Grants Lead

ABOUT YLABS

YLabs is a leading global design and research organization designing technologies that amplify youth power, agency, and opportunity. Founded in 2014 at the Harvard Innovation Lab, YLabs partners with young people to co-create inclusive digital products and services that improve their lives. Our design process opens spaces where young people’s ideas can become a reality – where they are the architects of the solutions to their most pressing challenges.

YLabs multidisciplinary team delivers youth-driven innovation and impact at scale. Our team combines expertise in youth-driven design with adolescent health, climate, livelihoods, digital product design, behavioral science, and epidemiology. Based in Rwanda and the USA, we’ve worked in 18 countries to date on projects spanning three focus areas: optimum health and wellness, improved economic opportunity, and increased climate resilience.

Find out more about our projects here: https://www.ylabsglobal.org/work

JOB SUMMARY

YLabs is seeking an experienced Grants Lead to oversee the end-to-end grant management functions, comprising donor financial reporting, subrecipient/subgrantee financial compliance, and fund disbursement workflows under an Incubation Aggregator Partnership Model.

Under the aggregator partnership model, YLabs serves as the Aggregator Partner managing a dedicated incubation funding envelope, issuing small-scale experimentation agreements, and coordinating multiple subrecipient partners across Africa. The Grants Lead will be responsible for institutionalizing financial governance across three core financial framework pillars—Partner Identification & Vetting, Fund Management & Administration, and Grant Management—ensuring strict alignment with YLabs policies and the funder’s compliance standards.

The Grants Lead will also lead the newly established Grants & Compliance Unit within the finance department and will be responsible for the full lifecycle of restricted donor funding, proposal budgeting, and donor financial reporting.

JOB TYPE

This is a full-time, fully benefited position. The initial contract term for this role is 12 months.

LOCATION

This is a remote role open to global candidates, with a preference for someone based in Africa.

ABOUT YLABS’ COMPENSATION

YLabs adheres to Project Fair’s principles and standards to establish equity in pay with the overriding principle of “equal pay for work of equal value” outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. All salary ranges are based on level within the organization and are competitive to regional and national salary benchmarks, based on the respective office location.

PAY RATE

This is full-time employment with an annual gross range of $38,181 - $55,909.09 annually (gross), commensurate with experience. This range is regionally benchmarked for a P5-level position in the YLabs Africa salary bands. YLabs pays all full-time staff salaries in the local currency of the staff member’s permanent work location.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Pillar Pillar 1: Partner Identification, Due Diligence & Contracting

1. Financial Pre-Screening & Capacity Assessment: The Grants Lead will lead financial capacity assessments for prospective experimentation partners by reviewing audited statements, liquidity ratios, and debt exposure, and evaluating internal financial controls, accounting systems, and capacity to manage grant funds.
2. Risk Tiering, Contracting & Onboarding: The Grants Lead will be responsible for classifying subrecipient partners into risk tiers (Low, Moderate, High) to determine appropriate fund disbursement modalities (Advance, Tranche, or Reimbursement). He/she will collaborate with the Operations Lead and Safeguarding Specialist and relevant teams to issue YLabs Subrecipient Agreements, guide partners through sub-grant onboarding, and establish standard financial reporting templates.

Pillar 2: Fund Management & Grant Administration

1. Budget Structuring and Disbursement: He/she will design standardized budget templates for the incubation funding envelope and manage disbursement processes using approved modalities, risk‑tiering, and automated tools in line with YLabs’ payment structures.
2. Financial Reporting Protocols: He/she will ensure selected partners adhere to standard financial reporting packages (periodic financial reports, transaction listings, bank reconciliations) and also comply with guidelines on eligible vs. ineligible costs in accordance with funder grant reporting rules.
3. Compliance Audits & Reviews: The Grants Lead will perform monthly budget-to-actual variance analysis and cash flow reviews on subrecipient reports, flag financial anomalies, oversee audits, and enforce corrective action plans.

