Senior Program Manager - Political Parties

About Us

The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness, and accountability in government.  Help support democracy worldwide by joining our team! 

About the Role

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is seeking a Senior Program Manager to support NDI’s political party programs with a special focus on the areas of closing space and polarization. The Political Parties Team’s primary mission is to support the regional teams in the design, implementation and evaluation of political party programs, including: participatory policy development; political outreach; meaningful inclusion of women, young people and other marginalized groups in party processes; and campaign organizing.

Your Purpose and Impact: 

• Provide leadership vision and strategy on programs which involve multiple cross-cutting issues, require considerable resources, and need high levels of integration and collaboration across the region and/or multiple regions. 
• Respond to staff inquiries requiring specific programmatic expertise and/or country-specific knowledge. Continually monitor political events in the relevant international landscape to maintain a current knowledge and ability to adapt programs when needed.
• Serve as a resource for Project Assistants, Program Associates and Program Officers on protocols and other specific requirements associated with proper program management and serve as a mentor/coach for their development and successful performance. Provide oversight of specific program management activities as required.
• Lead the development of detailed work plans to ensure achievement of assigned program(s) objective(s) and expected outcomes, including the establishment of actions to be taken, the required resources (time, funding, staffing, etc.), a schedule/timeline for the actions required, and specific measures/metrics for evaluation at completion.
• Conduct all aspects of program management, ensuring the effective and efficient execution of the established program work plans, including established actions, outcomes, and timelines. Monitor progress, identify problems and barriers and make recommendations to management for necessary adjustments to ensure successful, quality outcomes.
• Facilitate collaboration with team leadership, other team members, and as required across other teams to identify and coordinate regional programmatic activities and priorities, including the development of program concepts and content for proposals, ensuring alignment with broader institutional strategies and approaches. Identify, document, and share feedback regarding successful processes/programs, as well as areas where improvements can be made for the establishment/execution of future programs.
• Conduct relevant analysis to determine potential impacts of programmatic work related to program-specific initiatives, plans, and/or problems, as well as review of data and metrics associated with program progress. Draw conclusions and present findings in a concise and understandable manner with related recommendations for any proposed actions to be taken.
• Draft, or review/edit drafts prepared by other program staff members, consolidating contents when needed to ensure a comprehensive, integrated deliverable for assigned communications such as board memos, briefing memos, reports (e.g. quarterly) or portions thereof, work plans, proposals, and presentations, ensuring proper and accurate formatting, spelling, and grammar usage as well as inclusion of required content, and finalize for submission. 
• Manage and monitor budgets, grants and expenditures for assigned programs, with particular focus on those with greater complexity, e.g. involving multiple grants, teams, and field offices. Maintain budget-related notes/documentation and ensure completion of reconciliations and proper application of allowable costs according to restrictions, structures, and established mechanisms/processes. Work to ensure adherence to budget limitations and anticipate/address overages, implementing solutions to budget variances with input/agreement from higher-level team members as necessary. Provide guidance to lower level staff related to budget preparation, tracking, and reconciliations.
• Establish, foster and maintain relationships with field staff, funding agency representatives, and overseas partners to ensure successful program implementation and execution and to articulate new funding proposals and concepts. Brief and/or collaborate to provide briefings to specific country political, civic and business leaders, donor organizations and members of the international community about NDI activities and positively influence and gain need