Organization Summary:

UBONGO is Africa's leading producer of kids' edutainment. As a non-profit social enterprise, we create fun, localized, and multi-platform educational content that helps kids learn, and leverage their learning to change their lives. Ubongo reaches over 31  million kids across Africa through accessible technologies like TV, radio, and mobile phones. Our show’s Ubongo Kids and Akili and Me currently air in 23 countries across Africa, in Swahili, English, French, Kinyarwanda, Kikuyu, Luo, Yoruba, Hausa, Chichewa, and Juba Arabic. 

Job Position: We are looking for a Development Manager to join our small but mighty Development and Communications Team. You’ll be joining a team of 70+ Ubongoers across 8 countries and growing, with the big audacious goal to reach 60 million kids in Africa by 2025.  Working at Ubongo will challenge and excite you with lots of responsibilities, plenty of fun, and it gives you the opportunity to impact the lives of millions of kids every day. 

We’re looking for a dynamic, creative, and flexible Development Manager to expand and improve our Fundraising department. You’ll work closely with our Director of Communications and Development to support our fundraising efforts with foundations, family foundations, government grantmakers, and individuals from around the world who may be interested in funding our work. We are looking for an experienced fundraising professional, who will work closely with our team to find and apply for grant opportunities, and create the strategy and content for individual giving campaigns.  A successful candidate will be a great storyteller and an even better relationship builder with a passion for the work that we do. 

Candidates should expect to spend 70% of their time drafting, editing, and submitting challenge grants, award applications, and concept notes, 20% of their time prospecting funding opportunities and in team meetings, and 10% supporting individual giving communications including emails, meetings, and content for campaigns. At some points in the year when there are few grant applications due or major campaigns, the officer will spend a greater amount of time researching funding opportunities, helping the Ubongo team build our fundraising pipeline, or providing writing support on other communications or marketing efforts/initiatives. Ubongo expects the Development Manager to raise 50% - 60% annually towards our $7 million+ budget.

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

1. Lead in grant writing efforts, including, prospecting, drafting, editing, and submitting applications that Ubongo decides to pursue

Main Activities:  

• Researching, prospecting, and identifying donors, funders, and opportunities for Ubongo to pursue
• Updating and managing our CRM database for prospective donors, applications, and past (already pursued) prospects
• Writing applications for awards and challenge grants, LOIs, and concept notes 

2. Manage relationships with individual donors through consistent personalized communications and the development of content for fundraising campaigns

Main Activities:  

• Owning and managing our Network for Good fundraising platform & pages
• Writing fundraising newsletters and supporting the creation of other fundraising communications including website copy, social media content, blog posts, and press releases
• Understanding Ubongo’s vision, mission, impact, and priorities and sharing our story effectively with potential funders through different communication channels
• Designing and writing appeals for individual donor campaigns
• Building personal relationships and following up consistently with individual donors and peer-to-peer fundraisers, encouraging them to get more involved 
• Finding creative ways to host and facilitate Ubongo introductory webinars for interested stakeholders, supporters, and donors 
• Supporting brand awareness and building within our US audiences and the African diaspora - thinking critically and creatively about building brand awareness, with support from the comms team, in the US and among African diaspora communities

REQUIREMENT: KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE, and QUALIFICATIONSESSENTIALS:

• 3+ years experience fundraising or grant writing for a non-profit company or social enterprise
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills: Proven grant writing and storytelling skills
• Experience in outreach and/or network-building roles
• Ability to synthesize research and produce compelling literature reviews.
• Bachelor's degree preferably in English Literature, Creative Writing, Education, Research, Marketing, Communications, Nonprofit Management, Business, or a related field
• Proven experience working in grant writing,  fundraising, marketing, corporate communications, content development, writing, or project management
• Must be able to provide at least 3 professional references
• Must love kids!
• You have the ability to work independently and to think on your feet
• Be willing to wear many hats

PREFERRED:

• Deep understanding of Africa’s education and development landscape
• Passionate about education, storytelling, and being a changemaker
• Loves building relationships and talking to new people
• Great storytelling skills come through in public speaking and writing. We tell powerful stories and you need to be able to represent our brand well publically 
• Experience with Salesforce, and other fundraising CRM is a bonus

ADDITIONAL NOTES:Benefits: 

Phew! You made it through that. The good thing is that there are also perks, like a delicious healthy lunch at the office, health insurance, pension payments of up to 10% (matching the value of your individual contributions), 28 working days of paid annual leave (in addition to the public holidays) and you get to watch cartoons at work. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Please note that only online applications will be considered. Those who come directly to the office with a CV or who email their CV to us will simply be directed to apply online.  

So please save yourself time and effort by simply sticking to online applications. THANKS!