Program Manager - Donor Management & Fund Raising

Position: Program Manager , Donor Management and FundRaising

Location: Preference for Mumbai but anywhere in India acceptable

About CEGIS

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS pronounced See-Jis) aims to improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes.

The four key characteristics of any high-performing organisation are (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and monitoring progress towards these goals; (b) strategic use of personnel competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation is based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). The Indian State needs to perform better on all four fronts above, by enhancing its capacity. CEGIS partners with states to improve this capacity by focusing on these four pillars of the State.

Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with State Governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. This vision and Theory of Change (ToC) is an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and strategic philanthropic support provided by Mr. Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

Prof. Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellors Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. Over the past two decades, he has led extensive research projects in India across education, health, and social welfare. His book, Accelerating Indias Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance,systematically analyses Indias governance challenges and provides actionable, evidence-based strategies, emphasising state-level reforms as critical for Indias advancement.

Ashish Dhawan is a leading Indian philanthropist and the Founder-CEO of The Convergence Foundation (TCF). He is also the Founding Chairperson of Ashoka University and the Central Square Foundation, and is a governing board member of the Gates Foundation. Before his second career as a philanthropist, Ashish was among Indias most successful private equity investors.

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning

Our solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states with an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments.

In alignment with our four principles or pillars of change - outcome measurement, personnel management, strategic public finance, states and markets, CEGIS is currently working with the governments of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, NCT of Delhi, Assam, and a few Government of India entities like the NITI Aayog and Capacity Building Commission (CBC) across a range of projects and sectors. Through CEGIS flagship offering, the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) Survey, we are helping enable state governments we are working with to collect better quality citizen level data, make informed, evidence-based decisions, and institutionalise this process of securing periodic citizen-level feedback. We are setting up a Financial Analytics Unit (FAU) to enhance analytical capacity and increase the effectiveness of budgetary allocations of the Finance Department in another state. In alignment with our personnel management workstream, we are also working with the HR/Administrative Reforms & Training Department to set up and institutionalise an in-house Capacity Building Unit (CBU) that aids the adoption of competency-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Performance Management Systems (PMS) with a few of these entities. Similarly, to improve the value of public money, we are working at the interface of states and markets which encompasses procurement, regulation, and policy formulation. Our solutions are constantly being refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to be customised and replicated across contexts.

CEGIS@5: A Journey of Learning & Building Capacity

Since its incorporation in 2019, despite the enormous challenges posed by COVID, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with the government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.

Beginning with 2 state government engagements in the first 2 years of its inception, today CEGIS is working across several Indian states with 15+ projects across several sectors, including education, nutrition and local governance. From a small group of founding members, we have grown by leaps and bounds to become a team of 150+ members located across the country. Helmed by a former bureaucrat with invaluable governance experience, state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise, and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate careers, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors - from developmental economics, research, and governance to management consulting and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 5 years, we have also been able to garner support for our vision and theory of change from a diverse range of foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our own organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. We believe that this approach will gradually enable all government officials to achieve their goals more effectively, thereby improving the ability of the State to deliver services to all Indian citizens in the decades to come.

To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.

Position Summary

The Program Manager : Donor Management and Fund Raising is a senior resource expected to take significant ownership of both fund raising and donor stewardship . Reporting to the Head of Communications and Fund raising, this role needs to be able to expand the donor base with significant focus on domestic fund raising, as well as maintain and grow existing donor relationships . The role requires extensive experience in fund raising, an intimate awareness of the Indian donor ecosystem as well as excellent communication skills

Role and Responsibilities

• Own end to end a dynamic and well researched database of potential indian donors - trusts , corporate houses, HNIs etc. These to be obtained via a combination of desk research and industry knowledge and to be maintained and up to date with the help of the Associate : Fund Raising
• Create and refine with the Head- Communications and Fund raising the narrative for fund raising leveraging insights from Prof Karthiks book and the work CEGIS does. Disseminate this amongst key internal stakeholders and ensure there is resonance of the CEGIS fundraising narrative across the organisation.
• Lead multiple pitches on fund raising and expand by 25X the potential funders entering the funnel.
• Own the CRM piece and funnel management of funders with the help of the Associate : Fundraising
• Manage all documentation needed for existing global funders including reporting as needed for domestic and international donors.
• Refine by experimentation newer donor groups like HNIs in the key states that CEGIS works in
• Be the owner of the evolving donor strategy for CEGIS which needs to be continually refined basis learnings

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

• At least 5-10 years of experience leading fund raising for an Indian NGO with proven experience of liaising across corporations , trusts and CSR funds
• Expertise in proposal writing and donor reporting.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills as well as a top class salesperson.
• Demonstrated expertise in relationship building and management .
• Graduate degree in any discipline, would give more credence to relevant experience and proven communication skills.

Personal Characteristics and Desired Qualities

• A self starter who is extremely comfortable dealing with ambiguity
• Very high on perseverance and resilience
• Someone used to a high pressure environment who can keep multiple balls in the air at the same time .
• A combination of tactical impatience and strategic patience who understands the need to broadbase and expand the funnel to be able to drive conversion
• Good team player who can work closely with the communications team
• Very high on influencing skills - to be able to drive the donor management agenda across the organisation.
• A strong peoples person

Location and Compensation

The ideal candidate can be based out of Mumbai and should be willing to travel, when needed. Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidates experience levels.

Interested candidates are requested to submit their application here.

Note: CEGIS has zero tolerance to sexual harassment. We therefore expect each applicant to self-declare related to the same. CEGIS could, if required, initiate a prevention of sexual harassment-based background verification. If an applicant is reported of misconduct, appropriate action that may include employment termination would be taken. Please Click the link for self declaration.

Pre-reads for the application process:

Please go through the following materials before sending in your application:

• Concept note on CEGIS
• A glimpse into life at CEGIS - CEGIS Retreat 2024
• CEGIS Snapshot 2023-24
• Podcast episodes with Prof. Karthik Muralidharan one each on education and healthcare in India.
• You are also encouraged to read more of Prof. Karthik Muralidharans work here and through his book Accelerating Indias Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Indias Development.