Awards Management Intern

Save the Children need a highly organized and detail-oriented individual to join our Nairobi team and ensure our vital programs run flawlessly. We are currently seeking a dedicated Awards Intern to ensure our funding translates directly into life-saving programs. If you are ready to support the management of multi-million dollar awards and play a backbone role in delivering urgent health, education, and protection services across Kenya, Appy now!

ABOUT US

Save the Children employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

Save the Children has been operational in Kenya since the 1950s, supporting children through both development and humanitarian relief programs. These initiatives are delivered directly and in collaboration with local partners. Our current programming focuses on child protection, child rights governance, education, health, HIV/AIDS, livelihoods, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

In 2012, as part of a global reorganization, Save the Children unified the operations of Save the Children UK, Canada, and Finland into a single entity in Kenya. In February 2014, we completed a second transition by merging with the British INGO Merlin, integrating their health and nutrition programs into our portfolio. Today, Save the Children maintains an operational presence in Nandi, Kajiado, Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Garissa, Mandera, Turkana, and Wajir, and works through partners in many other regions across the country. We employ approximately 230 staff, including members of the Global team who are hosted and hired in Kenya, but support Save the Children International (SCI) global operations. In 2025, our annual operating budget was approximately USD 20 million.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

TITLE: AWARDS INTERN – Kenya Country Office

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Awards & Partnerships Department

LOCATION:  Nairobi

Reports to: Awards Assistant

Key contacts: Head of Awards, Awards and Partnership Coordinator

Staff directly reporting to this post:  None

Child Safeguarding: Level 3 – the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE: 

The Awards Management intern will provide overall support to all Awards and Implementing partners. He/she will liaise with all relevant departments to ensure the effective management of the awards. In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Proposal development

• Ensure all award documentation at proposal stage is managed and processed in a timely manner and uploaded onto AMS and that the related workflows are run in a timely manner.

Awards, Partnerships and AMS Management

• Support in preparing for the monthly Award and Partner review meetings, record action points from the meetings and circulate these promptly.
• Support in conducting partner vetting and partner assessments
• Support in preparation of partner agreements.
• Support in preparation of partner payments.
• Support in planning for and conducting partner monitoring visits.
• Support in ensuring award kick off meetings are planned for in a prompt manner and the planning is well-coordinated with the other relevant functions.
• Play a role in developing overall analysis of budget vs actual expenditures (BVA) for monthly review meetings.
• Maintain the income tracker and funding tracker, and also share the status with the team on a weekly basis.
• Maintain the close out backlog tracker and do regular follow ups with the various teams to ensure close out of pending SOFs.
• Support the Awards Assistant to populate and share the partner reporting tracker and also update the Awards

Management System (AMS) on a timely basis.

• Support the Awards Assistant in sending out timely calendar invites for the award led meetings
• Support in taking action points in the award led meetings and further getting this reviewed and circulated on a timely basis.
• Support in putting together management information from AMS to the rest of the team via a portfolio analysis report on a monthly basis showing information on awards in pipeline, active awards, awards under amendment, high risk awards and closed awards.
• Ensure that AMS is effectively maintained, up to date and accurately records the audit trail for all awards and sub-awards.

Donor Compliance

• Support on donor compliance to ensure requirements such as reporting deadlines, implementation period, amendment timing/procedures, audit and SCI award management policies are well understood and adhered to.

DESIRED COMPETENCIES

Delivering Results

• Establishes clear and compelling objectives with teams and individuals and monitors progress and performance
• Holds others accountable for achieving results and challenges underperformance

Working effectively with others

• Puts mechanisms in place to ensure effective collaborative working across boundaries
• Enables people from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives to contribute to positive outcomes
• Breaks down silo working and challenges behaviours that are not collaborative

Problem Solving and decision making

• Identifies and addresses root causes of long-term problems facing legacy awards
• Brings in external perspective to ensure decision making remains relevant and future focused
• Explores and analyses external trends and their potential impact on strategic choices
• Takes calculated risks and has the courage to stand by decisions despite resistance

Leadership and Developing Others

• Delivers needs-based results in complex and fast-changing contexts
• Evaluates the opportunities and risks of each idea and solution to make informed strategic decisions
• Demonstrates courage by willingness to confront difficult situations and take potentially unpopular decisions
• Actively encourages a team environment where team members feel able to contribute, champion or challenge decisions
• Conveys complex strategic issues with clarity, brevity and confidence
• Develops and implements processes to ensure that the workplace is inclusive and the talents of individuals are harnessed to achieve individual and organisational success.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Bachelor’s qualification in Commerce, Economics, Business Administration or equivalent.
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
• Very strong capacity for attention to detail, problem solving, and analysis of trends.
• Computer literate (i.e. Ms Office and knowledge of grant management and financial systems would be an added advantage).
• Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people.
• Patient, adaptable, flexible, able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
• Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in a multicultural setting

Desirable

• Experience with Save the Children award management policies, procedures, systems, and Save the Children’s award management system (AMS).
• Experience of project management, M&E management or funding coordination.

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities
The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Safeguarding our Staff
The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy.

Health and Safety
The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.