Over this six-month period, the consultant will report directly to the Executive Director (or designated representative) and work closely with the Senior Management team, programme leaders, researchers, and relevant support teams. The consultant will provide formal progress updates monthly and submit a final consultancy report upon completion of the assignment.

Phase 1: Inception and Work Planning

During the first month, the consultant will:

• Review CDRI's existing proposal development processes, grant portfolio, and resource mobilisation practices. -
• Assess institutional capabilities, gaps, and research priorities to strategically leverage CDRI’s structural strengths against available global and regional grant opportunities.
• Review the current donor landscape and funding pipeline.
• Develop a detailed consultancy work plan with agreed priorities, milestones, and deliverables.

Deliverables

1. Inception Report.
2. Six-month Consultancy Work Plan.

Phase 2: Technical Assistance, Proposal Development and Staff Coaching

Throughout the consultancy, the consultant will provide ongoing technical support and advisory services (approximately five-six hours per week).

Key responsibilities include:

• Identify, map, and assess strategic funding opportunities aligned with CDRI's research priorities, heavily weighted toward high-value regional and international grants (specifically targeting opportunities exceeding USD 300,000 in annual budget).
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive donor mapping database and qualified opportunity pipeline, delivering a monthly one-page briefing to the Executive Director and Senior Management.
• Conduct a monthly session with the Executive Director covering pipeline review, go/no-go decisions, positioning, and donor-engagement strategy.
• Support donor engagement, partnership development, consortium building, and the identification of strategic partners for collaborative bids.
• Develop or strengthen proposal development tools, templates, quality assurance checklists, and internal workflows to upgrade CDRI's systems.
• Coach and mentor CDRI staff through "live" proposal development processes to build long-term institutional capacity.
• For each major opportunity selected for pursuit: (i) prepare a short donor intelligence brief covering priorities, decision processes, and strategic positioning angles and (ii) provide technical writing, structural editing, and quality assurance for all application materials—whether formatted as an EOI, concept note, or full proposal.
• Provide targeted writing and editing support for proposal narratives, theories of change, logical frameworks, and results frameworks. This support is available upon request for any active CDRI proposal, capped at a maximum of four hours per week, and subject to an agreed five-working-day turnaround time.

Deliverables

• Minimum five concept notes and/or EOI, and two full proposals successfully completed and prepared for submission.

Phase 3: Proposal Writing Masterclass

Toward the end of the consultancy, the consultant will design and facilitate a one-day, highly practical Proposal Writing Masterclass. The session will utilise live concept notes developed during Phase 2—or successfully funded proposals—as core case studies. Key topics will include the anatomy of a winning proposal, translating academic methodologies into donor-friendly narratives, and developing robust Theories of Change and Logical Frameworks (logframes). The training will be deeply participatory, hands-on, and explicitly tailored to CDRI’s institutional context.

Deliverables

1. One-day facilitated masterclass for designated CDRI staff.
2. Training package including presentation materials and a practical resource mobilisation toolkit.
3. Draft institutional resource mobilisation action plan, co-developed based on workshop outputs.

Expected Deliverables, Performance Indicators

Please check the Expected Deliverables and Performance 

Required Qualifications & Experience

The consultant should possess:

• A Master's degree or higher in International Development, Public Policy, Development Studies, Business Administration, or a related field.
• At least eight years of demonstrated experience in grant writing, scouting, donor mapping, proposal development, and institutional resource mobilisation.
• Proven success in identifying and securing funding from bilateral, multilateral, philanthropic, international donors and the private sector.
• Experience supporting social research institutes, universities, think tanks or international organisations.
• Strong understanding of donor compliance requirements, fund landscape mapping and proposal evaluation processes.
• Excellent facilitation, mentoring, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Previous experience working in Southeast Asia or the broader Asian context is highly desirable but not mandatory.
• Outstanding English writing, editing, and communication skills.