Business Development Specialist II

Role Overview

• Provide BD expertise to country leadership and proposal teams in positioning, capture planning and proposal preparation for specific opportunities with institutional donors (government, multilateral, foundations, corporations and other awarding non-governmental organizations).
• Manage pre-positioning, capture and proposal development processes to ensure timely execution and submission of high-quality proposals that are responsive to donor requirements, applicable regulations, and CRS’ technical and cost standards.
• Deploy as proposal coordinator, and advise on opportunity analysis, lead go/no-go decisions, capture planning, and coordinate partner inputs and proposal review panels.
• Deploy as a lead or support writer on proposals, contributing both technical and non-technical content and integrating inputs from staff and partners into a responsive, coherent proposal with a compelling vision and clear win themes.
• Deploy as budget lead or to support the lead in developing proposal budgets. Provide recommendations to develop a competitive proposal, as required.
• Guide and advise on partner identification and negotiating CRS’ role in proposal consortia. Ensure a competitive position for CRS that adheres to the agency’s partnership principles and strategic directions.
• Liaise with senior management and donor engagement focal points to develop a resource mobilization strategy for a specific region, country, sector, or donor. Support senior management in cultivating and strengthening relationships with institutional donors, partner organizations and other stakeholders.
• Research, track and analyze new opportunities and CRS’ competitive position within the marketplace.
• Lead and/or support development of CRS BD tools, resources and guidance on BD best practices and CRS approaches across the BD cycle.
• Train and mentor staff, as needed, to improve their skills across the CRS BD Cycle, including in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing within their country program or portfolio.
• Work with appropriate staff to maintain data on past performance and corporate capacity, to provide timely information for proposal submissions.
• Actively contribute to CRS' Business Development Community of Practice and advance CRS' Business Development practices through contributions to strategic initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in international development, international relations, or related field.
• Minimum eight years of international development experience.
• Master's degree in international development, international relations, or related field (preferred).
• At least three years' experience in a developing country (preferred).
• Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position an organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships (preferred).
• Demonstrated experience leading and producing competitive proposals in programming contexts similar to CRS (preferred).
• Experience with both grants and contract funding mechanisms (preferred).
• Demonstrated experience leading project teams and processes to produce deliverables under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality (preferred).
• Experience providing remote support to diverse teams (preferred).
• Experience in developing content for and facilitating trainings related to key business development practices. Knowledge of adult learning approaches (preferred).
• Fluency in English required; working ability in Spanish and/or French preferred.

Benefits

• CRS offers U.S. based staff a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, life insurance, vision, and a generous retirement savings plan.
• Benefits packages for successful candidates employed outside the U.S. are based on the country of employment/in-country office where the candidate will perform the role.
• CRS´ work culture is a collaborative, mission-driven culture committed to improving the lives of the poor throughout the world.