Role Title: Head of Portfolio
Organisation: Irish Jesuits International (IJI), CHY 19577, RCN 20076979
Location: 20 Upper Gardiner St, Dublin 1, Ireland (with international travel)
Type of employment: 4 days per week (28 hours per week – excludes 1 hour lunch break) spread across the Mon-Fri office opening hours of 9am – 5pm.
Reporting to: Deputy Director
Salary: Grade III (Salary calculated as per IJI Salary Scales. Dependent on experience & qualifications. Grade III Salary range pro rata €34,061- €57,987)
Why work with us?
You’d be joining a dynamic, innovative team of eight dedicated professionals. Meet us here. We take pride in being a high performing team – we’re hugely effective at what we do, while maintaining the delicate balance of having nurturing and quality relationships with our partners and supporters. Our average years of service is 9 years!
Hear from some of the team:
“There’s so much variety. We partner & fund so many projects from girls’ education to climate justice – there are so many dimensions to our work,” Joe
“This is a rewarding career where you can utilise your previous experience to enhance the position and support people who are on the ground. You will get to work with a team who are diligent and support each other with the aim of supporting those working abroad,” Jim
About Us:
We are looking forward to celebrating our 80th anniversary in 2025. We support relief and development projects in East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Middle East, Cambodia and China. Last year, we supported 70 projects, with 43 partner organisations in 15 countries, directly serving 237,548 people.
We are fortunate to have partner offices at regional and/or country level who oversee our grants being administered at field level. These include Jesuit Development Offices and Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Country and Regional Offices.
About the Role:
Your role is pivotal within our team. Our Deputy Director has been in this role for the last 7 years while working on other areas simultaneously. Given our growth, we need to allocate more time to the duties.
Our portfolios represent on average €1.9 million each year, spread across our 5 objectives:
• Education 58%
• Protection 15%
• Care of our Common Home 14%
• Health and Well-Being 10%
• Pastoral 3%
Our funders include:
• Institutional donors 40%
• The General Public
o 28% donations
o 22% gifted from wills
• Other 10%
We have 50-70 portfolios each year, our South Sudan Critical Gender Responsive Education Portfolio being the most significant.
Duties:
Portfolio Management
• Lead the International Development Programme as per our Strategic Framework 2022-2027
• Be the main point of contact person for institutional donors, our most significant being Misean Cara
• Ensure donor compliance for each portfolio
• Lead on Organisational Capacity Assessments of key partners, action plans and follow-up
• Monitor Partner’s Actuals vs Budget, ensuring 10%+/- variances are pre-approved
• Lead on the design and development of submissions with Jesuit partners internationally, preparing the below with partner teams:
o Concept/Preliminary Notes
o Full proposals
o Actuals vs Budget, ensuring 10+/- variances are pre-approved
o Results Frameworks
o Year-end reports in a timely manner to ensure the following year funding is secured on time
• Ensure partner donor compliance in relation to:
o needs assessments
o External evaluations
o Annual safeguarding monitoring reports
o External financial audits specific to donor funding & co-funding
• Manage the portfolios of the 18 Gifts in our Gift Catalogue ensuring transfers are made promptly to our partners, progress tracked, and partner reports up to date
Programme Management
• Assist partners in strategy development
• Identify and track emerging opportunities for institutional funding for IJI and for our partners
• Identify eligible partners for other institutional funds and lead on funding submissions with partner staff to other institutional donors, via IJI
• Identify innovative projects and income generation opportunities with our key partners to complement their work, and improve their funding diversification
• Assist partners in business planning, monitoring and reporting for key project income generators
• Support the Deputy Director in the management of IJI’s Small Grant Fund which holds two funding rounds annually of proposals of €20,000 or under, with a portfolio of circa 30 projects annually
• Ensure the Programme Database is up-to-date and maintained accurately
• Prepare the content of the International Development Programme section for our external Annual Report.
