Business Development Associate (Grant Writing)

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies 1 million smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. Our 8,000+ team is drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. With operations across six core countries in Africa, we make farmers more prosperous by providing quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural training to improve harvests. On average, our farmers harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund. 

To learn more about our work, take a look at our Why Work Here blog for more information.

About the Role

One Acre Fund is growing fast: we aim to more than double in scale within the next five years. This growth will be fueled by fundraising. We are looking for a proven and passionate writer to join our dedicated 8-person writing team within our broader Business Development team.

You will report to a senior writer, immediately take on a portfolio of reports and proposals for smaller grants, and receive intensive writing mentorship over the first 6-12 months. Your work will then quickly ramp up in value, complexity, and independence. This is a career-track position, with multiple pathways to management based on performance and preference.

This position is also available to be based in New York, NY. See job posting here. 

Primary responsibilities:

• Write grant reports and proposals. Our writing team crafts powerful prose about One Acre Fund's work and customers, with emphasis on strong logical flow, hard data, and farmer-centric perspectives. This is a backend role; you will partner with our frontend fundraisers to tailor each piece to each donor through a collaborative drafting process.
• Manage complex projects. We expect writers to "own" all stages of a writing project, with support from colleagues and team leadership. You will set and manage timelines, coordinate input from multiple teams, and ensure error-free work, typically for 2-3 overlapping projects at any one time.
• Invest in program fluency. To be effective, writers must develop and sustain a deep working knowledge of One Acre Fund's operating context, model, results, and future plans. For individual projects, you will also often conduct additional research into potential donors or specific aspects of our work.

Secondary responsibilities:

• Provide ad hoc writing/research support to senior team members
• Contribute to team-wide writing tools/systems

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund is proud of our culture of continual growth. You will have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance, including career reviews every six months and quarterly opportunities to discuss aspirations and career goals. We invest in helping our people build rewarding long-term careers at One Acre Fund, which in turn helps us grow stronger as an organization.

Qualifications

• Minimum of Bachelor's degree
• Minimum 2+ years of professional writing experience. This can include - but is not limited to - professional experience in journalism, grant writing, and/or copywriting.
• Can share 2-3 writing samples that demonstrate ability to write concise, well-structured, jargon-free prose
• Can share 2-3 concrete examples of having successfully managed complex writing projects with multiple stakeholders
• Genuine commitment to rural communities. You are passionate about providing opportunity to the hardest-working farmers on the planet.
• Language: English

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible.

Job Location

Nairobi, Kenya 

Compensation

Commensurate with experience

Duration

Full-time job

Benefits 

Health insurance, paid time off

Eligibility

This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Kenya. 

Application Deadline

8 June 2021

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.