Job title: Program Officer, Humanitarian Response - 2025834
Location: Washington D.C.
Employment: Regular, Full-time
Are you a person of compassion? An advocate for justice? Someone who stands up for the rights of the vulnerable and speaks out for the marginalized, the exploited and the forgotten? Do you believe in our calling as Christians to welcome the least of these and love our neighbor?
If you answered ‘yes’, to any of the above, World Relief, and millions of people around the world need you.
At this pivotal moment in time, we are rapidly expanding and growing our team to meet the increasing needs of our world. We are looking for people who want to use their gifts and talents to make a real and tangible difference in our world and the lives of the suffering.
If you’re looking for a purpose-driven career in which you can grow your talents, while also standing up for the rights of the vulnerable, we want you to join us today.
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY
World Relief is a global Christian humanitarian organization whose mission is to boldly engage the world’s greatest crises in partnership with the church. The organization was founded in the aftermath of World War II to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of war-torn Europe. Since then, for 80 years, across 100 countries, World Relief has partnered with local churches and communities to build a world where families thrive and communities flourish.
Today, organizational programming focuses on humanitarian and disaster response, community strengthening and resilience, and refugee & immigrant services and advocacy.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Program Officer role at World Relief is a critical internal liaison function that helps to ensure the smooth operation of grants and programs in an assigned set of country offices. This role, at Humanitarian Response Program Officer will primarily support on US-government funded humanitarian and rapid response grant spanning implementation in at least 5 countries that sit within two existing World Relief Regional Departments.
The PO will report to the Program Lead for Humanitarian Response and is expected to coordinate and support the effective functioning of the grant, including compliance, reporting, budget management and consortium management.
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Portfolio management:
- Serve as primary liaison and point of coordination between grant and assigned set of WR country offices and WR’s various home office departments
- Ensure timely, relevant communication is delivered between consortium Program Management Unit, country office and home office stakeholders
- Ensure assigned countries’ compliance with relevant WR and US government policies and procedures, including CHS standards and organizational core beliefs
- Support periodic review of portfolio strategies and plans to identify additional areas of collaboration, capacity development, investment, etc.
- Support sharing and learning of portfolio management best practices with other Program Officers across International Programs
Grant/Program Management
- Lead and ensure grant/program compliance with US government, consortium and WR knowledge management standards
- Lead setup tasks required for project administration in WR systems, including ERP, payroll, Metrics Portal, etc.
- Keep all internal grant tracking systems (Proposal Pipeline, Active Award and Reporting Trackers, etc.) updated
- Schedule and lead grant/programming review calls as needed
- Support management of sudden/rapid onset crisis information and needs assessments
- Liaise with technical advisors and other HO stakeholders on issues regarding program operations, management, quality and close out as needed
Budget and financial invoicing
- Support and review grant budgets key performance indicators monthly
- Support creation of annual and rapid activation grant budget(s)
- Provide ongoing oversight and management to general funds and portfolio cash flow needs
- Conduct quality control of various internal reports, to ensure accurate internal fund codes and award pipelines Internal communications, external representation and knowledge management
- Facilitate collection of content (ie. impact stories, data, quotes, photographs and video) from assigned portfolio, grants and programs
- Review and approve final content for assigned portfolio prior to publishing
- Present and represent portfolio strategy, updates, status reports both within WR and with external stakeholders, including donors and partners
- Provide information from portfolio to support website updates, social media, conferences, and other external engagements
- Support implementation of SharePoint documentation and filing system
Reporting and Learning
- Coordinate and lead quarterly project programmatic and financial reporting for all funding sources, including setting drafting schedule, reviewing/writing sections, incorporating feedback and submitting reports as needed
- Ensure compliance with WR’s DMEAL guidance and donor expectations Business Development and fundraising
- Coordinate, review, and/or develop sudden onset activation concept papers and proposals for as assigned according to WR’s Proposal Development Process
- Review potential opportunities and schedule Kick-Off Meetings for ‘Go’ opportunities in collaboration with the Proposal Development Coordinator
- Ensure portfolio assigned personnel contribute to proposal development per their assigned roles on the proposal team
- Ensure proposals developed in assigned portfolio follow WR proposal guidance, including budget and technical review guidance
- Provide budgeting support and review as needed
Partner management
- Ensure portfolio adherence to WR partnership management guidance, including partner vetting, due diligence, agreement management, etc.
- Support trip planning and logistics
- Special projects: Assist Program Lead in assigned projects
- Other duties as assigned by supervisor
JOB REQUIREMENTS:
- Mature and personal Christian faith
- Committed to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief
- Desire to serve and empower the Church to impact vulnerable communities
- Able to affirm and/or acknowledge World Reliefs Core Beliefs, Statement of Faith, Christian Identity and National Association of Evangelicals' For the Health of The Nation document
- Humanitarian program implementation experience in fragile, conflict-affected, disaster-affected, or complex emergency contexts
- Demonstrated experience supporting rapid humanitarian responses, including needs assessment, response strategy, partner selection, program design, implementation monitoring, and learning.
- Ability to lead through influence across country teams, regional leadership, home office functions, and external partners without relying on direct line authority.
- Excellent written communication skills, including ability to draft strong concept notes, program design documents, donor narratives, decision memos, technical guidance, and internal briefings under time pressure.
- Comfort and familiarity with representing World Relief at external events, technical working groups, and international forums.
- College degree in related field required
- 3-5 years of relevant experience in international development, non-profit or mission work.
- Ability and willingness to travel extensively to fragile context with increased hardship or security risks
- Language skills in French
- Must be able to multi-task and work well on multiple projects, while being able to prioritize.
- Ability to respond professionally and effectively to multiple and often competing demands.
- Demonstrated task and project implementation aptitude.
- Strong track record of completing tasks in a timely manner.
- Demonstrated ability to handle basic financial procedures and spreadsheet functions.
- Excellent writing skills, preferably with experiencing in writing proposals and project reports.
- Commitment to serving international program needs as expressed from the Country office.
- Proven ability to be a team-player.
- Ability to facilitate a process of system change/development with heavy team input.
- Must be a self-starter, strongly motivated and interested in producing results.
- Strong interpersonal skills.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Master’s Degree in management, humanitarian assistance, international development or an advanced degree in a related field
- Proven experience managing remote and multi-location programs, preferably in complex humanitarian or fragile contexts.
- Experience working within consortium-led projects, including coordination with lead agencies and partners, governance, and collaborative decision-making.
- Direct experience with sudden-onset disaster response, epidemic or outbreak response, conflict-related displacement, public health emergency response, or rapid response financing mechanisms
- Experience developing emergency response concept notes, donor submissions, program design documents, DADDs, technical guidance, or internal decision/action documents
- Prior country office-based experience a plus
$70,000 - $74,000 a year
World Relief offers a competitive benefits package and employee discount program for full-time employees.
World Relief is honored to be recognized with the Gold-level Cigna Healthy Workforce Designation for exceeding the core components of our well-being program including leadership and culture, program foundations and execution, and whole person health.
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Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing.
For World Relief staff, strong commitment to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief is essential, and Christian faith is a prerequisite for employment, based upon United States federal guidelines provided in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.