Major Givers
• Manage portfolios for individual Major Givers
Internal Reporting
• Work closely to the targets within the Team’s Annual Work Plan
• Report against milestones within the quarterly Staff Reports to the Board of Advisors ensuring that management and the IJI Board of Advisors have up to date knowledge and understanding of the progress of institutional funding, funding opportunities, and relationship with our institutional donors
Xavier Network
• Collaborate with other Jesuit Mission Offices and NGOs within the Xavier Network (XN) on common projects
• With IJI being lead agency on the XN South Sudan Programme, support the IJI Deputy Director on engagement with XN members
• Attend XN international meetings when requested by the IJI Deputy Director (max 1 per year, in Europe)
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
• Work closely with the IJI Roving MEAL Advisor based in Kenya, on scheduling and preparing for partner monitoring visits, and ensure monitoring reports are finalised collaboratively with partners in a timely manner
• Support the development of mechanisms with partners for tracking the impact of our work at field level in the short, medium and long-term
• Track progress on recommendations made from partner needs assessments, evaluations and monitoring visits
• Represent us at meetings, workshops, seminars and policy events as requested
Safeguarding
• Ensure required safeguarding standards are adhered to and validated annually for all portfolio
• Ensure safeguarding standards comply with donor requirements
• Promote a consistent culture of protection within all portfolios
• Upskill yourself in safeguarding and protection as needed, with support and guidance from management
Policies and Procedures
• Ensure your work and our funding to partners operate within the parameters of IJI policies and procedures to ensure best practice in line with the Charities Regulator Governance Code
• Support the IJI Finance Manager and IJI Deputy Director in the periodic revision, updating and development of policies and better practice
Coordination with the IJI team
• Work closely with the Communications team to share information about portfolios, beneficiary stories and impact for social media, annual reports, newsletters, campaigns, emergency appeals and other communications
• Liaise closely with the IJI Finance Manager for assistance with regards to transfers, budgets, finance reports and remote desk based financial audits on institutional grants
Front Office
We receive supporters in person to our office on Gardiner Street. Two of our team job-share on Reception, which means cover is needed when they are on leave, or out of office. This role will be the first point of call for cover. This is a good opportunity to get to know our major supporters in-person, get first-hand experience of responding to phonecalls during emergency appeals, selling Gifts and Mikono Crafts to visitors.
Any other duties assigned by the Deputy Director.
Skills:
Required:
• Minimum degree level in a relevant sector (International Development, Community Development, Health, Education, Agriculture, Finance)
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in the international development sector
• Minimum of 2 years’ experience in working in the Global South within the international development sector
• Proven experience in portfolio management for institutional donors
• Proven experience in leading a team or being solely responsible in accessing institutional funding
• High motivation and strong personal drive
• Strong ability to influence and get people on board
• Experience working in multi-cultural teams
Desired:
• Proven experience in individually attracting new or increased institutional funding
• Proven experience in maintaining large funding portfolios of €1m or over
• Experience of working in conflict affected environments
• Strong communication skills
• Proven ability to facilitate collaboration
International Travel:
Our Roving MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning) Advisor works 2 days per week, based from Kenya, and facilitates many of our in-project monitoring visits. We plan for this role to have circa 2 international visits to partners each year. Depending on your personal circumstances or dependents, you may be interested in some international travel, but not regular international travel. This, we can discuss during the interview stages.
Benefits:
• Free allocated parking space in the city centre.
• Access to the Society’s Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA), on successful completion of probation (6 months) to which employees may contribute up to 7.5% of their salary, to be matched by IJI employer’s contribution of the same amount, up to a maximum of 7.5%.
• 22 days annual leave plus one additional day annually for the first 5 years of service.
• Shorter working year an option for parents of under 18-year-olds needing school term-breaks off.
Safeguarding:
Recruitment for this role will be in line with the Irish Jesuit Province Procedures for Safeguarding. You will be asked to sign a Self-Disclosure, Code of Conduct and we will process your Police Clearance so that it is in place for your international travel.
How to Apply:
Please submit your CV and cover letter to [email protected] by closing date 19th Feb 2024.