International Development Fellow - Global Placements

Prior to applying, please read important application instructions on the IDFP webpage: https://www.crs.org/about/careers/fellowships 

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through Programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.  

Background

The Fellows Program is designed for individuals dedicated to a career in international development. While contributing to impactful work, Fellows hone their skills and gain experience in program management and operations. All Fellows complete a comprehensive practical hands-on training in project management, project design and proposal development, monitoring and evaluation, and operations (human resources, supply chain, security, safeguarding). Each Fellow is based in one of CRS’ country programs for the 12-month fellowship. Many Fellows build a career with CRS after completing the Fellowship.

Before applying, please visit the IDFP website to learn more about the Fellowship learning objectives, structure, placement process, benefits, and application requirements. 

Job Summary

Under the supervision of an experienced staff member, the Fellow is responsible for applying their experience and knowledge to programming and operations, including project management, project design and proposal development, and monitoring & evaluation.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

Project Management

• Develop early start-up plans and budgets, including procurement and distribution plans (in collaboration with operations staff).
• Facilitate start-up workshops with partners (moving from proposal to implementation-- review roles & responsibilities, activities, partner budgets, etc.).
• Develop detailed implementation plans for new projects or review/update existing plans with CRS staff and partners. Proactively identify changes based on lessons learned and monitoring data.
• Facilitate quarterly project planning meetings with CRS staff and partners. 
• Monitor project activities through field visits, identify challenges/risks and propose solutions to senior management. 
• Analyze project spending rates against detailed implementation plans and propose corrective actions if needed.
• Write and/or edit donor reports in collaboration with CRS staff and partners, ensure accuracy of data, document lessons learned, provide recommendations to overcome issues identified. 
• Serve as Acting Project Manager and/or independently lead a larger-scale project activity. Responsibilities will include organizing activities with partners, proactively managing potential risks and issues, ensuring compliance, managing project/activity budget, donor reporting, leading decisions on timing, scale and adaptations per CRS and donor protocols.
• Support planning and implementation of site visits for donors and partners.
• Lead updates to country program strategy through collaborative process with senior management.

Project Design and Proposal Development

• Prepare competitive environment mapping exercises, participate in go/no-go decisions around new funding opportunities for country program, support development of strategic partnerships.
• Write project concept notes for various sectors and donors per country program strategy.
• Co-facilitate participatory design workshops with the following output: problem & stakeholder analysis, results framework, theory of change, proframe, etc.
• Coordinate proposal team, serve as lead writer for technical and/or cost proposals, lead final packaging/editing of proposal, draft responses to issues letters from donors. 
• Document learning from program results (prepare one-pagers, success stories, past performance reviews).

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning 

• Lead research & analysis of primary and secondary data to inform new project design.  Coordinate collection of primary data through surveys and/or rapid assessments by designing survey tools, training data collectors, etc. 
• Support design and/or implementation of baseline or final project evaluations (e.g. prepare SOW for external consultants per CRS and donor M&E requirements, review data collection tools).
• Develop sections of bo