Director Partnerships, Engagement & Fundraising

Are you a senior leader with experience in building global partnerships in the humanitarian and development sector and a strong strategic thinker who excels at forging lasting relationships to achieve shared goals? Do you enjoy creating results for others? Do you master making the complex simpler? Are you passionate about mobilizing for the displacement cause?  Then the role of Director for Partnerships, Engagement and Fundraising at DRC may be your next challenge.

Who are we?

Danish Refugee Council is Denmark’s largest, and a world leading international NGO - one of the few with a specific expertise in forced displacement.

The Division Partnerships, Engagement and Fundraising is responsible for DRC’s global strategic partnerships and engagement with institutional donors, global foundations, and private contributors at global level. Altogether it employs approximately 35 dedicated specialists who are working to increase DRC’s capacity and ambition to expand, deepen and strengthen partnerships and fundraising activities, in close collaboration with DRC colleagues from all around the world. DRC is therefore looking for a talented profile to lead this division which is still under establishment.

The Division is part of DRC’s department for Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations (PAER) and the Director will be a member of the department management group. PAER is DRC’s external facing and drives global advocacy, press & external communication efforts as well as being responsible for high-level global strategic engagement with partners.

About the job

DRC’s strategy 2025 sets clear ambitions for partnerships and fundraising to ensure that DRC remains able to mobilize successfully around the displacement cause. With more than 100 million people in the world being forcibly displaced, and a steadily increasing funding gap, the topic is of ever-increasing importance. In this strategic period, DRC works towards deepening relationships with institutional donors, establishing global strategic partnership agreements with relevant actors in the private sector – both global foundations, private companies as well as individuals - and engage in alliances with partners from both the development and humanitarian sector. The Director for Partnerships, Engagement and Fundraising will play a crucial role in addressing these strategic ambitions.

The position offers an exciting opportunity to join DRC’s senior leadership and develop and lead DRC’s endeavors towards further globalizing and strengthening DRC’s partnership and engagement work. The position reports to the Executive Director for PAER. The Director will be responsible for setting the strategic direction for the Division, and leading managers responsible for the different functional units in the division. The Director will collaborate closely with and support the executive leadership of the organization.

Covering a complex and broad competency area with many opportunities, the prime role of the Director will be to handle the balancing act of implementing and prioritizing long term initiatives in support of DRC’s strategy 2025, whilst also ensuring that there is capacity and agility to support local opportunities of strategic relevance that need global leverage and support. As the Division collaborates with many parts of the organisation, we are looking for a director with a strategic, facilitating, and collaborative approach.

The Director line manages the Head of Global Private Engagement, the Head of Institutional Donors and the Global Foundations Team in additional to a number of technical management lines. More specifically the holder of the position will:

• Develop and build the next level of growth in fundraising at DRC including the go to market strategy, budgets, staffing plans and annual workplans to meet the organizational strategic ambitions.
• Line manage the three Heads of Units in PEF and support and guide their work within and across the units and perform technical line management of the regional business development coordinators (RBDCs) and the Senior Policy Advisor on Humanitarian Financing in Geneva.
• Establish the structure of and formalize the PEF Division to become ONE division with clear synergies and strong sentiment of being one entity. This includes as well setting up coordination structures beyond the division with key departments and stakeholders.
• Lead the Division’s accountability areas of nurturing, strengthening, and expanding DRC’s global partnerships, engagement and fundraising activities.
• Lead the development of an ambitious institutional donor engagement strategy (IDES 3.0) aligned with DRC´s vision to ensure that the highest level of optimization and growth is being fostered.
• Serve as the custodian of business development cycle at DRC (fundraising, donor engagement, proposal development) and oversee and coordinate the rollout and maintenance of core related business processes, procedures, and policies.
• Coordinate the involvement and substantive contributions of business development stakeholders throughout the organization in core fundraising processes and external engagements.
• Support the development and implementation of a high-impact and global expansion strategy to enhance income from private contributors and private sector partnerships within the strategic impact areas. Develop a strategy for increased engagement with global foundations and engage in direct implementation.
• Develop a way forward for DRC’s engagement with global foundations including resources, internal structures and coordination as well as a strategic direction for increased engagement with global foundations and engagement in direct implementation.
• Overall responsible for keeping the wider organization abreast of major global funding trends and changes, and related internal capacity challenges and requirements to succeed. Custodian of the Global Annual Funding Analysis as well as regional and topical funding/income analyses throughout the analytical, reporting and rollout/follow up stages.

In close cooperation with the Secretary General, Executive Director of PAER and other senior leaders in DRC, represent DRC in relevant international fora and towards relevant external stakeholders with a view to influence policy, decision makers and donors relevant to our work.

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to have a proven track record within several of the above-mentioned areas of responsibility. It is very important for us that you have a strong understanding of programme responses within the areas of humanitarian and displacement work. Ideally you have a strong understanding of “the how” and you are a master of communicating “the why”. It is equally important that you have a strong strategic mindset, political clout and a proven record of diplomatic skills.

All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the lead, Collaborating, Striving for excellence and Demonstrating integrity.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

• At least 10 years of senior level experience in working with global private partnerships from the humanitarian or development sector e.g., from an international NGO, UN or from a global foundation.
• Proven experience with and understanding of the institutional donor landscape for humanitarian and displacement funding.
• Entrepreneurial mind-set with the ability to build, develop and strengthen global private partnerships and the institutional donor base.
• Experienced in leading managers and working with change management processes.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to co-create communication products.
• That you thrive in complex and ambiguous environments and enjoy making the complex simple. You are proactive and always ahead of the curve in terms of strategic initiatives we need to embark on in order to fulfil DRCs ambitions.
• Flexible and team-oriented colleague, willing to share responsibility and go the extra mile for your colleagues.
• 10 years management experience, of which 3-5 should be in a senior leadership position.
• Fluent in English, ability to speak and write Danish and/or French is an asset.
• Strong networking skills.

We offer

We offer an exciting role where you will have the possibility to define the role and how the tasks are performed. You will have a great deal of freedom to strategize and operate based on your expertise as long as the desired results are achieved and in accordance with the respective areas of responsibility.

Contract length: Permanent

Workplace: DRC HQ, Copenhagen

Start date: As soon as possible.

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and Lederaftalen between Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening and Lederne (agreement for managers), which can be found here: www.lederne.dk. This is a national position for which local terms and conditions apply.

Application process
All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV in English. Apply online on our page Current Vacancies at www.drc.ngo.

Closing date for applications: 23 January 2024.

Further information

For any questions regarding the vacancy please contact Executive Director for PAER Nirvana Shawky at nirvana.shawky@drc.ngo.

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.