The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) invites experienced and interested consultant(s) to indicate interest by submitting EOI documents for the following works:
The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 110 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Applications are invited for:
Title: Expression of Interest (EOI) – Business Development Consultants
Preamble
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is looking to expand our database of business development (BD) consultants to fill various roles in the capture planning and proposal development process, including pre- and post-solicitation stages (see “Potential Roles” below).
The CRS Business Development team will review all submissions and will notify candidates who qualify for our database of potential BD consultants. If specific needs arise that align with your interests, skills, and experience, our team would invite you to participate in a Request for Quote process, in which you could confirm your availability. CRS would then initiate a full review, evaluation, and selection process, before entering into a consulting agreement with the selected consultant.
Potential Roles
Capture Planning Support:
- Conduct relevant analysis for the anticipated opportunity, such as competitor analysis, analysis of possible teaming options, analysis of donor hot button issues.
- Facilitate the process of identifying potential win themes for CRS.
- Conduct desk reviews, literature reviews and background research.
- Work with key decision makers to identify and contribute to preparatory positioning actions in advance of the solicitation release.
- Work with senior staff and technical lead to begin early recruitment for key project staff.
- Facilitate pre-solicitation teaming decisions and ensuring initial non-disclosure and teaming agreements are negotiated and signed.
Lead Writer:
- Work closely with the proposal coordinator, technical and sector leads to develop well written, well organized and cohesive proposals aligned with donor requirements and CRS standards. Synthesize inputs from multiple authors and data sources with attention to clarity, readability, sentence structure, style and voice.
- Work with technical and management staff to integrate reviewer comments into a responsive, compelling narrative.
- Requires proven ability and experience with competitive cooperative agreements and/or commercial contracting in programming contexts similar to CRS.
Technical Lead:
- Ensure that the technical proposal aligns with best practice and CRS approaches and meets donor expectations for quality, responsiveness and competitiveness.
- In collaboration with senior staff, ensure that the consortium includes appropriate technical expertise to implement all aspects required in the solicitation.
- Oversee technical assessments or info collection activities.
- Lead project design, including development/finalization of the results framework and strategy development.
- Liaise with CRS technical advisors.
- Ensure that technical inputs are provided to the lead writer in a timely manner.
- Work with the lead writer to integrate reviewer comments into a responsive, compelling narrative.
- Work with the budgeter/cost lead to cost out technical elements of the budget.
Proposal Coordinator:
- Manage proposal process and team, ensuring a complete, quality submission
- Liaise with partners, CRS country program staff, and regional and HQ actors.
- Develop, enforce and update the proposal timeline, ensure timely decision making, assign writing and process tasks, and organize regular status checks.
- Coordinate internal reviews and final approval processes.
- • In collaboration with senior staff, establish/manage relations with local and international partners, ensuring teaming agreements are discussed and signed by all parties.
- Ensure partners understand their roles and responsibilities and are well informed throughout the process.
- • Ensure that the technical lead provides the budgeter/cost lead with programmatic input for the budget.
Budgeter/Cost Lead:
- Develop a competitive costing strategy and participate in project design sessions as appropriate to determine budget implications of planned activities.
- Prepare budget, budget notes and other cost application sections, including core partner inputs, in close collaboration with the technical lead and proposal coordinator.
- Ensure adherence to budget envelopes and line-item requirements as outlined in the donor solicitation.
Copy Editor:
- Review and revise content for accuracy and quality, with attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax.
- Ensure correct tone, voice, clarity, flow and structure of content.
- Ensure that content adheres to AP and house style
Application Closing Date
Not Specified.
Submission of Documents
Candidates should email their resume and at least two references to: [email protected] using the subject line “BD Consultant Posting”. If you are interested in a writing role, please also include an English writing sample that illustrates your ability to produce a winning proposal.
In addition, please complete this form to provide us with more information about your donor, role and sector experience, as well as other relevant skills.