Senior Business Development Lead - Africa at Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)

Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is an international development charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales that stand beside people living in poverty. Through local Church partners, we help people directly in their own communities, and campaign for global justice, so that everyone can reach their full potential.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Senior Business Development Lead - Africa

Locations: Abuja, Nigeria
Contract: 2-year fixed-term contract

Job Profile  

• The Senior Business Development Lead (SBDL) will work closely with programme and funding colleagues to develop high-quality programmes and projects that enable CAFOD and its partners to maximise income from institutional donors.
• Through this work the SBDL will help extend the reach and impact of CAFOD’s programmes in delivering positive and lasting change for some of the world’s poorest communities.
• The SBDL will provide  support to the Integrated Funding & Business Innovation Unit (IFBI) managers and CAFOD’s Africa programme teams as CAFOD drives forward its resource mobilization ambitions.   
• The SBDL is a member of the Integrated Funding & Business Innovation team (IFBI) and reports to the International Development Funding Team Leader (IDFTL).
• The SBDL will lead on establishing, maintaining, and strengthening relationships with key global and/or UK-based donors; developing and driving donor funding engagement strategies; leading on proposal development and contract management; identifying new funding opportunities and fostering innovation and shared learning among colleagues and partners, including through the Institutional Funding Community of Practice. Where relevant they will be expected to collaborate and develop synergies with other fundraising streams within CAFOD.
• The post holder will be expected to engage with the Humanitarian/Development/Peace Building Nexus and also on shorter-term humanitarian resource mobilisation, if required. 
• The SBDL role will include specific responsibilities for supporting a number of CAFOD’s larger, more complex and multi country institutionally funded programmes. This will involve the design and development  of proposals and reporting back to institutional donors.  
• Donor-lead responsibilities are a component of this role; the post-holder will hold and develop expertise on a portfolio of allocated donors to be determined (current examples of donors CAFOD works with include the UK Government, UN, START, DEC, EU, various other Governments etc). The SBDL will work with other funding colleagues as well as with programme staff, thematic advisers, and colleagues in the Finance, Fundraising and Advocacy and Education Groups, to help build CAFOD’s reputation and grow income.  
• The SBDL may undertake international travel to support teams and partners with proposal development and contract management activities, as well as to meet with key donors and/or collaborate and preposition with INGOs and sister agencies within the Caritas Internationalis confederation. They may also provide cover for Business Development Leads.  
• The SBDL is not a budget holder but may carry out some supervision tasks or matrix management of other staff members, consultants, or volunteers. For specific tasks they may be matrix managed by Core Programme Managers/Country Representatives.  
• Under the oversight of the IDFTL, the SBDL will have responsibility for certain organisation wide tasks including organising and co-chairing the Institutional Fundraising Community of Practice meetings and coordinating the collection of data for annual planning exercises and processes.  

Key Responsibilities 
Donor engagement, proposal development, and contract management (60%):

• Support or lead on large scale/ complex/ single or multi country programme funding opportunities, including proposal development and design, providing expert input on design elements and task managing staff where necessary. 
• Act as CAFOD’s donor lead for designated donors. In collaboration with programme and funding colleagues and in line with CAFOD’s Integrated Funding & Business Innovation Approach, support the development and coordination of donor funding engagement strategies and drive their implementation across CAFOD with other key stakeholders. This includes coordinating internal project selection processes, providing donor-specific technical and compliance advice and working collaboratively to increase the quality of funding bids and contract management. 
• Provide flexible surge support when requested to International Programme colleagues on institutional funding opportunities, this may include changes to contract portfolios and work-plan priorities. 
• Represent CAFOD externally with agreed priority donors, leading on strategic relationship management in liaison with programme and funding colleagues; this includes attending relevant external fora and leading on the management and review of donor registration and due diligence processes and/or framework agreements where required. 
• When required, lead on contract management, including the preparation, review and timely submission of financial and narrative reports, facilitating external evaluations and ensuring quality and compliance standards are met. 
• Work closely with Finance, the International Operations team, and other colleagues to ensure CAFOD’s business systems and processes satisfy specific donor requirements, including on financial and supply chain management, document retention, audit, transparency, and accountability. 
• When required, travel to support country programmes with  institutional funding requests, including provision of in-country support during the absence of other BDLs. 

