Senior Change Fund Manager

**Organization:** NEAR (Network for Empowered Aid Response), (Hosted by Adeso – African Development Solutions)

**Reporting To:** Solutions Director

**Duration:** 12 months

**Starting Date:** As soon as possible

**Working with:** Change Fund governance, NEAR members, funding partners, NEAR secretariat

**Duty Station:** Remote, with a lot of travel expected

**ABOUT NEAR**

NEAR is a movement of local organizations with a bold ambition to shift power, resources, and decision-making to local actors across the Global South. NEAR’s vision is a world where local communities have the resources and agency to address the challenges that impact them. NEAR is a membership-based organization with more than 360 members based in four regions: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

**ABOUT THE CHANGE FUND**

The Change Fund is NEAR’s flagship Solutions initiative: the only global pooled humanitarian financing mechanism fully governed by local and national civil society leaders and exclusively dedicated to resourcing locally defined and led humanitarian response. Launched in 2022, the Fund has disbursed approximately USD 6.5 million through 65 grants to organizations across 24 crisis-affected countries, with an average time from crisis declaration to disbursement of 16 days.

The Fund has reached a strategic inflection point. Four years of operation have proven the model. An independent strategic review completed in 2026 confirmed the Fund’s unique role and identified the key design issues for its next phase. At a Nairobi co-design workshop in April 2026, the Fund’s governance Oversight Body made four foundational decisions that define what the Change Fund will become: a federated governance architecture built upward from the community level; expanded eligibility extending access well beyond NEAR membership; a continuous and differentiated program spanning anticipatory action through emergency response to recovery; and a role as coherence architecture across the broader ecosystem of locally led pooled funds globally.

Significant multi-year funding commitments are now being secured to realize this vision. The Senior Change Fund Manager will be the operational leader responsible for taking the Fund through this transition - from proven proof-of-concept to a scaled, federated, and financially innovative architecture for locally led crisis financing.

**POSITION PURPOSE**

The Senior Change Fund Manager will manage the day-to-day operations of the Change Fund while simultaneously driving its strategic evolution and scaling. The person appointed will be expected to lead major institutional change – implementing the Oversight Body’s design decisions, building the operational and governance architecture for the Fund’s next phase, and positioning the Change Fund as a credible, well-governed, and well-resourced global mechanism.

The role operates under the supervision of the Solutions Director and in close partnership with the Oversight Body, which holds governance authority over all strategic and grantmaking decisions. The Senior Change Fund Manager’s relationship with the OB is one of the most important in the Fund: the role requires someone who can serve and strengthen the OB’s authority, bring rigorous analysis and operational support to its deliberations, and implement its decisions with skill and speed.

**CORE OBJECTIVES**

- Maintain and strengthen the operational excellence of the Change Fund while scaling annual grant volume from under USD 2 million to USD 20+ million.
- Lead implementation of the Oversight Body’s four foundational design decisions from the April 2026 Nairobi co-design workshop, delivering a detailed transition roadmap with clear milestones and accountability mechanisms.
- Build the federated governance architecture – community participation, Regional Bodies, and Global Council – from the ground up, ensuring governance quality and the OB’s authority are maintained throughout the transition.
- Expand access to the Fund through an eligibility framework that includes network partnership and consortium pathways, without compromising governance integrity or compliance standards.
- Evolve the Change Fund's programming model from emergency response to a continuous, differentiated continuum spanning anticipatory action, rapid onset response, and recovery, with distinct trigger frameworks, eligibility criteria, and allocation logic for each, ensuring the Fund remains the most locally accountable financing option at every point along the crisis arc.
- Strengthen the Change Fund’s role as coherence architecture connecting national and regional networks, labs, and funds.
- Secure and steward the multi-donor capital base required for scale, co-leading major donor relationships and contributing to investment cases for bilateral and philanthropic funders.
- Ensure the Fund generates, captures, and deploys evidence