JOB DESCRIPTION
Position Title: Donor Mapping Consultant, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan)
Work Location: Remote
Reports to: WWF Country Director, Central Asia, dotted line to Director, Resource Mobilization – Europe & North Africa
Consulting duration: 23 working days
Last date: 7th February 2025
Introduction
The WWF Central Asia region is committed to strengthening financial sustainability and diversifying its funding base to advance conservation and sustainable development initiatives. A critical step in this strategy is to develop enhanced donor mapping that builds on existing mappings to identify and assess potential donors aligned with WWF CA strategic objectives. This consultancy will refine preliminary mapping insights, providing data-driven analysis of donor interests, funding patterns, and partnership opportunities at global, regional, and country levels as they pertain to WWF’s CA Office.
The consultancy will provide WWF with an in-depth understanding of high-potential donors and identify funding opportunities for WWF funding gaps, enabling targeted donor engagement strategies that optimize alignment with WWF’s strategic priorities. In addition, to facilitate effective application of the regional data at the local level, the consultant will conduct a training session on donor mapping, equipping WWF CA country office with the skills needed to integrate these insights into their resource acquisition efforts.
Background
WWF Central Asia seeks to advance its resource acquisition capabilities through a comprehensive donor mapping process that aligns with the region’s strategic programs. This exercise will focus on mapping existing, potential and untapped donors across donor segments, including public sector, trusts and foundations, private sector entities, WWF National offices and initiatives for innovative financing models (e.g., green bonds, green investment funds possibility of establishing a Central Asia Trust Fund similar to Caucasus Eco-Corridors Fund). The resulting insights will support long-term, diversified donor engagement and sustainable funding partnerships.
2. Objective
The objective of this consultancy is to deliver an enhanced donor mapping that assesses and prioritizes donors according to their alignment with the funding needs of WWF Central Asia country conservation goals and regional program goals. Secondly, the mapping will provide recommendations on strategies for engagement to support the WWF Central Asia team in the development of their Resource Acquisition strategy. The consultancy will guide strategic donor engagement to increase and diversify funding sources, reduce reliance on a limited number of donors, and support WWF’s mission through innovative funding partnerships.
3. Scope of Work
The consultant will be responsible for conducting a detailed donor mapping exercise, which will include the following tasks:
Identify and Prioritize Potential Donors: Assess and map potential donors, including public sector, bilateral and multilateral donors, trusts and foundations and initiatives for alternative financing models, leveraging the existing donor mapping insights and targeting untapped funding opportunities. The consultant will identify overlap between donor interests and WWF’s programmatic priorities across climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, nature-based solutions (NbS), resilient rivers, illegal wildlife trade (IWT), forest and landscape restoration (FLR), community fisheries, food systems and other thematic areas. Based on this analysis the donor will come up with a list of prioritized high potential donors.
Trend analysis: Analyse key (expected) changes in donor policies, regarding thematic priorities, historic and future funding levels, project types, partnerships preferences, implementation models. Formulate recommendations for WWF’s donor engagement strategy on how to adjust to these changes.
Analyze Emerging Funding Models: Explore initiatives for innovative financing models such as carbon funds, biodiversity credits, impact investment funds, finance for permanence, green bonds, debt-swaps and other sustainable financial mechanisms that offer potential for long-term support while aligning with WWF’s conservation goals. Include recommendations for application of these models in the final donor mapping.
Broaden Donor Base for Diversity: Assess and recommend strategies for broadening and diversifying the donor base of WWF Central Asia, by exploring various opportunities for collaboration and (changing) donor preferences The aim is to create a balanced and diversified funding portfolio.
Identify WWF Donor National Offices with potential interest in Central Asia: Map WWF National Office priorities and strategies and suggest a limited number of National offices that could be interested in working with WWF Central Asia, including topics of common interest. Collaborate with the EUNA regional team and WWF Resource Acquisition team and to identify back donors, who could contribute unrestricted or matched funds to enhance funding potential for Central Asia priority programs.
Define Donor Engagement Principles: Establish clear principles for donor engagement, setting defined roles and responsibilities that respect WWF’s gatekeeper offices, ensuring that engagement aligns with donor expectations and WWF’s strategic objectives.
4. Deliverables
The consultant will produce the following deliverables:
Inception Report: Submit a brief report outlining the methodology, data sources, and proposed timeline for completing the donor mapping exercise (2 days).
Donor Mapping Report: Develop a comprehensive (Excel-based or other) system and accompanying analysis report, detailing potential donors, funding trends, alignment with WWF thematic priorities, and programmatic focus areas (15 days).
Donor Engagement Strategy Recommendations Provide a tailored set of recommendations for engaging the top 10 high-potential donors, based on strategic alignment with WWF Central Asia programs (3 days).
Training Workshop and Materials Design and deliver a virtual training workshop for WWF country office staff on utilizing the donor mapping tool, ensuring that insights from the mapping are effectively applied to enhance local donor engagement strategies (3 days).
5. Timeline
This consultancy will be completed over an 8-week period, with 23 working days allocated, and all deliverables to be submitted/implemented by 31 March, 2025.
6. Required Expertise
The ideal candidate for this consultancy will have:
Extensive experience in donor mapping, resource mobilization, and fundraising within international conservation or development organizations, preferably with Central Asia region knowledge/ experience.
Strong data-driven analysis skills, with experience in leveraging historical donor trends and developing mapping systems based on robust data sources and comprehensive donor insights.
Familiarity with innovative financing models, including impact investments, and sustainable financing options.
Proven experience engaging diverse donor types and facilitating capacity-building workshops focused on donor engagement strategies.
7. Application Process
Interested candidates should submit:
A cover letter outlining their approach to the assignment, including the proposed methodology and timeline.
A curriculum vitae (CV) and examples of similar work in this area.
Include a detailed budget including all costs to fulfil the assignment (including VAT) and specification of the daily rate for 23 days of work.
Expressions of interest should be submitted before 7th February 2025 as they will be reviewed regularly so early applications are encouraged. Please send all applications to: info@wwfcentralasia.org,
In case of questions about this assignment, please send your enquiries to: info@wwfcentralasia.org
Only shortlisted applications will be contacted.
8. Reporting and Supervision
The consultant will report to the Country Director, WWF Central Asia Country office and dotted line to Regional Director, Resource Mobilization – Europe & North Africa with regular check-ins to the extended regional and global resource mobilization teams (EUNA Region and PSP Global) to ensure the deliverables align with expectations set out in this ToR and progress remains on track.
As an international organization, we support a working environment of diversity based on justice and mutual respect. We therefore welcome every application - regardless of ethnic, social and national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status and political views.