Shared learning, new business development, and innovation (25%):

• Lead in the early identification, prospecting, and development of potential new donors and innovative funding streams for thematic or geographic areas. Develop a pipeline of new prospects and opportunities, prioritise, and schedule those opportunities, supporting IFBI managers in overseeing CAFOD’s prospect management tool and ensuring that it is up to date.  
• Develop and maintain professional and productive relationships with allocated donors, carrying out research, proactively disseminating information on new funding opportunities and sharing donor updates with programme and funding colleagues. 
• Keep abreast of evolving donor-specific, thematic or sector-wide policies and trends by representing CAFOD externally in agreed external networks and groups, and through professional contacts within the sector; disseminate learning through organising and co-chairing the Institutional Funding Community of Practice. 
• Lead on the periodic review of donor feedback and trends, particularly those relating to priority donors, where appropriate preparing learning documents and presentations for dissemination and sharing with colleagues and partners. 
• Where delegated, coordinate and support the development, and champion funding focus areas such as Partner Direct Funding. This may include identifying new partner direct funding opportunities, institutional funding, crowd funding or community based fundraising. 
• Support colleagues in programme teams to strengthen CAFOD’s and our partner’s institutional funding capacities, e.g., on proposal writing, programme development, monitoring & evaluation, and ensure learning on this is captured and shared across the international programme, including through the Institutional Funding Community of Practice.

Strategy, planning, monitoring & reporting (15%):

• Contribute to the implementation of CAFOD’s Integrated Funding & Business Innovation Approach and Institutional Funding Strategy, ensuring alignment with donor funding engagement strategies and responding to evolving donor trends. 
• Under the oversight of the IDFTL, provide support to  Business Development Leads to ensure coherence in the delivery of organisation wide processes including prospect management and ICD management. 
• Support and lead reporting and planning processes in designated countries if/where requested. 
• In collaboration with funding colleagues and those in programme teams, contribute and where requested lead annual planning process providing donor-specific data and analysis for annual income projections, cost recovery targets and country resource development plans, and contribute to country funding context analyses.   
• Effectively use CAFOD’s institutional funding information systems to ensure project information and documentation is up-to-date and accessible. 
• Support IFBI managers to monitor the performance of institutionally funded contracts and contribute to quarterly/ annual institutional funding analysis and reports particularly for allocated priority donors.

Person Specification 
Understanding our context:

• Understanding Catholic identity; Commitment to and understanding of the role of the Catholic Church in development. 
• Understanding CAFOD; Shares and supports CAFOD’s values; able to communicate the differences in mission and approach between CAFOD and other agencies. 
• Understanding international development; Solid understanding of key issues in development funding across a diverse range of development, advocacy, and humanitarian settings. 

Working together:

• Managing ourselves; Recognises what needs to be done and takes action to achieve results; shares knowledge and expertise with colleagues; open to challenge and able to adopt and adapt new ideas and concepts in a short timescale; shows drive and initiative.  
• Working with others; Provides guidance and support to colleagues working towards shared outcomes and targets; builds and maintains collaborative relationships at all levels of the organisation to negotiate and ensure effective and mutually acceptable results; ability to influence others without direct authority, including at a distance. 
• Communicating; Presents complex issues simply and clearly; delivers convincing proposals and reports internally and externally; shares knowledge and information across the organisation. 
• Looking outwards; Keeps abreast of developments in sector; builds co-operative, professional relationships with donors, partners, supporters, etc. 

Making change happen:

• Managing resources; Monitors budgets and spend in line with funding requirements; uses information systems and processes to ensure work is recorded and reported efficiently; offers ideas to improve monitoring, reporting, and learning processes; finds ways to achieve more with the available resources. 
• Achieving results; Makes clear what has to be achieved by colleagues and ready to help them get things done; identifies and develops better processes and ways of working to achieve results; anticipates risks and takes active steps to mitigate them. 
• Managing our performance; Negotiates and monitors standards of performance across diverse settings through task management structures; takes timely action on performance issues; tackles problems or conflict in a balanced way; demonstrates high standards and attention to detail in all work. 
• Taking the lead; Provides a clear sense of direction and purpose for colleagues; builds close working relationships with leaders across the organisation; acts quickly to deal with emerging challenges; motivates others to get things done, takes a lead in identifying solutions and making change happen. 

Job-Specific Criteria

• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English. 
• Project and process management experience, including planning, M&E skills and familiarity with programme cycle management tools and methods. 
• Experience of budget development processes for institutionally funded programmes. 
• Significant experience of working cross-organisationally with demonstrable ability to build effective working relationships internally and externally. 
• Experience of leading significant resource mobilisation within an NGO context including demonstrable experience in securing large (seven figure) contracts . 
• Experience of working in Humanitarian/Development/Peace Building Nexus contexts and leading large multi country bids within these.  
• Experience of representation and engagement with donors at embassy or mission level. 
• Demonstrated experience of distance managing professional relationships. 
• Solid track record developing successful proposals and high-quality reports for institutional donors . 
• Experience of leading bid development teams. 
• Experience of task or line managing staff. 
• Experience of capacity building staff in theories of change and project cycle management within the context of proposal development. 

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience of commercial contracting with institutional donors. 
• Experience of working in large consortia. 
• Experience of partnership-based development and humanitarian work overseas. 
• Proficiency in French.  

Salary
N25,683,356 annually. 

Application Closing Date
26th August, 2025.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online