compelling funding packages that identify why the park needs funding for specified for specified activities to enable effective fundraising. Writes, in partnership with the funding team, the park’s grant proposals and ensures these are closely aligned with the park’s long-term objectives, business plan and monitoring and evaluation program.
• Responsible for the development and tracking of monitoring and evaluation metrics for the park. Ensuring that all actions, targets and objectives in the Long-Term Sustainability Strategy have measurable metrics and that these, along with AP Core Metrics and any donor required metrics, are being recorded accurately by relevant departments. To facilitate timely and accurate data extraction for reporting purposes and for evaluating the park’s effectiveness in terms of the delivery of the Business Plan and Long-Term Sustainability Strategy, the FRM is also responsible for developing, with support of the Conservation Technology department, data recording and management tools and reporting protocols.
• Coordinates and collates park reporting, both for internal and external purposes. This includes ensuring park data is accurate and up-to-date and appropriately stored such that operational analytical reports can be compiled. The FRM is also responsible for providing appropriate narrative to give context to park data such that communications outputs can be prepared. The FRM is responsible for providing timely and high-quality donor reports that reinforce our reputation, in addition to developing general factsheets about the park for external purposes.
• Supports the writing of operational documents such as annual report, monthly reports, business plans, Lon-Term Sustainability Strategy and special project descriptions;

Secondary Functions and Responsibilities

• Coordinates or collates park-level surveys, case studies, data collection and analyses that inform impact assessments for donors and partners and for tracking progress against the Long-Term Sustainability Strategy.
  Support the park’s technology systems, EarthRanger, SMART Data Management and Cybertracker in relation to the collection of metric data.
• Analyse data from the park’s systems to support law enforcement and conservation objectives and adaptive management cycles, through database management and mapping exercises.
• Provides support to carbon credit or other ecosystem service revenue-generating processes.
• In liaison with the Park Manager, regional team and APN’s funding, communications and tourism teams, supports management of the park’s external relationships at park-level, for example by supporting the coordination of donor and VIP visits;
• Liaison for the African Parks assurance department to support internal performance improvement cycles;
• Manage all travel related matters concerning out of country travel for staff.

Qualifications and Experience

An appropriate tertiary education, supporting the role and responsibilities;

• Minimum eight (8) years of experience working in project management or coordination roles, with a preference of five years (5) years with a conservation or non-profit organization;
• Excellent organizational, analytical, oral and written communications skills in English;
• Demonstrable experience in working with funding organizations, in the capacity of compliant grant management, reporting and proposal writing. Experience working with institutional funding mechanisms would be an advantage;
• Evidence of personal interest in the protection of the environment, wildlife and community development;
• Experience in Monitoring & Evaluation frameworks and compliance requirements for grant funding mechanisms;
• IT – Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook experience essential. Experience in any other data management and presentation programs that can be used to demonstrate progress against objectives is advantageous, e.g. Earth Ranger, CyberTracker, Survey123, ArcGIS, and Power BI;
• Experience in program development, budgeting and detailed financial reporting requirements
• Strong leadership skills, with demonstrable ability to keep teams organized and focused on the key priorities within a multitude of projects with deadlines, taking strong ownership of safeguarding and improving quality standards.
• Good with people, a capacity builder and sensitive to operating in intercultural environments;
• Strong initiative, perseverance, and resilience
• Experience working in a similar position will be an added advantage.

African Parks is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants should submit their CVs with a covering letter clearly stating how their skills and experience meet the requirements of the position. At least three traceable referees should be included, but copies of certificates are not required at this stage. Applications should be emailed to recruitMalawi@africanparks.org by close of business on Friday, 15th March, 2024.

Only short-listed candidates will be acknowledged.