Partnerships Coordinator

The Partnerships Coordinator supports the Ukraine country program in managing and overseeing partnerships, supervising Partnerships Managers and Senior Officers. The role ensures high-quality partnerships with local organizations, compliance with IRC and donor requirements, and integration of partnerships into project cycle management.

Responsibilities

• Support Technical and Field Coordinators in identifying and engaging with new potential partners, in line with IRC Ukraine’s strategic priorities
• Introduce the IRC, our mission, principles and humanitarian response strategy in Ukraine to local responders and identify and cultivate relationships with groups who have similar objectives
• Proactively engage local responders in program development and strategy validation efforts
• Promote and apply the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERS) with specific attention to modalities available for collaboration with local initiatives
• Contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS throughout the IRC Ukraine country program, and ensure that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners
• Support the IRC Ukraine Country Program to identify and rectify implicit institutional biases when working with initiatives/groups that may not have the strategic ambition of institutionalizing, while balancing minimum requirements for safety and security, safeguarding and other key concerns in acute humanitarian response
• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback
• Create Ukraine-specific SOPs and other guidance documents, based on needs of country program staff and capturing best practices for institutional documentation
• Represent IRC at external localization-focused events, including partner-facilitated events
• Support Sr. Partnership Coordinator in overall management of partnership portfolio
• Support the program team in facilitation of Partnership Project Opening, Review and Closing Meetings
• Coordinate narrative and finance reporting processes, including reviews and feedback
• Support Partnership Managers to ensure timely and effective partner program, finance, and compliance review and reflection (monitoring)
• Support Partnership Managers to ensure project support plans are implemented in line with agreements
• Maintain complete and organized partnership files for each partner
• Maintain up to date Partnership Project Tracker / Monitoring Schedule
• Process sub-awards modifications in a timely manner ensuring that the relevant IRC units (in-country and at the HQ) provide their inputs and approve the modification
• Ensure the smooth close out of partner projects, as applicable
• Facilitate the collaborative development and delivery of the partner project support plan, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process, and coordinate with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plan
• Ensure IRC understands partner capacity strengthening priorities, and identifies opportunities and plans for IRC to support partner capacity strengthening efforts
• Support the resourcing of organizational development support where appropriate for partners; coordinate organizational development support to partners
• Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners
• Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners
• Build and promote a culture, attitudes and values conducive to collaborative partnerships among the team, based on a clear and shared understanding of IRC's role and approach, and core partnership principles

Requirements

• BA degree or equivalent in International Development or Affairs, Finance, Business or related field; Advanced degree a plus – or equivalent work experience
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience with I/NGOs
• Demonstrated successful experience working with partners
• Demonstrable understanding of project planning and management cycles, and strong program design skills
• Significant knowledge of key donor rules and regulations (in particular U.S. Government, Sida, and ECHO)
• Highly organized, close attention to detail, and ability to effectively prioritize tasks in a fluid environment
• Ability to work well independently but also coordinate partnership workloads of staff not under your direct line management
• Team leadership and supervision experience and skills
• Experience in training internal staff and partner staff
• Willingness to travel to field offices and partner locations
• Professional fluency in spoken and written English and Ukrainian/Russian; able to communicate concisely
• Very strong English writing and editing skills; strong computer skills

Skills

• Partnership Management
• Project Planning
• Program Design
• Donor Compliance
• U.S. Government Regulations
• Sida Regulations
• ECHO Regulations
• Team Leadership
• Staff Supervision
• Training Delivery
• Partnership Coordination
• English Writing
• Editing Skills
• Computer Skills
• Field Travel

Languages

English, Ukrainian, Russian