The Safety and Quality Investment in Livestock (SQIL) project is a $19.2 million, eight-year demand-driven project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that will improve food safety and quality along Georgia’s dairy and beef value chains. From farm-to-fork, SQIL aims to reduce losses, improve food safety and quality, boost competitiveness, productivity and trade within the Georgian dairy and beef market systems. The project achieves these goals through an integrated approach of expanding market access, improving sanitary standards, strengthening postharvest handling and storage, increasing productivity, improving access to finance, and promoting regulatory reforms.
Position Summary:
Primary Responsibilities:
The primary responsibilities of the Grants Specialist include, but are not limited to:
- Coordinating and managing subawards (In-Kind and Fixed Amount Grants), from start to finish, including the solicitation and selection of subrecipients, ensuring the process is fair, open, ethical, and transparent.
- Developing performance-oriented grant agreements using standard templates.
- Maintaining master subaward files (hard copy and electronic).
- Providing oversight of the subrecipients’ compliance with award terms and conditions and financial management aspects of the award through reviews of reports, correspondence, site visits or other appropriate means, with the support of SQIL team.
- Overseeing compliance with USDA and Land O’Lakes Venture37 regulations, policies, and procedures throughout the implementation of grant activities.
- Negotiate terms of subawards and contracts and draft appropriate agreements.
- Conduct oversight and monitoring of contracts and subawards to ensure activities and deliverables are produced according to schedule and in a high-quality manner.
- Development procurement documentation for equipment and services to support the completion of grant agreements. Monitor the delivery of procured equipment and services to ensure conformity with specifications.
- Coordinate periodic grantee meetings to review implementation status and update the internal team on grant matters.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, commerce, or related field.
- Three (3) years of relevant work experience, including a minimum of one (1) year experience in administering subawards (in-kind grants or fixed amount awards) for an international development project.
- Demonstrated understanding of development program compliance, finance, or accounting functions with proficiency in financial reporting.
- Fluency in Georgian and English with excellent writing skills.
- Strong analytical skills, including the ability to compile and interpret project data as needed.
- Good time management abilities.
- Highly developed conceptual, analytical and presentation skills, with attention to detail.
- Strong interpersonal skills, self-motivated and team oriented. Good communication skills, including training and facilitation skills, and demonstrated experience working with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams.
Preferred Skills & Qualifications:
- Five (5) years of relevant work experience, including three (3) years of experience administering subawards for an international development project.
- Experience with on-line grants management platforms for documentation management, compliance tracking and audit, and system for managing each stage in a grant cycle and utilizing template documents.
- Prior exposure to and experience in working in Georgian agriculture, agribusiness and livestock value chains desired.
- Previous work experience with United States government funded and/or other international donor projects is desired.
Reporting & Supervision:
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls will be accepted.
Land O’Lakes Venture37 will never ask you for personable identifiable information, and we will never request money or payment during the recruitment or employment process. Please submit any questions or concerns to: Venture37generalinquiries@landolakesventure37.org.
Land O’Lakes Venture37 is an equal opportunity employer and an organization striving to help global communities thrive through agriculture.