The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title: Sponsorship Manager

Organisation: Plan International

Duty Station:  Kampala, Uganda

Reports to: Country Director

About US:

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organization that advances
children’s rights and equality for girls. We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And its girls who are most affected. Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 80 years, and are now active in more than 75 countries.

Job Summary:  The Sponsorship Manager has overall responsibility for managing initiatives that continuously improve the quality delivery of child sponsorship, from development to successful implementation across all our field offices, ensuring that sponsorship systems support programmes and processes, whilst championing child sponsorship across the organisation.

Role Dimensions:

• The Sponsorship Manager is a member of the Country Management team and is expected to contribute substantively to the design and implementation of the Country Strategy, Annual Plans and Project Plans. The job holder acts as a champion for child sponsorship across the organisation, striving to ensure that sponsored children, their families and communities receive optimum benefit from PIU’s activities
• The role has influence over the development of the strategies through which the organisation will achieve her purpose, in particular ensuring that sponsorship and grant projects country-wide are coordinated in a manner that optimises impact (so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts).
• The major challenge of the role is around the requirement to achieve results through the matrix management of staff who are line managed by Programme Area Managers. This requires the job holder to:
• Have high quality influencing skills to inspire and motivate all those involved in PIU’s sponsorship activities
• An ability to focus on the key goals and remotely manage performance through the development of effective policies, systems, tools, capacity-building advice and provision of coaching and support
• In addition, there is a high level of interaction with National Offices and Sponsors and the role must lead the team to deliver accountability requirements on time and to standard; again without the benefit of line management authority

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Strategy & Programme Design

• Participate in the development and implementation of PIU’s Country Strategy, in particular advising on the aspects pertaining to sponsorship; lead the implementation of the Country Sponsorship Strategy:
• Keep up to date with Plan International’s Sponsorship policies, strategies and targets, working collaboratively with Country Management Team members to apply them in the Ugandan context; ensure that the ‘Community Managed Sponsorship Model’ is regularly reviewed and structures strengthened
• Keep abreast of monitoring, evaluation and research pertaining to PIU’s sponsorship projects; ensure that learning is fed back into the design of new strategies and work plans
• Work collaboratively with members of the Country Management Team to develop the Country and Programme Unit annual sponsorship work plans and budgets; ensure clarity concerning which activities will be carried out by the Programme Implementation Team and what will be managed centrally by the Sponsorship Unit
• Advise the Country Management Team in sponsorship case load management, providing guidance on projections across the different locations; and advising on necessary staffing levels
• Advise Country Management Team in phase in and phase out strategies to ensure sponsorship enrolment is always relevant and geographically pertinent according to poverty indicators

Grant & Sponsorship Project Alignment

• Develop systems, approaches, and tools that will ensure sponsorship projects are effectively integrated with grants projects for the benefit of vulnerable children and youth (especially girls) as well as their families and communities:
• Engage regularly with Programme Area Coordinators in sponsorship areas to review progress and provide advice on management of PA sponsorship activities
• Work with the MERL team to embed indicators into all PIU’s projects to track the extent to which:
• Communities are benefiting from sponsorship programmes
• Sponsored families are benefiting grant-funded programmes
• Lead reviews and reflections on sponsorship related MERL data, adapting strategies and recommending changes to the way we work as necessary to optimise the beneficial impact of PIU’s sponsorship activities
• Collate country-wide data concerning the priorities in sponsorship communities and ensure this understanding is used to inform annual planning and budgeting for sponsorship projects
• Lead the Sponsorship Alumni and ensure it’s well integrated with the Youth Advisory Panel and other programme initiatives.
• Support the development of high quality area documents that reflect Plan’s work (Programme Area Overviews and Programme Area Updates)

Sponsorship Commitments and Caseload Management

• Support PIU’s staff, partners and stakeholders to deliver against the 10 commitments of sponsorship, continue to meet KPIs (@ 95% or higher) and effectively manage the caseload of sponsored children:
• Ensure that PIU staff, partners and stakeholders are fully aware of PIU’s sponsorship strategy and the 10 commitments of sponsorship:
• Circulate Plan International’s Sponsorship guidelines
• Develop and deliver regular briefings and trainings, including induction for new staff members
• Provide advice and guidance as required
• Ensure that all required data concerning sponsored children is collected and inputted into the system; carry out spot checks as required to ensure 100% complete and accurate information
• Ensure that regular reports are provided to Programme Area Coordinators concerning the status of enrolment in the PA and performance against sponsorship KPIs; highlight any requirement for corrective action and provide implementation support
• Work with the Programme Implementation Team to ensure that relevant staff have the sponsorship commitments embedded in their Individual Accountability Plan and also meet the mandatory sponsored families home visit targets
• Ensure that girls enrolment is monitored on a monthly basis and action taken to keep it in the region of 64%

