Program Coordinator, Center for Women's Land Rights

Landesa is seeking an organized and action-oriented Program Coordinator who can facilitate a high volume of work with efficiency and grace. This individual will be responsible for a range of administrative, financial, and information management work connected with our Center for Women’s Land Rights team and their projects. The Program Coordinator will also work directly with the Program Manager for Global Program Operations to improve Landesa’s systems, processes, and flows at the intersection of programs, operations, and finance.

The Program Coordinator will report to the Program Manager for Global Program Operations and will contribute to that team’s development and integration of systems, processes, and tools that strengthen Landesa’s programmatic work. For primary day-to-day assignments and the provision of administrative and programmatic support, the Program Coordinator will work directly with the Program Director for the Center for Women’s Land Rights (the Center), based in Seattle, WA. The Program Coordinator will provide support for the Center’s portfolio, which includes administration for the Stand for Her Land global advocacy initiative.

About Landesa: Landesa is an international nonprofit dedicated to ending global poverty by securing land rights for the people experiencing poverty around the globe. Founded in 1981, Landesa has worked in more than 66 countries throughout the world, with central office staff in the U.S. (Seattle, Washington and Washington, DC) and regional programming in China, India, Liberia, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand. Landesa partners with governments, civil society, and companies to develop pro-poor and gender-sensitive laws, policies and programs that have helped strengthen land rights for more than 720 million people in the last 5 years. The organization is supported by NGOs, foundations, donor agencies (USAID, World Bank, etc.), world leaders, educational institutions, and individual supporters around the world.

About the job:

The Program Coordinator will provide a range of programmatic and administrative support to the Center for Women’s Land Rights. Though based in the United States, the cross-cutting nature and reach of this position extends to engagement across all Landesa offices. Programmatic and administrative support includes (80%):

Program operations:

• Providing operational and administrative support by ensuring that teams and their projects run as well-oiled machines.
• Managing administrative tasks in a timely, organized, and efficient manner.
• Assisting the Program Director in managing portfolio operations and non-programmatic initiatives, onboarding new staff to Landesa systems, and facilitating general troubleshooting and interdepartmental coordination.

Project coordination:

• Working with a host of project staff – including project managers, budget owners, and technical leads – on administrative aspects of project implementation, including tasks related to calendar and timeline management; notetaking; travel logistics; event planning and support; copyediting; newsletter and communications management; coordination of consultants, invoices, and contracts; grant and contract administration; and proposal development.
• Project tasks may vary considerably depending on the needs of each program and portfolio.

Knowledge management:

• Building and managing information tracking systems for the Center and Stand for Her Land.
• Developing and establishing technologically integrated, efficient, and streamlined systems and processes.
• Ensuring that solutions are developed to address program knowledge management needs and that teams adhere to developed knowledge management systems and processes.
• Managing the storage and flow of information regarding all projects in the Center’s portfolio, including associated financial information, grants and contract awards, sub-contractors and partner organizations, and project deliverables.

Financial backstopping:

• Providing financial backstopping and support to project management, activity implementation, and program operations, including developing budgets and consolidating financial information; expense reporting; tracking team billability; and document storage.
• Facilitating communications between finance and program staff.

As a member of the Program Operations team, the Program Coordinator will also be responsible for (20%):

• Systems change: Contributing insights to and supporting Landesa’s development and implementation of systems, processes, and tools to facilitate quality and efficiency in Landesa’s programmatic and operational work.
• Distributed Approach: Furthering implementation of Landesa’s Distributed Approach by aligning financial and operational processes and facilitating communication between regional office(s) and the United States headquarters.
• Connective tissue: Serving as the Program Operations focal point and representative on the Center’s team, the Program Coordinator will integrate Program Operations innovations into team habits and helping colleagues to adopt new technologies and processes.

About the successful candidate: The following experience and qualities will support success as a candidate:

Educational & Professional Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree or the equivalent combination of education and experience required.
• Knowledge of and dedication to principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in internal and external work.
• 2-3 years of experience performing administrative or coordinative work in a variable but process-intensive environment. Experience in a non-profit, financial, or legal setting is a plus. Experience working in an international organization or across countries and cultures is preferred.
• Top-notch ability in tools that enable highly effective administrative work, such as CRM Databases, Office 365, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and especially Excel; an enthusiasm for learning new features, tools, and systems is important. Expands comfort for learning new technologies to teaching others.
• A robust understanding of budgeting principles and approaches. Experience in Adaptive Insights platform a plus.
• A high level of comfort coordinating and managing information in large, complex, multi-stakeholder projects.
• Comfort with coaching and teaching others how to utilize and learn new technologies or ways of doing work.

Additional Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

• An appreciation for process and an ability to quickly grasp the resources, stakeholders, information, and decision points necessary for bringing a multifaceted task to completion; an ability to shepherd people and workflows.
• An ability to manage a high volume of work with efficiency, with demonstrated systems for keeping tasks from slipping through the cracks. Able to juggle competing demands and prioritize without sacrificing quality. Plans backwards to make deadlines. Asks for help when needed.
• A sense of humor and excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work in a multi-cultural environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity. A strong communicator who values process and the journey as well as the destination.
• An eagerness to seize challenges and to create efficiency and ease for multiple teams.
• Experience supporting resource development through fundraising and grant writing, as well as administration activities of grants and contracts of both private and public funders a plus.
• Experience with public and private sector contracting and administration a strong plus.