Pillar 3: Aggregator Grant Oversight & Financial Consolidation

1. Consolidated Financial Tracking: He/she will coordinate with the Finance team to aggregate subrecipient spend into unified financial statements using QuickBooks.
2. Financial Performance Updating: He/she shall prepare and submit periodic status reports to the Director of Finance detailing overall grant financial performance, partner spending rates, risk flags, and portfolio liquidity positions.

Subgrantee Management Functions

1. The Grants Lead will oversee the entire subgrant pipeline from call-for-proposals and intake to award closeout, ensuring complete documentation is maintained in the institutional repository.
2. He/she will conduct training sessions for subrecipient finance teams on compliance, allowable costs, documentation standards, and reporting systems.
3. He/she will design and execute risk-based desk reviews and on-site/virtual financial monitoring visits to audit supporting documentation (receipts, invoices, timesheets).
4. He/she will be required to continuously update subgrant manuals, vendor scorecard tools, and workflows to strengthen internal controls.

Grants & Donor Financial Management

1. Donor Reporting: He/she will be responsible for submitting highly accurate, multi-currency donor financial reports, ensuring strict alignment with individual funder templates and general ledger data. He/she would be required to enforce strict adherence to restricted donor compliance parameters (eligibility and allocability requirements), systematically validating all project-level expense allocations before execution.
2. Proposal & Project Budgeting: He/she will co-design detailed, realistic activity cost estimations and multi-year project budgets alongside program managers for complex institutional funder proposals. And support regular Budget-vs-Actual (BVA) pipeline review sessions with program directors and program managers to proactively flag underutilization, over-expenditure, or contract variances.
3. Pipeline Monitoring: Track donor funding tranches, maintain revenue recognition logs, and provide real-time updates on restricted cash flows to the core finance team.
4. Other finance-related functions:
   1. Assist the Finance & Accounting Unit during statutory annual corporate reviews/audits by verifying clean project trial balances.
   2. Direct and coordinate all project-specific external audits initiated by donors/funders, compiling all transaction vouchers, payroll logs, and allocation schedules.
   3. Perform any other duties assigned by the Director of Finance

YOU ARE:

• Currently based in Africa,
• In possession of a valid work permit for your country of residence
• An excellent collaborator who understands working with a diverse, multi-cultural team across time zones
• Able to communicate succinctly about financial records and processes
• Able to travel within Africa

YOU HAVE:

• Must have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or related field.
• A CA/CPA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent professional certification is preferred.
• Must have 5+ years of direct experience in grant administration, subgrantee management, auditing, and financial compliance or have held a senior finance manager role within international non-profits, incubators, or aggregator organizations across Africa.
• Must have a proven track record of managing large institutional funder grants (e.g., Mastercard Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, USAID).
• Should be proficient in accounting and financial management software (e.g., QuickBooks, Bill.com, Expensify) and grants management applications (Submittable, SurveyMonkey, Fluxx) and have advanced Excel skills for financial modeling and variance analysis.
• Should possess the following core competencies:
• Strong analytical capabilities,
• Sound judgment in financial capacity assessment and risk tiering,
• Excellent technical writing skills, and
• Ability to coordinate multi-country partners
• Able to work with remote tools such as Slack and Google Workspace to streamline cross‑functional communication, automate operational workflows, and manage collaborative documents, data, and calendar lifecycles across remote teams.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

YLabs recognizes the time and effort that goes into submitting an application and reviews every submission carefully. Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we will contact candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the role to discuss next steps in the hiring process. Thank you for your interest in joining our team. All YLabs offers of employment are conditional on satisfactory background check and criminal record clearances. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

YLabs is committed to building teams and policies that promote equity, justice, and belonging at work. We strongly encourage people from all cultures, races, educational backgrounds, socio-economic classes, sexual orientations, age, gender, and physical abilities to apply. We do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, familial status, marital status, caregiver status, or any other category protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.