Work With Us African Visionary Fund

Senior Operations Manager
Remote (based in Sub-Saharan Africa)

The Senior Operations Manager will lead the design, iteration, and maintenance of our organizational and operational systems, policies and processes to ensure our entire team can execute our mission smoothly. We are a fast growing start-up fund and this role will help prepare our operations for continued growth while ensuring alignment to our values.

The Senior Operations Manager will work closely with our co-CEOs to improve existing systems, create new, human-centered, and equity-minded operational systems, and build an organizational culture that effectively delivers our mission, takes care of our people, and innovates beyond typical non-profit operations. The ideal candidate will have strong systems and operational chops, high emotional intelligence with a knack for collaborative design, and share our passion for creating a new type of non-profit organizational culture that honors humans, prioritizes collective care, and resists “grind culture.”

We are in the midst of raising $10M by EOY 2023, with a larger goal of driving $50M+ in catalytic resources to African founders via a new fund by 2030. Aside from managing these innovative funding vehicles, we want to help the entire philanthropic ecosystem center equity and shift power and resources to African innovators. We are a nimble start-up on a mission to live out our values in every aspect of our work. The Senior Operations Manager will have a unique opportunity to build organizational systems, policies and processes that push the boundaries of how operations can look when centering the experience of our partners and putting people first.

What You’ll Do

Organizational Operations (~50%)

Lead on all our organizational goals and projects that cover operations, organizational development, HR, and legal compliance.

Iterate and lead our annual work planning processes with our team, including ensuring regular reflection, learning, and feedback loops.

Lead our organizational transition from fiscal sponsorship to an independent entity, including US & Africa legal registrations and set-up. This will include designing operations and ensuring legal compliance in multiple geographies over the next few years.

Build and maintain cutting edge operational systems across the organization that are human-centered and values-aligned. This may include developing SOPs, streamlining operations across departments, documenting processes, etc.

Review, develop and implement all organizational policies to ensure values alignment, smooth and effective operations, as well as legal compliance across multiple geographies.

Manage existing technology resources including IT service providers, collaborative apps, and communications systems, such as Salesforce, SmartSheet, Slack, GSuite, Google Drive, and Zoom.

Build out centralized HR systems to ensure consistency and values-alignment in our hiring processes, contracting, onboarding, job descriptions, compensation and performance management systems, and HR data management.

Work closely with co-CEOs to build organizational culture through team engagement and ensure our values and core principles are embedded into all policies and systems, as well as lived out in how our team collaborates and works together.

Grantmaking Operations (~30%)

Build trust-based and human-centered grantmaking systems (grant agreements, disbursements, data management, etc) that ensure our legal compliance while also innovating on traditional grantmaking systems in order to create a positive, low burden, and respectful experience for all grantee partners.

Lead our grants management systems, working in close partnerships with our Programs team, to ensure on time grant disbursements, management of grant and reporting timelines.

Build, maintain and execute systems of technical and legal due diligence including equivalency determinations, compliance checks, grant agreements and all required reporting of our disbursements.

Upon organizational transition out of fiscal sponsorship, spearhead the design of grantmaking templates including grant agreements, reporting schedules, and policies.

Finance Coordination (~20%)

Manage AVFund’s relationship with our finance and accounting management service providers, ensuring timely monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reporting; and smooth monthly payment and bookkeeping processes.

Work closely with our financial management consultants and co-CEOs to lead annual organizational budget creation and projections for future year budgets aligned to our strategy and growth goals.

Ensure efficient and effective budget management, working closely with our financial management service provierss to produce monthly and quarterly budget vs actual and cash flow reports. Act as the internal budget lead understanding our different budget priorities and funding flows in depth.

Work closely with financial management service providers to produce accurate and accessible financial reports for funders and our board of directors.

Partner with our financial management service providers to ensure federal and state legal compliance including supporting our audit and tax filing processes.

What You’ll Bring

Our ideal Senior Operations Manager is a systems-oriented executor, empathetic collaborator, and is deeply passionate about upending philanthropic inequities to drive resources to African founders. The ideal candidate has experience working or collaborating with local social impact organizations. AVFund knows the potency and power of impact when it is driven by local changemakers, and we want our Senior Operations Manager to help develop and maintain an organization committed to changing philanthropic systems and norms.

