Senior Innovation Associate

FinDev Gateway; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Spark MicroGrants in the United States seeks a Senior Innovation Associate to advance community‑driven development and bring resources and decision‑making to village level partnerships with multilateral institutions. The role combines research, project management, relationship management, and strategic communications under the CIO and Innovation team.

The Senior Innovation Associate will own significant work areas, drive initiatives from concept to completion, and support thought leadership on

Responsibilities

• Research emerging opportunities, partnerships, funding mechanisms, and approaches that can strengthen community-driven development.
• Develop research, evidence, concept notes, briefs, and other decision-support materials.
• Identify and analyze opportunities to expand resources and decision‑making to the village level.
• Build and maintain systems for tracking relationships and engagements with multilateral institutions, development partners, governments, and other sector stakeholders.
• Prepare stakeholder background materials and support strategic engagements with senior partners.
• Own projects and workstreams from idea to completion, including planning, coordination, tracking, and follow‑up.
• Identify bottlenecks and proactively develop solutions to improve project delivery and team effectiveness.
• Support the development of tools, frameworks, processes, and approaches that strengthen the Innovation team’s work.
• Lead or support internal and external communications, including presentations, briefs, forums, roundtables, and learning exchanges.
• Contribute to evidence generation and thought leadership related to community‑driven development and locally led development.

Job description

Spark MicroGrants is seeking a Senior Innovation Associate to work closely with the Chief Innovation Officer and Innovation team to advance community-driven development (CDD) and bring more resources and decision‑making to the village level through partnerships with the World Bank and other multilateral institutions.

The Senior Innovation Associate will be a senior individual contributor responsible for owning significant areas of work independently and supporting the Innovation team through research, opportunity development, project management, relationship management, and strategic communications.

Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Research emerging opportunities, partnerships, funding mechanisms, and approaches that can strengthen community-driven development.
• Develop research, evidence, concept notes, briefs, and other decision-support materials.
• Identify and analyze opportunities to expand resources and decision‑making to the village level.
• Build and maintain systems for tracking relationships and engagements with multilateral institutions, development partners, governments, and other sector stakeholders.
• Prepare stakeholder background materials and support strategic engagements with senior partners.
• Own projects and workstreams from idea to completion, including planning, coordination, tracking, and follow‑up.
• Identify bottlenecks and proactively develop solutions to improve project delivery and team effectiveness.
• Support the development of tools, frameworks, processes, and approaches that strengthen the Innovation team’s work.
• Lead or support internal and external communications, including presentations, briefs, forums, roundtables, and learning exchanges.
• Contribute to evidence generation and thought leadership related to community‑driven development and locally led development.

Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi (Elsewhere in Africa)

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