Senior Capacity Strengthening and Civic Engagement Advisor

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 3,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

Palladium Americas:

Our Americas’ business team has brilliant and passionate colleagues working in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America as well as the Caribbean, fulfilling projects and assignments for clients from institutions, corporations, governments, and foundations based in the Americas. We have offices in Washington, DC, New York City, and Raleigh-Durham, NC.

This Opportunity:

Palladium seeks a Senior Capacity Strengthening and Civic Engagement Advisor to support the Capacity Strengthening and Sustainability portfolio. This position will focus on business development, project management, and supporting thought leadership to enhance civic engagement, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of government programs and ensure that civil society and watchdog organizations are empowered to monitor the reforms process. Business development tasks will include, developing partner relationships, helping to identify key staff, analyzing solicitation documents (RFPs, RFA and requests for concept notes), participating in the drafting and development of proposals, acting as a capture manager, and when required conducting scoping trips.

In addition, the senior technical advisor will oversee projects in the portfolio where needed and will assist country teams to develop project strategies, approaches, and plans, implement activities, and monitor progress towards outlined project milestones, deliverables and approved workplans. The senior technical advisor will also represent Palladium by participating in technical working groups, committees, and other bodies that focus on local capacity development, civic engagement, and good governance.**

You and Your Career:

If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, and you have technical and program expertise in civic engagement, good governance, capacity strengthening, and business development, we are interested in hearing from you.

We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career!

Reporting and Supervision:

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide technical and strategic support for the design, development, and implementation of CSO strengthening, governance strengthening, political systems strengthening, political economy analysis, capacity building, peace building, social accountability, civil society strengthening, and city government technical assistance
• Identify and develop effective strategies to build partnerships with civil society and media groups, to enhance institutional accountability and capability to work toward a shared vision
• Adapt current relevant program methodologies, approaches, and tools that will improve citizen and CSO engagement in political sphere and strengthen governance structures
• Provide technical advice to develop strategic locally led approaches to promote citizen engagement and awareness, particularly for marginalized groups
• Identify and foster key institutional partnerships to support the development of a regional partnership strategy
• Identify and lead opportunities for collaborative pursuits with other business units to build the pipeline of opportunities, leverage existing vehicles and secure new ones in the region
• Advise programs on community outreach, civic engagement, and advocacy components and help design the strategy, approaches and tools to achieve expected results
• Interact with internal and external resources and other experts to ensure that project approaches reflect the state-of-the-art for capacity strengthening and civic engagement
• Serve as capture manager (responsible for technical direction, teaming, staffing, and budgeting for proposals)
• Lead technical proposals serving as lead writer when required
• Build and maintain relationships with key personnel candidates for identified opportunities
• Provide thought leadership (writing blogs and white papers, conducting speaking engagements, etc.) and work with others to promote and market Palladium as a leader in local capacity strengthening and civic engagement
• Provide overall leadership to key project areas including project and regional coordination, technical assistance and overall strategy, field implementation, operations and compliance, risk management, USG, other donor and partner relationships and results dissemination
• Contribute to quality knowledge management and sharing efforts
• Provide input and/or review of technical briefs highlighting Palladium’s work and achievements

Key competencies required:

• Demonstrated and relevant international development programming experience including experience in the implementation and management of international donor- (including USAID) funded projects that focus on civil society strengthening, civic engagement, decentralization, or institutional strengthening programs
• Experience facilitating learning forums and assessments using online platforms and blended learning options
• Experience serving as a senior technical lead for USAID programs with multisectoral approaches in areas such as health, education, youth, economic growth, gender and conflict stabilization/transition
• Prior experience leading capture and proposal development for USAID opportunities with a successful track record
• Professional excellence including outstanding facilitation, strategic planning, and management skills
• Demonstrated knowledge of trends in relevant areas, donor initiatives, and programs related to local capacity strengthening, political economy analysis, and civic engagement
• Demonstrated ability to build and manage working relationships with clients, partners, and technical experts
• Willingness to travel and work abroad a minimum of 4-8 weeks per year
• Demonstrated ability to manage, develop, and supervise department staff, multiple project teams, remote staff and other initiatives
• Demonstrated leadership, business acumen, versatility, and integrity

Professional Expertise/Competencies Preferred:

• Prior field experience working/ leading USAID programs preferred

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.
Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or any other circumstance, please email our team at [email protected]

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.