Business Development Officer

Seed Global Health (Seed) envisions a world in which every country is strengthened by a robust health workforce to best meet the health needs of its population. Seed’s mission is to educate a rising generation of health professionals to strengthen access to quality care with a goal of saving lives and improving health. Seed is unique in its approach by focusing on the education and training of doctors, nurses and midwives. By training health care professionals and health educators, Seed seeks to empower current and future generations of health providers so that good health is not the privilege of a few, but the right of all.

Seed focuses on strengthening the education, practice, and policy of the local professional health workforce in Africa. Seed’s core strategy and primary entry point centers on placing skilled and qualified educators at partner institutions for a minimum of one academic year. Seed also supports educators and partner institutions through a diverse and complementary package of services aimed at advancing health professional education in the classroom and clinical setting. By investing in long term partnerships for improved health professional education, we help to create a stronger, more sustainable health workforce that is both locally led and better able to meet local health needs.

Position Summary

The Business Development Officer will play a key role as the lead technical writer for Seed’s
Development team, developing a strategic development narrative that showcases Seed’s unique value proposition for a wide range of donors, writing concepts and proposals, supporting report development as needed, and more. This team member will also focus on conducting due diligence, building partnerships, monitoring the funding landscape, and supporting Seed to identify and pursue new opportunities with global health and development donors, with a specific focus on technical partners such as health-focused foundations, bilaterals, and multilaterals.

The incumbent will have a strong background at the intersection of global public health and
partnership development, bringing a baseline understanding of health systems strengthening approaches, and an advanced understanding of the ecosystem of stakeholders who engage in this work and how to partner effectively with these stakeholders to advance an organization’s mission.

The position is a full-time role reporting to the Managing Director of Development, ideally based in or regionally adjacent to a Seed office in Kampala, Uganda; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Lilongwe, Malawi; or Lusaka, Zambia. The position can be based remotely, but will require travel up to 25% of the time.

1. Have you previously led proposal development processes as a core part of your full-time job?
2. Do you have experience leading calls with prospective donors and partners, pitching an
organization’s core competencies?
3. Do you have some background working for a non-governmental organization and/or a
philanthropic entity?
If you answer yes to the above 3 questions, please continue to review the duties and responsibilities of this position and submit your cover letter and resume for consideration. If you answer no to any of the above questions, we regret to inform you that you do not meet the minimum requirements for the position. We encourage you to visit our website regularly and apply for future opportunities you may be interested in.

Duties and Responsibilities

Responsibilities include the following:

● Working collaboratively across the Development team and Seed leadership to develop and
update as needed a strategic development narrative that showcases Seed’s core technical
capabilities and value proposition, which can be used with a range of stakeholders;
● Develop compelling and accurate proposals in coordination with Seed’s broader
Development team and Seed’s Impact team that match donor strategy with Seed’s highest
revenue needs;
● Monitor business forecasts for bilateral and multilateral partners, to identify opportunities
for Seed to submit bids for well-aligned health workforce projects;
● Develop and execute on strategy for identifying and approaching likeliest and best aligned
partnership prospects, including technical foundation partners, prime implementing
partners, and multilateral and bilateral donors;
● Lead and participate in meetings with prospective partners, representing Seed’s direction,
strategies, impact and opportunities for increased philanthropic support;
● Stay abreast of global health funding trends, and new strategy development of key global
health funders, to inform Seed’s partnership strategy and broader team work plan;
● As needed, support Seed’s grant reporting, from narrative and translation of monitoring
and evaluation data, to working with Seed’s Finance team to ensure accurate financial
reporting on grant spend downs;
● Maintain and update development department timelines, leveraging Salesforce and Google
Calendar, especially for upcoming RFPs and institutional funding cycles;
● Support development of Seed’s grants management system in close coordination with the
Managing Director of Development, Partnerships Officer, Finance team, and Impact team;
● Support development of new Seed concept notes to attract donors, including liaising with
Seed’s MEL and Impact teams to advise upon translating our work into donor-digestible
metrics and stories;
● With other team members, serve as a good steward and user of Seed’s development tools
and processes for recordkeeping, including Salesforce and Dropbox, ensuring visibility on
our revenue pipeline and active grants; and
● Partner with Communications and Development teams on the creation of donor
communications materials by contributing to writing, subject matter research and budget
development as needed.

Qualifications

● 6-8 years of experience in a business development role at an international nonprofit with a
focus on global health programs;
● Impeccable writing skills, and ability to communicate effectively and efficiently, distilling
large amounts of highly technical information down to a compelling narrative that informs
and inspires;
● Demonstrated experience leading complex, deadline-driven proposal development processes involving diverse teams across disciplines and driving consensus among internal and external partners;
● Preferred experience preparing bids for, and managing grants and collaborative agreements with USAID, US CDC, FCDO, Global Fund, World Bank, or other similar stakeholders and understanding of rules and regulations associated with those partners;
● Comfort and ability to build new relationships with prospective partners at all levels, and
demonstrated cross-cultural sensitivity and ability to build respectful relationships with
colleagues from different cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds;
● Exceptional project management skills, including ability to adhere to deadlines, and manage many teams on different time zones toward a single goal and deadline;
● Excellent interpersonal skills, including flexibility and a sense of humor;
● Understanding and application of best practices in donor-centered fundraising; and
● Experience working in various cloud business platforms, productivity tools, and online
workspaces (e.g. G-suite, MS365, Microsoft teams, Salesforce, Dropbox, etc.).