Grants and Compliance Officer

Role Overview

This role oversees the end-to-end lifecycle of donor-funded grants, from initial proposal development through implementation, compliance monitoring, reporting, and final close-out. Day to day, the Grants and Compliance Officer serves as the central point of contact for all grant-related activities, coordinating across program, finance, monitoring and evaluation, and communications teams to ensure projects meet donor and organizational requirements. The position is critical to safeguarding institutional compliance, improving grant management processes, and equipping staff with the knowledge to navigate complex donor regulations.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the full grant lifecycle: maintain grant agreements, implementation timelines, compliance trackers, and documentation from award to close-out, including amendments, budget revisions, and no-cost extensions.
• Serve as the primary liaison for donor audits, monitoring visits, and compliance reviews, coordinating corrective actions and ensuring all findings are addressed promptly.
• Lead cross-functional grant review meetings, track milestones and deliverables, and resolve implementation bottlenecks by facilitating communication among program, finance, MEAL, and communications teams.
• Oversee donor reporting: compile narrative and financial inputs from multiple departments, ensure reports meet donor formatting and content requirements, and submit them on schedule.
• Maintain a centralized repository for all grant-related documents—agreements, amendments, approvals, correspondence, and reports—to support transparency and audit readiness.
• Partner with finance to monitor grant expenditure against approved budgets, flag variances, and support budget revisions and reallocations in line with donor approval processes.
• Coordinate proposal development: gather technical, financial, and operational inputs from relevant teams, review proposals for donor compliance before submission, and manage submissions through donor portals.
• Build staff capacity on grant management best practices, donor compliance, and reporting standards through training sessions and by updating internal tools, templates, and standard operating procedures.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Project Management, Business Administration, Finance, Development Studies, International Relations, Public Administration, or a related field.
• Professional certification in Grants Management, Project Management, or Monitoring and Evaluation is preferred but not required.
• 3–4 years of direct experience in grants management, donor compliance, proposal development, or program support within the NGO or development sector.
• Proven track record of coordinating donor-funded projects and managing institutional donor grants from inception to close-out.
• Hands-on experience preparing donor narrative and financial reports and supporting proposal development processes.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively across program, finance, MEAL, procurement, and operations teams in a collaborative environment.
• Strong understanding of donor budgeting, financial monitoring, and reporting cycles; ability to analyse budget variances and implement corrective actions.
• Excellent planning, coordination, and organisational skills with the capacity to manage multiple deadlines simultaneously.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage diverse stakeholders and maintain effective relationships.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (especially Excel, Word, and PowerPoint); experience with grants management software is a plus.