Associate Consultant – Fundraising & Resource Development

Role Overview

As an Associate Consultant in Fundraising & Resource Development at Act!, you will play a hands-on role in securing the financial partnerships that keep the organisation’s programmes alive and expanding. Your day-to-day work involves scanning the funding landscape for emerging opportunities, nurturing relationships with potential donors, and translating programme ideas into compelling concept notes and full proposal packages. By strengthening both restricted project funding and unrestricted income streams, you directly enable Act! to pursue its strategic goals across democracy, peacebuilding, environmental sustainability, and civil society strengthening in Kenya and the wider Eastern Africa region.

Key Responsibilities

• Proactively identify and cultivate new funding partnerships, with a focus on both traditional institutional donors and non-traditional sources such as foundations, private sector actors, and high-net-worth individuals.
• Facilitate connections between Act!’s programme teams and potential collaborators, ensuring that new opportunities for funding and joint initiatives are effectively explored and pursued.
• Lead or contribute to the design of project concepts, ensuring they align with donor priorities, organisational strategy, and the real needs of target communities.
• Coordinate the development of grant applications and proposal packages, managing timelines, input from multiple teams, and compliance with donor guidelines.
• Conduct ongoing research and analysis of the donor and funding landscape to inform strategic decisions on where to invest fundraising efforts.
• Support the organisation’s unrestricted income generation initiatives by developing materials and approaches that attract flexible funding.
• Work collaboratively with multiple project teams to ensure that fundraising targets and programme development needs remain aligned, offering advisory support where needed.

Requirements & Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies, Resource Mobilization, Business Management, International Development, or a closely related field. A Master’s degree or postgraduate qualification is a distinct advantage.
• At least ten years of professional experience in fundraising, with a proven record of successfully contributing to or leading competitive proposal submissions to bilateral and multilateral donors.
• Demonstrated familiarity with the donor ecosystem in Kenya and Eastern Africa, particularly in sectors such as democracy and human rights, peacebuilding and conflict transformation, sustainable environment and natural resource management, and civil society strengthening.
• Hands-on experience building partnerships with non-traditional donors is highly valued.
• Strong project and programme design skills, with the ability to shape broad ideas into structured, fundable interventions.
• Excellent writing skills, especially for concept notes, proposals, and donor reports.
• Strong interpersonal and presentational abilities, enabling effective engagement with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Good listening and questioning skills, allowing you to understand donor interests and programme needs thoroughly.
• Solid process facilitation and project management capabilities, including the ability to manage competing deadlines and multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Demonstrated research and analytical skills, with the capacity to translate data into actionable fundraising strategy.