idealist.org

Organization Description
One Acre Fund is a start-up initiative based in Kenya which works with persistently hungry farm families. Instead of giving handouts to families, One Acre invests in farm families to generate a permanent gain in farm income. Our "investment bundle" includes education, financing, inputs, and export market access. Our program is designed to be usable by the extreme poor, and generates a permanent, 100%+ gain in farm income.

We have been operating since January 2006, and we currently serve 4,000 farm families (10,000 children). Our target is to change the lives of 30,000 families (150,000 children) within two more years years, scaling at a 50-100% growth rate thereafter. One Acre Fund is one of the most externally-validated social start-ups of 2006, winning grants from the highly competitive Echoing Green and Draper Richards Foundations, and first place wins at the Stanford and Yale social venture competitions. Website: www.oneacrefund.org

Job Description
We are seeking an exceptional recent university graduate (or graduating senior) with a career interest in development to serve in a position that combines both field and management experience in Africa. As a young organization, we are ready to hand over large responsibility for specific, well-defined work modules, with similar structure to a management consulting engagement. Fifteen prior program associates have had successful internships in our organization, and played critical roles in the organization’s early development.

Projects will be focused on improvements to One Acre Fund’s program model – as opposed to day-to-day operations, which are operated by our country staff. Example internship projects include:
- Planting configuration experiment. We are currently testing five different planting configurations with 300 maize farmers – trying different fertilizer and seed possibilities to find the best one. The program associate designed the planting configurations, worked with twenty field staff to come up with a list of test farmers, worked up education materials for successful roll-out of the trial, monitored the trial, arranged for delivery of several tons of planting material to different sites through our logistics manager, etc – basically taking overall responsibility. This is one of her four major projects.
- New model configuration experiments. One Acre Fund is currently experimenting with four different program model configurations, and a new Princeton grad is leading up one of those experiments. He is setting up the infrastructure to set up a fertilizer savings program with a bank, and field-trialing the program with 200 farmers in two sites, in cooperation with two of our managers. This is his largest project, but he is also leading several other smaller projects.
- Financial processes. We have a new Yale grad who is leading up an effort to rationalize our financial processes. As a result of his work, we will now have monthly data on actual expenses vs. budget across all budget line items and three different districts. He will gradually hand this off to two office staff that he is managing. Having this data will lead us into the next phase of the work, which is to design and implement a wide variety of cost-cutting programs. This is again his biggest project, but he is engaged in several other smaller projects.

Qualifications
We are looking for somebody truly extraordinary for the program associate role. This is an extremely competitive leadership role. Only 10% make of applicants make it to a phone screen. Therefore, please do NOT respond unless you fit these criteria:

• Top-performing undergraduate background, preferably at a top-tier school (include GPA and test scores on your resume)
• Demonstrated leadership experience. Managing a business team, starting a field program in a developing country, leading a conference, leading a sports team, starting a business, etc.
• Project management skills including milestone and work plan ownership
• Familiarity with MS Office desired
• No ego or drama. We are all stable people who are fun to be around. We are looking for others that combine strong leadership skills with a humble approach to service
• A willingness to commit to living in rural Africa for at least one year, two years preferred
• English and French required. Kinyrwandan a plus.
• Ability to cook/ laugh/ extraordinary patience – all desirable

In your cover letter, please address the following question:

Numerous NGOs operate in a similar space as One Acre Fund. What attracts you to One Acre Fund in particular?

Email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: “Program Associate Rwanda – Idealist”). We will be accepting applications on a rolling basis and hope to fill the position as soon as possible.