Senior Regional Officer of Institutional Funding and Partnerships

Senior Regional Officer of Institutional Funding and Partnerships

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The Senior Regional Officer of Institutional Funding & Partnerships for Latin America leads capture (prepositioning) and partnership development efforts to secure institutional funding from multilateral agencies, foundations, and government donors across the Water For People’s Latin American countries (Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, and Honduras). This role focuses on advancing strategic prospecting with regional partners, negotiating teaming agreements, supporting early project design, and positioning the organization for competitive proposal opportunities.

The position will report to the Director of New Business Development (NBD) with additional accountabilities for supporting the country directors and Influence roles at the country and regional levels in partnership cultivation and business development prospecting. The role will also provide as needed surge support for proposal management on opportunities for our other regions.

The Senior Regional Officer will oversee aspects of Water For People’s business development processes for proposal opportunities, including management, development and production of compliant, timely and high-quality proposals for the Water For People’s work in Central and South America. The Senior Regional Officer will monitor trends to support the Director of New Business Development in strengthening capacity efforts and other training initiatives to mainstream industry best practices in business development among the country-level teams.

In This Role You Will

• Identify, research, and prioritize institutional funding opportunities with donors in Latin America, coordinating prospecting and engagement plans with regional teams.
• Manage the full pre‑award lifecycle, proposal teams, for new business development from prepositioning/capture management through the award handover and launch process.
• Begin early positioning by influencing funder requirements, identifying “go/no‑go” criteria, and preparing internal resources for a possible proposal.
• In collaboration with the NBD Director and Regional Director, analyze the competitive landscape and organizational readiness for potential pursuits.
• Facilitate strategic partnership development, negotiation of teaming agreements, and positioning activities to maximize success before proposal launch.
• Work with country teams, technical experts, and leadership to ensure alignment of capture activities with regional and organizational goals.
• Lead capture strategy sessions to increase preparedness and competitiveness of proposals to institutional donors.
• Oversee opportunity‑specific stakeholder mapping, competitor intelligence, and donor analysis to maximize capture success.
• Ensure timely documentation and sharing of capture intelligence, lessons learned, and market insights to strengthen future proposal efforts.
• Provide guidance, mentorship, and capacity building for country teams and junior business development staff on prepositioning best practices.

• In consultation with the NBD Director, country teams, and Regional Director, coordinate outreach to strategic partners in alignment with the country‑focused strategies for institutional funding.
• Mobilize resources to manage the production of proposals, including budgets, deliverables and timelines with Finance, Compliance, and Program Staff within the region and globally.
• During live bid process, create and customize proposal management resources, track technical and cost proposal progress to ensure milestones are met, and ensure that every member of the proposal team, including sub‑ and prime contractors, knows what is expected of him/her and when tasks are due.
• Liaise with Country Program employees to enable full and effective utilization of grant management processes and systems; providing trainings, onboardings, answering queries on process guidance, and providing input in grant negotiation opportunities with partners.
• Manage cross‑functional communication and develop knowledge management…