Relationship building and Communications with National Office:

• Act as the point person for relationships between the International Office, various National Offices, and PIU; ensure quality relationships of mutual trust and effective collaboration are built and maintained:
• Ensure full understanding of the information requirements of NOs, and their expectations of PIU; ensure that PIU’s policies, systems and procedures are set up to deliver
• Lead the team to initiate, nurture and maintain good relations between sponsored children (and their families) and national offices and sponsors; continually monitor and act on feedback to maintain the good will of sponsors
• Ensure that all reports and other donor accountability requirements are submitted by the team on time and to standard; ensure that reports are tailored if different donor groups / National Offices have different interests or requirements
• Ensure that questions and queries from Sponsors and national offices resolved promptly and positively; ensure that VIP sponsors are mapped out and proactively managed
• Manage sponsor visits and ensure that they are managed to a high standard so that they act as a marketing tool

Corporate Systems and Processes

• Ensure that the Sponsorship Corporate System is fully functional in Uganda and effectively supports the information management requirements of both programme teams and Plan International:
• Monitor the functioning of the sponsorship corporate system in Uganda, ensuring that Child data is operational at all times and downtimes are efficiently and effectively communicated to end users; report persistent problems or data anomalies to ICT and/or Global Help Desk as they arise.
• Ensure that Child Data Protection protocols are given an extremely high priority within the team with regular reminders given; carefully manage the allocation of Child Data Rights in line with policy
• Liaise with the Finance team to ensure that the Sponsorship team gathers and inputs all required information (e.g. the Program Area Codes which are used to track expenses)
• Work collaboratively with the Risk Assurance Manager to identify and manage all risks related to sponsorship; foster a culture of risk management amongst all those involved in sponsorship activities
• Attend Child Data Calls, disseminate the minutes and follow up to ensure action is taken on matters arising from the calls

Leadership & Staff Management

• Lead all those who are involved in Sponsorship Activities (both matrix-managed programme implementation staff and the Sponsorship Assistant) in a manner that empowers them to contribute effectively towards achievement of PIU’s strategy and sponsorship KPIs:
• Ensure that the team is resourced with the expertise necessary for success through a combination of recruitment and management of staff, mobilization of community volunteers, and procurement of consultants
• Lead and manage the team towards high standards of performance through clear roles & responsibilities and provision of appropriate support; coordinate effectively with others to ensure high performance within PIU’s matrix operating structure
• Develop and encourage talent through on-going staff development, succession planning, career management; proactively address poor performance through timely constructive feedback, coaching and appropriate corrective action
• Foster an inclusive environment by implementation of policies and ways-of-working that provide for diversity and equal opportunities and utilisation of a leadership style that will drive employee engagement
• Ensure that staff are managed in accordance with good HR management practice and provided with a safe and conducive working environment; includes ensuring that all legal and statutory obligations are fulfilled

Safeguarding, Gender Equality & Inclusion

• Ensure that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The ideal applicant must hold a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Development studies, Management studies or any other related discipline.
• Relevant Master’s Degree is desirable.
• At least five years’ experience as a mid-level manager in a related field within an NGO or donor organisation
• Leadership Competencies
• Myself as a Leader
• Leads through influence rather than position, and role models our values, accelerating gender equality inside and outside PIU; leads change by developing new ideas and strategies.
• Ensures effective delivery by leading through others, working closely with our support functions, keeping abreast of what is going on in own business unit or function and responding quickly if problems arise.
• Creates space for reflection and uses external evidence and internal evaluation to identify what and how we need to improve; creates a safe environment for others to challenge self or raise concerns; leads the team to implement changes as a result of what has been learned.
• Critical Business Management Competencies
• Broad and deep understanding of the political, social, financial and cultural drivers of inequality; with practical experience of developing and implementing strategies for change
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and leading the impactful implementation of significant projects; utilising good practice in MERL to set targets and adaptively managing to ensure achievement of results
• Good grasp of financial management including understanding relevant funding sources, ability to budget and accurately estimate costs, experience with reading financial reports and taking appropriate action based on the results.
• Strong ability to analyse and interpret an appropriate range of data and evidence, both internal and external, using sound judgement to make balanced decisions, based on insights gained, or projection of trends.
• Strong written and spoken communication skills, including in relevant local languages, with an ability to effectively adjust content and presentation to suit varied audiences internally and externally, to get key messages across.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills with an ability to relate effectively to a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds; proven track record of leading collaborative working relationships and resolving conflicts between parties with differing interests.

Critical Technical Competencies

• Knowledge of sponsorship policies and procedures.
• Understanding of donor programs, priorities and policies.
• Understanding of child-development and community development programming, including Rights-based programming.

How to Apply:

All Qualified and interested candidates should apply online at the link below.

Click Here

Deadline:  1^st September 2022

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