Position Summary: SREO Consulting is seeking a Proposal Writer to identify opportunities and develop winning bids and proposals. Reporting to the CEO, Managing Director and Associate Managing Director, the Proposal Writer will primarily focus on developing winning technical proposals for current and upcoming project bids, in response to solicitations from United Nations agencies, the World Bank, governments, international NGOs, and other humanitarian and development agencies.
The role will act as SREO’s primary focal point for all business development activity, playing a driving role in the consolidation, diversification and strategic expansion of SREO’s research, third-party monitoring, and evaluation portfolio. The Proposal Writer will also be responsible for bid management and coordination, in coordination with the senior management team at SREO. This includes monitoring for opportunities on key tender platforms; coordinating the proposal development and submission process; liaising with technical and management staff to obtain their inputs into proposals; drafting and editing technical proposals; following up on submitted bids and responding to queries from clients, up until contract signature and handover to project team.
The role will also conduct market and/or donor analyses, build out capabilities and qualifications materials, and help identify and review specific opportunities and technical requirements. The successful candidate will be hands-on, and willing to work with experts and field teams to assemble required inputs and design rigorous and methodologically-sound approaches to project requirements. The ideal candidate will be commercially aware and able to understand and respond to contextual and logistical factors across numerous complex country contexts. The role requires drive and energy, an ability to work to tight deadlines, confidence in dealing with senior stakeholders (internal/external), and a desire to compete and win projects. Excellent organisational and communication skills are essential, as well as superb writing skills. SREO often works flexibly and in rapid response to tight deadlines and immediate humanitarian crises, across multiple time zones.
Location: Remote, work from home.
Start: Immediate
Duration: 1-year contract with possibility of extension (3-month probationary period)
Reports to: Managing Director, Associate Managing Director, Research Programme Manager, CEO
RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:
1. Act as lead on all proposals for work globally, tracking proposal progress from beginning to end and proactively following up as necessary.
2. Identifying new and upcoming opportunities and requirements, including daily monitoring of a range of tender platforms to monitor opportunities and identify any new and forecast bids, changes in deadlines or requirements, requests for information and/or other opportunity information.
3. Carefully assessing the requirements for upcoming and current opportunities, including: understanding the technical requirements, eligibility criteria, specific financial requirements, etc, and how technical proposals will be evaluated.
4. Chairing the weekly internal Business Development meeting and briefing SREO’s CEO and MD to assess upcoming bids, identify those SREO will bid on, and allocate tasks and responsibilities for development of the bids.
5. Serve as proposal coordinator for all bids, to ensure all participants in the bidding process are aware of timelines and deliverables. Following up proactively to ensure complete and competitive bids are submitted ahead of time.
6. Tracking and coordinating the proposal development pipeline, including leading on updating SREO’s internal BD tracker and project management platforms. Making improvements to these systems as necessary.
7. Drafting and editing high-quality winning technical proposals in response to technical requirements, for a variety of project types (third-party M&E, evaluations, studies, survey exercises, et al) in a variety of sectors (Health, Food Security & Livelihoods, Governance, Peace & Security, WaSH, et al.) for (I)NGOs, UN agencies, and private clients in the Middle East, Africa, and other regions;
8. Manage proposal team in developing and writing proposals, liaising with other SREO staff (management, research and field teams) to obtain required inputs on technical bids as required.
9. Supporting the development of financial proposals including identifying project timelines, staffing and methodological requirements, and other cost-relevant items, and briefing CEO as required.
10. Revising technical drafts and other sections of the proposal based on internal review processes.
11. Maintain and strengthen quality products by using and improving proposal templates and components and capacity statements.
12. Leading on BD administration, ensuring key documents are always organized and available for use, including – maintaining a complete, up-to-date database of staff CVs, SREO project descriptors, client certificates of completion and client references; filing and organizing Requests for Proposal documents and Proposals, etc.
13. Monitoring SREO’s wins and losses, and tracking SREO’s win rate.
14. Leading and or contributing substantively to opportunity related research and analysis in collaboration across the team.
QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS:
Required:
• Relevant academic degree;
• Entrepreneurial outlook;
• Highly organised and able to coordinate complex proposals under time pressure;
• Fluency in speaking, reading, and writing English is required,
• Extremely strong English writing skills required;
o Conceptual organization
o Clarity / communication
o Persuasion
o Grammar and punctuation
• Sharp attention to detail and organization;
• Ability to work under time pressure and meet deadlines; time management;
• Knowledge of or interest in learning about third-party monitoring, evaluation and research applied to humanitarian response, development and international topics;
• Ability to work on and complete projects alone or in teams;
• Initiative, self-starter with ability to set goals and priorities;
• Advanced MS Word & proficient MS Excel.
Desirable:
• Private-sector BD experience, ideally in a consultancy environment, and/or grants management experience;
• Prior experience working on developing and writing proposals preferred;
• Understanding of monitoring and evaluation principles, protocols and challenges;
• Proven experience working within financial project parameters;
• Familiarity with large donor (United Nations, USAID, FCDO, GIZ, etc.) objectives, approaches and operations, as they relate to M&E is an advantage;
• Knowledge of donor procurement, branding and licensing protocols.
• Prior experience in international development and/or humanitarian response is an advantage;
• Knowledge of the context in and geography of countries in which SREO works is an advantage (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ukraine);
• Experience with Adobe Illustrator and/or GIS software is an advantage;
• Additional language skills (e.g. French, Arabic, Spanish, etc).
About SREO
SREO Consulting Ltd. (SREO) is an independent monitoring & evaluation and research consultancy committed to serving humanitarian, stabilization and development actors operating in the most challenging environments around the world by providing unbiased and actionable data, analysis and research. Our international team combines local insight with interdisciplinary expertise to deliver information from those in need to those who need it most.
SREO was originally founded in Gaziantep, Turkey in 2013 to assist in the Syria cross-border response. Over the past eight years, we have built one of the largest field teams inside Syria and expanded across the region to Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, then to Mali, Senegal, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Venezuela. We have completed over 250 monitoring and evaluation/ research projects with partners ranging from the United Nations, the World Bank, UK Department for International Development (DfID), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs), the private and public sector.
SREO Consulting is a Small to Medium Enterprise (SME), registered in Turkey and the United States. We are headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey with offices in Tunisia (Tunis), and Iraq (Erbil & Baghdad).
How to apply
If interested, please send your CV, cover letter and writing sample to [email protected]
Writing samples are recommended to be maximum 5-pages of an analytical piece (can be an excerpt) that demonstrates analytical skills using primary and secondary sources (qualitative and quantitative data preferred), clear and organized writing free of grammatical errors.
Any questions concerning this position can also be directed to this email address.