You possess strong operations leadership and project management skills with the ability to successfully handle multiple moving pieces ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

You have at least 4 years of experience in operations leadership and at least 10 years of overall work experience.

You see an opportunity to transform the development and non-profit sector by aligning operations with human-centred values and challenging the status quo.

You have a track record of managing the balance between systems and people - you design great systems but you do so in ways that are collaborative and incorporate the human element of implementing systems.

You have high emotional intelligence and build relationships of trust and mutual respect with colleagues. You build systems that help people thrive and lead with patience and empathy in supporting colleagues to help systems thrive.

You are a self-starter who is resourceful, has a high level of initiative and a strong ability to work independently. You have a strong ability to make decisions based on information and insights gathered.

Proven ability in reviewing, analysing, and providing strategic feedback on budgets, financial reports, audit reports, etc.

Ability to gather information, research, and insights to gain deep understanding of new topics or areas of work to create valuable recommendations to move projects forward.

You have a track record in creating operations systems from scratch and iterating on existing systems to make them more effective and user-friendly.

You love working in start-up environments, are highly agile, and are comfortable with creating results even when faced with ambiguity and changing contexts.

You have an understanding of the social impact space, funding, and the inequities present in both spaces. You have a strong belief in the power of community-driven development and the importance of African social changemakers being at the forefront of development.

You love systems, keeping operations humming, and you are often known as a team member who excels at keeping things on track.

You can effectively communicate about systems and processes in ways that bring your ideas to life for colleagues who are not as systems-oriented.

You have experience in and enjoy managing people and supporting managers to support their teams. This role will not include a lot of people management at the start but will as we grow.

Strong cultural awareness to work in a very diverse work environment of teams across cultures and timezones.

Familiarity with Google Suites, Slack, Smartsheet, and Salesforce a big plus

Additional Information

This is an Africa-based full time remote role of 40 hours per week, location flexible within Sub-Saharan Africa.

While there is some autonomy and flexibility of work schedule during the week, the typical hours for this role are 9am-5pm EAT, Monday-Friday. The role requires some travel, likely 1-2 trips per year or as needed. The compensation for this position will be commensurate with experience, alongside such benefits as generous PTO and health insurance and retirement savings stipends.

AVFund believes our team is better and stronger with a diversity of perspectives and experiences. We welcome applications from candidates historically underrepresented in the nonprofit sector, especially within the international development sector. AVFund is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment.

To Apply

Please fill out THIS FORM. Be sure to answer all questions comprehensively and concisely.

You will be asked to upload your CV as part of the application form. Please ensure your CV is in PDF format, tailored to this role and no more than 4 pages. Applications will be shortlisted on a rolling basis. Due to the high number of applications anticipated, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Recruitment process is in partnership with edge. All emails regarding this role will come from email accounts in the domains @edgeperformance.co.ke and @africanvisionary.org. If you have any questions, please reach out to Jobs@africanvisionary.org.

About the African Visionary Fund

The African Visionary Fund (AVFund) is unleashing breakthrough impact by driving resources to high-impact African founders. Our belief is simple—when tackling challenges and improving lives on the continent, proximity matters. Despite their potential for impact, African-led organizations receive less than 5.2% of all US foundation giving across Africa and less than 0.4% of all international funding. We envision a world where African visionaries are recognized and resourced by funders for their ability to accelerate progress and drive systems change on the continent.

The AVFund got started in 2020 and we are entering an exciting moment of growth as we expand our funding partnerships and our portfolio of African changemakers, launch our philanthropic systems change strategy, and grow our team to help us deliver on our ambitious vision. We have a small but mighty team of 7 spread across 3 time zones and 4 countries. In the last three years we have raised close to $8M, committed over $4.5M in flexible multi-year funding to 25 African changemakers, been featured in the New York Times and The Guardian, and we are just getting started!

We believe deeply in our core values of Transformative Impact, Equity, Solidarity, Trust and Integrity, and Striving to Learn. We strive to take the path aligned to these values at every decision juncture, even if the less values-aligned path might be faster or easier. We are looking for team members who are passionate and dedicated to these values and who will continue to challenge us to live into them at every turn.

Senior Operations Manager Remote (based in Sub-Saharan Africa)