About the Program: Land Accelerator Overview
The Land Accelerator, through its online and in-person boot camps and personalized mentorship, empowers entrepreneurs to more compellingly pitch to impact investors and to more effectively sell their products. By fostering entrepreneurship, this first-of-its-kind program provides a cost-effective approach to restore — and develop — rural areas around the world.
This valuable network of business and investment opportunities can also help accelerate restoration across its target regions of Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Since 2018, 196 entrepreneurs from 34 countries have participated in the program. They report that they have created 9,048 jobs, helped 249,496 farmers, and restored 201,076 hectares of land. More information about the program’s impact can be found at https://www.wri.org/initiatives/land-accelerator.
The Land Accelerator team is a part of WRI’s Restoration Initiative. The Restoration Initiative works to inspire, enable and mobilize action to restore vitality to degraded and deforested landscapes and forests around the globe.
Job Highlight
As the Land Accelerator Africa Coordinator, you are part of a team that delivers the Land Accelerator capacity-building program. Your role focuses on the areas of program management, administration, operations, events, financial management, and communications. You will have the opportunity to work with WRI team members based across Africa, India, Latin America, and the United States.
You will report to the Manager of the Land Accelerator Africa.
Contract management and administration (40%)
- Draft contracts, work orders, and agreements for vendors, partner organizations, and contractors for Land Accelerator Africa events and programming services
- Track contracts throughout WRI submission and approval process
- Track grant reporting requirements and support the Core Management team to fulfill funder requests
- Reserve travel, lodging, and transportation for entrepreneurs and WRI staff members
- Travel across Africa to support the execution of Land Accelerator events in-person
Communications and Online Community Building (30%)
- Work with the Restoration communications team to craft promotional articles and company descriptions, as well as updating information on the Land Accelerator website
- Draft sections of grant reports and proposals
- Draft and edit email newsletters and event collateral working with the communications team
- Maintain the customer relationship management system and Land Accelerator Academy and YouTube channel
Program Management (30%)
- Review applications on WRI’s TerraMatch platform to vet companies that apply to the Land Accelerator
- Work with AFR100 Registry team to ensure that entrepreneurs’ technical assistance and funding needs are adequately captured
- Convene expert speakers and organize and attend virtual mentorship sessions
- Provide feedback, written and live, to entrepreneurs on their pitch presentations and messaging
- Draft and administer surveys via Google forms, online to gauge and quantify the effectiveness of Accelerator programming and capacity building efforts
- Write evaluation and comparative analysis reports of various facets of the program based on analysis of pre- and post-Accelerator survey results
- Education: A completed bachelor's degree in a relevant field is desired; relevant work experience in lieu of a degree is accepted. Relevant fields include business, economic development, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, political science, and other fields
- Experience: You have 3+ years of full-time relevant work experience in program management, communications, and/or grants and contracts in the environmental or entrepreneurial sector.
- Experience working in entrepreneurship or interest to “talk shop” with entrepreneurs and understand how their distinct businesses work.
- History of collaborating with team members across multiple geographies offices.
- Experience using software tools such as MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, MS Teams, Google Suite, Zoom, common social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, and any project management software such as Monday, Asana or Airtable
- History of producing drafts of communications products
- Experience managing up and identifying opportunities for professional growth
- Experience in taking notes that identify key decisions and follow-up actions.
- Familiarity or exposure to land restoration, agriculture development or environmental management in Africa context
- Languages: English proficiency, with a preference for French fluency in addition.
- Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization.
- A competitive salary
- Access to the WRI global network with the opportunity to exchange with and learn from passionate colleagues working at the cutting edge of their fields across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US.
- The chance to have an impact and to develop your career within a mission driven organization with access to varied learning and training opportunities.
- A workplace that strives to put diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work.
- The opportunity to join and get involved in different working groups and affinity groups to shape the future of WRI.
- Long-term commitment to hybrid working model with flexible working hours.
- Generous leave days that increase with tenure.
