Grants and Partnerships Lead

About the role

• This is a senior individual contributor role responsible for owning BURN’s grants writing function end-to-end, from opportunity identification through proposal development and funder stewardship. You will work directly with the Director to position BURN compellingly to bilateral donors, multilateral development institutions, philanthropic foundations, and climate-focused grant programmes.
• BURN's funding landscape is sophisticated. Our grant pipeline spans energy access, GHG reduction, energy transition, gender, climate adaptation, clean cooking, and industrial development across funders, including the GIZ, UNCDF, World Bank, and a range of bilateral and multilateral windows.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Pipeline Strategy & Intelligence
  • Own and continuously develop BURN's grant pipeline, covering bilateral, multilateral, foundation, and climate finance grant windows
  • Conduct systematic horizon-scanning to identify new funding opportunities aligned to BURN's strategic priorities and programme portfolio.
  • Assess funder fit, eligibility, and strategic alignment before committing proposal development resources.
  • Maintain a structured capture process, tracking opportunities from identification through submission and award
• Proposal Development
  • Lead the writing, structuring, and quality assurance of grant proposals and concept notes across all programme areas.
  • Translate BURN's technical operations, impact data, and strategic priorities into compelling, funder-appropriate narratives.
  • Develop programme logframes, theories of change, results frameworks, and budgets in close collaboration with technical and finance teams.
  • Manage proposal timelines and internal review processes to CEO sign-off, ensuring deadlines are met without compromising quality
• Funder Relationship Management
  • Build and maintain relationships with programme officers and key contacts at priority funders
  • Represent BURN at donor engagements, pre-proposal meetings, and sector convenings as appropriate
  • Identify and leverage warm introduction pathways through BURN's partner network.
  • Position BURN proactively with funders ahead of open windows, including through targeted expressions of interest and strategic communications
• Team & Process Development
  • Contribute to building BURN's internal grants capability, including documentation, templates, and institutional knowledge.
  • Coordinate with technical leads across operations, impact, carbon, and programmes to gather inputs efficiently for proposals.
  • Help define and refine the grants team's processes, cadences, and tools as the function scales

Skills and Experience

• 7+ years of institutional funding experience, with a demonstrable track record of securing grants of $5M+ from bilateral, multilateral, or major foundation sources
• Experience working across the full funding cycle: opportunity identification, proposal development, award negotiation and contracting
• Familiarity with the funder landscape relevant to energy access, clean cooking, climate adaptation, gender, or manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Experience in or alongside private sector organisations operating in development contexts.
• Comfortable using AI tools to accelerate opportunity scanning, proposal drafting, and research synthesis and able to apply them critically, knowing where human judgement remains essential.
• Exceptional written communication, ability to write with precision, clarity, and persuasion for sophisticated institutional audiences.
• Strong analytical capability, comfortable working with programme data, impact metrics, logframes, and budgets.
• Strategic thinker who can distinguish high-value opportunities from noise and build a coherent portfolio thesis.
• Organised and self-directed, able to manage multiple proposals in parallel without sacrificing quality.
• Relationship-oriented, understands that grant success is built over time, not just at submission
• Exposure to climate finance grant windows (GCF, GEF, Green Climate Fund readiness programmes).
• Experience with EU grant frameworks or FCDO programme funding.
• Familiarity with results-based financing, programme-based approaches, or challenge fund structures.
• Experience working in or with manufacturing, hardware, or technology companies in an impact context.
• Prior experience building or improving a grants function, not just executing within an established one