Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives - Program Manager - Grant Making

Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives Pvt Ltd

We are a 74-member team, embarking on an exciting journey that aspires to facilitate a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society through grant making. In the last 5 years, 200+ grants have been made in our areas of intervention (further broken down into specific themes) Gender, Land and Forest Dependent, Urban Poor, Nutrition, Constitutional Vales and Youth and Governance.

The Philanthropic Initiatives represents a workplace that is well entrenched in diversity, inclusion and consists of individuals who are proficient at being specialized generalists, can double and triple hat with ease with BAU as well as specific projects with an aim to transform the APPI mission

Overview

Program Managers are responsible for an theme/cluster by making grants to organizations across the country. The incumbent ensures smooth program delivery and aids delivery of the operating plan. The incumbent will have complete accountability for a large programme and multiple grants that ensure the achievement of the stated goal/objectives.

Responsibilities - 

Leadership

- Provide guidance, mentorship and effective knowledge management within the team to ensure smooth program delivery

- Manage the disbursal of large and high impact grants within the organization in individual capacity.

- Supplement the research and development of frameworks, models and theories around the operating area.

- Initiate relationships with think tanks and civil society organizations in order to further APPIs understanding of an area.

- Ensure compliance of specific grant proposals to ensure that it meets the APPI guidelines and requirements, and is a well drafted request, complete in all aspects.

- Work closely with the Senior Management Team of the organization in order to agree and ensure delivery of grantee organizational development plans, where applicable

Strategic Direction and Theory of Change

- The Senior Manager - Programmes will contribute significantly in curating strategy and concept notes in a given theme

- Co-create strategies, outcomes and impact frameworks with partners and external consultants

- Help build the Theory of Change as an orchestrator for strategic and systematic scale up grants

- Assist APPI (as an orchestrator) in working with the government, ministries and other departments when required

Grant opportunity and disbursement

- Review all completed proposals to ensure that required information has been provided. Ensure that the story of the grantee organization comes through clearly.

- Lead the efforts on the Due Diligence Process and partner engagement

- Help the partner develop results frameworks and ensure that the thinking around the results framework is in keeping with the APPI operating plan

- Conduct meaningful conversations with all grantees that validate their results framework/s for review and action by the Board.

- Post approval, provide leadership to working with the finance team and the grantees to ensure that the financial resources of the APPI reach them in time.

- Ensure compliance to the grant making system at the APPI through the entire lifecycle of a grant.

Program Management and Delivery

- Take charge of all program management activities, start to finish

- Work with the SMT to ensure optimum allocation of work within the team, adherence to timelines, achievement of milestones and take responsibility for corrective action as and when required

- Identify, assess and manage risks arising out of uncertainty of the program strategy, design or delivery

- Manage multiple stakeholders and work closely with them to bring together the program as envisioned by the APPI

Learning and Reflection

- Ensure a balance with sometimes competing needs and priorities between the grantee and APPI

- Develop guidelines for effective reflection, learning and change

- Work on the results from a learning and reflection exercise to create best practices and introduce process improvements

- Report out on learning and reflection at an area level and make sure that the process is beneficial to grantees and the APPI.

Qualifications

- Bachelors degree required; Masters degree strongly preferred

- 8 to 15 years of work experience, either in a field operations role or work experience with a grantmaker

- Should have made significant and long lasting contributions in his/her area of specialization.

- Should have lead teams and have had accountability for large goals in his/her previous assignments

- Grant-making experience strongly preferred; desire to work in and with nonprofit sector is essential