The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) is one of the world’s leading philanthropic organisations dedicated to improving the lives of children and advancing human development. India remains one of CIFF’s most critical geographies. Every major area of CIFF’s global work—child health, development, protection, adolescence, women’s economic empowerment, and climate—has an active portfolio in India, reflecting the country’s scale and potential for global change.
Within this broader mandate, CIFF has recently approved its strengthened Ending Violence Against Children (EVAC) mission. This mission deepens and expands the foundation’s long-standing commitment to protect children from violence, exploitation, and abuse. EVAC integrates multiple programme areas, including Child Marriage, Child Labour, Child Trafficking, Child Sexual Assault, and related manifestations of violence. It also centres on three major pillars: access to secondary education, access to social protection, and access to child protection systems.
In India, the EVAC mission is rapidly scaling Kawach, CIFF’s flagship child protection intervention delivered through government systems across multiple states. The mission is also expanding its work on household resilience—especially to economic shocks—through investments such as the Migrants Resilience Collaborative.
The Senior Manager, Child & Social Protection – EVAC will play a central leadership role within this mission, guiding strategy, portfolio development, programme execution, and partnerships across India.
CIFF Senior Manager: Strategic Leadership & Planning
The role provides oversight for the strategic direction of CIFF’s Child Protection (CP) and Social Protection (SP) investments. Responsibilities include:
- Leading mission strategy for India, including evidence-informed planning, programme design, grant structuring, and strategic communications.
- Continuously assessing the national context to refine mission priorities and ensure alignment with EVAC goals.
- Developing and executing an innovation track to test new ideas and delivery models in CP and SP.
- Strengthening integration across EVAC programmes by working with CIFF’s India team and global programme excellence groups.
- Improving internal processes and programme management systems to support efficiency and quality.
Programme Delivery & Performance
The Senior Manager oversees a complex portfolio of multi-state programmes exceeding $25 million, involving multiple delivery partners and substantial collaboration with government systems. Key responsibilities include:
- Designing CIFF-investable programmes and building a strong pipeline of new investments.
- Leading internal engagement with CIFF leadership to secure approvals for proposed investments.
- Managing active portfolios by applying analytical, data-driven, and risk-informed performance monitoring techniques.
- Conducting evidence-based reviews of programme progress and driving course correction measures with government and partners.
- Co-leading MEL (monitoring, evaluation, and learning) systems with CIFF’s Programme Excellence team.
- Ensuring full compliance with due diligence, risk management, and safeguarding protocols.
The role also requires producing high-quality portfolio updates, board papers, insights reports, briefs, and presentations within fast-paced timelines.
Sector Knowledge & Advocacy
The Senior Manager must remain current with national and global trends in Child Protection and Social Protection, proactively building networks, contributing to communities of practice, and shaping sector knowledge. Responsibilities include:
- Acting as a resource for CIFF’s programmes and priority areas.
- Collaborating with communications teams to develop thought leadership materials.
- Supporting CIFF’s ambitions to leverage, mainstream, and scale effective interventions.
Stakeholder & Partner Engagement
Strong relationship-building is central to the role. Tasks include:
- Assessing potential partners through rigorous due diligence.
- Managing institutional relationships using CIFF’s CRM and account management standards.
- Building partnerships with government ministries, donors, and international agencies.
- Ensuring smooth engagement with finance, legal, HR, and other CIFF teams.
Team Membership & Leadership
The Senior Manager contributes to organisational culture and internal development by:
- Coaching junior staff and supporting capability-building.
- Supporting cross-organisational initiatives related to philanthropy and partnerships.
- Demonstrating collaborative leadership within a matrixed organisational structure.
Candidate Profile
Applicants must bring:
- Strong experience in programme design, government systems, behaviour change, due diligence, and development sector delivery.
- Expertise in quantitative analysis, cost-benefit methods, and ROI modelling.
- Understanding of evidence-based decision-making and impact measurement.
- Exceptional communication, relationship-building, and advocacy skills.
- Ability to work across diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts with resilience and adaptability.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The role is based in New Delhi with a hybrid work policy. The starting salary is INR 51,61,809, accompanied by generous benefits including annual leave, training allowance, wellbeing allowance, life insurance, and medical insurance.
Applications must be submitted on or before Friday, 13 February. CIFF may close the advert early if applications exceed expectations.
Applications can be accessed here.
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