Deputy Director — Strategic Partnerships & Funding

About this role

War Child is looking for an:
Deputy Director — Strategic Partnerships & Funding
Leads CWTL's funding strategy, turns partnerships into long-term funding, and helps CWTL reach more children in crisis-affected contexts.

The Deputy Director: Strategic Partnerships & Funding designs and delivers Can't Wait to Learn's global strategic partnerships and funding strategy. The role is accountable for securing the long-term capital and partnerships that allow CWTL to scale as national education infrastructure in conflict- and crisis-affected contexts, and for leading the shift from project-by-project grant income to a diversified, sustainable funding base. The postholder is a member of the CWTL leadership team, leads the partnerships and funding function, and deputises for the Director as required.

• Own, develop and deliver CWTL's global strategic partnerships and funding strategy, aligned to the CWTL strategy and to agreed revenue-diversification targets.

• Monitor and interpret trends in education financing, humanitarian and development funding and impact investment, and translate these into changes in CWTL's funding approach, positioning, and pipeline priorities.

• Build and convert a pipeline of multi-year strategic commitments that fund government adoption, the scaling of CWTL as national education infrastructure, and investment in the platform and regional game architecture that underpins reach across languages and contexts.

• Lead the change required to move CWTL from a grant-dependent income model to a diversified funding base spanning philanthropic, institutional and blended sources, securing buy-in across CWTL, War Child Alliance and external partners.

• Negotiate blended-finance and outcome-based instruments that combine philanthropic, institutional and private capital and expand reach beyond what grant funding allows.

• Lead negotiations with philanthropic funders, impact investors, governments, multilateral institutions, corporate partners, and consortium members, agreeing terms that protect CWTL's mission, cost recovery and operational viability.

• Represent CWTL at the most senior external level, act as a principal spokesperson for its funding and partnership agenda, and influence stakeholders across War Child Alliance, its fundraising members and country teams where no direct line authority exists.

• Develop, own and periodically review CWTL policy in the partnerships and funding domain, including donor acceptance and ethical funding criteria, partner due diligence standards, partnership agreement standards and cost recovery policy, ensuring consistency with War Child Alliance policy and contributing to its development.

• Ensure all funding and partnership activity complies with donor requirements, War Child Alliance policy and applicable legal and regulatory obligations; oversee partner and donor due diligence and timely donor reporting; and identify, record and mitigate risks within the remit.

• Hold accountability for CWTL's annual and multi-year income targets, and plan and manage the resources allocated to the partnerships and funding function within the budget agreed with the Director.

• Line manage, develop and appraise the Fundraising Lead and Partnerships Lead, and design and grow the function as the portfolio scales.

Education

• Educated to degree level, or equivalent professional experience in a relevant field.

• Postgraduate qualification in international development, business, finance, public policy or a related discipline is desirable.

Experience

• Senior partnerships or funding leadership experience at director or associate-director level, in an organisation of comparable complexity.

• Demonstrable track record of securing significant multi-year strategic funding, in philanthropy and foundations, impact investing, international development or a comparable field.

• Experience of blended finance and/or outcome-based financing, and of structuring capital from mixed sources.

• Experience of diversifying an organisation's income base beyond traditional grant funding.

• Line-management experience, including building and growing a team.

• Experience of leading change, including securing buy-in for a new approach across an organisation and among external partners.

• Experience of managing budgets and of accountability for income targets.

• Experience of donor compliance and contractual requirements in an international context.

• Experience of working with ministries of education or other government counterparts is desirable.

• Experience within an education, edtech or technology-for-development organisation is desirable.

Languages

• Fluency in English is required for this role.

• Additional languages may be useful depending on stakeholder groups and organisational context, for example Arabic, Dari, French, Spanish or Ukrainian.

(Technical) Knowledge

• Education financing, humanitarian and international development funding landscapes, and the donor and investor market.

• Blended finance, outcome-based financing and other non-traditional financing instruments.

• Donor compliance requirements, due diligence standards, and full cost recovery and indirect cost recovery principles.

• Advanced negotiation practice, including complex, high-value agreements with sophisticated counterparties.

• Financial literacy sufficient to interrogate financial models, costings and pipeline valuations.

• Strong grasp of, or demonstrable commitment to, education and children's outcomes in conflict- and crisis-affected contexts.

• Location : We work with global teams with team members being based in different locations. War Child is currently operates in: Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Colombia, DR Congo, Germany, Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory, South Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Uganda, Ukraine (soon to be registered), and Yemen. We also have offices in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Preference is given to applicants who…