International Rescue Committee (IRC) Vacancy for a Grants and Communications Coordinator

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives.
Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

IRC has been present in Nigeria since 2012 when the organization responded to flooding in Kogi state.  In early 2014, IRC opened a field office in Mubi town of Adamawa state in NE Nigeria followed by offices in Yola (Adamawa state) in November 2014 and Maiduguri (Borno state) in October 2015.  IRC has ECHO, OFDA, and Gates funds to respond to health, nutrition, GBV, and WASH activities.  In late 2014 and early 2015, IRC received additional funds from SV, SIDA, USAID, and UNICEF to carry out education, child protection, general protection, emergency food distributions, shelter support, and NFI distributions to newly displaced IDPs.   In late 2015 into early 2016, IRC received Swiss and UNHCR funds for additional emergency response humanitarian-focused programming in NE Nigeria.



Job Title: Grants and Communications Coordinator

The Grants and Communications Coordinator is directly supervised by the Country Director (CD), but will work in close collaboration with the Deputy Director of Programs (DDP) for report and proposal preparation.  The position is based in Yola, Adamawa State in the NE with occasional travel to Mubi, Maiduguri (Borno state), and Abuja. 

Responsibilities Communication

• Design a country program communication strategy
• Work with program sector leads to develop and produce IRC information and communication materials such as brochures, newsletters, contribution to global IRC news bulletin, and annual and sector reviews.
• Assist in training program staff on communication strategies and facilitate development of success stories, lessons learned, personal experiences (blogs), etc from field-based program staff
• Provide briefing papers and situational reports as well as support NY and UK communications departments in development of external communication tools for stakeholders both in and out of country on IRC’s work in Nigeria. 

• Ensure that narrative reports to donors are submitted on time and are coherent and accurately written (quarterly, interim and/or final report) and liaise with finance to ensure finance reports accompany narrative reports, when required
• Maintain hard and soft files on IRC Nigeria grant portfolio
• Monitor and support the use of grants management tools such as FM01, BvAs, and OTIS  to ensure accurate tracking of grants reporting
• Distribute and share with all IRC staff copies of all documentation (grant proposals, reports, budget etc) related to their specific programs.
• Provide training and mentoring to various program and M&E staff on priorities and essential practices necessary to ensure high quality donor reports and proposals

• In coordination with the DDP, lead program staff teams in the development of quality proposals. Act as the lead writer for all proposals. 
• Liaise with NY grants units, technical units and IRC UK to ensure proposals meet internal standards, apply IRC Program Framework principles and are donor compliant

• Master’s degree in relevant field
• Excellent oral and written reporting skills and demonstrated ability to write and edit reports under deadline pressure. 
• Competence with Windows, Microsoft Office
• Ability to work in unstable security environments
• Previous experience working with international partners, in particular UN, SIDA, USAID/OFDA and ECHO
• Fluent written and spoken English required
• Ability to write clear and concise reports and proposals and to meet required reporting deadlines
• Working knowledge of budget development and management
• Experience conducting assessments, preferably using participatory approaches
• Experience working in a multi-cultural setting