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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Consolidated Financial Tracking: He/she will coordinate with the Finance team to aggregate subrecipient spend into unified financial statements using QuickBooks.
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
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.
He/she will conduct training sessions for subrecipient finance teams on compliance, allowable costs, documentation standards, and reporting systems.
He/she will design and execute risk-based desk reviews and on-site/virtual financial monitoring visits to audit supporting documentation (receipts, invoices, timesheets).
He/she will be required to continuously update subgrant manuals, vendor scorecard tools, and workflows to strengthen internal controls.
Grants & Donor Financial Management
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.
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.
Pipeline Monitoring: Track donor funding tranches, maintain revenue recognition logs, and provide real-time updates on restricted cash flows to the core finance team.
Other finance-related func

Employment type
Full-Time

Work arrangement
Yes