Job Responsibilities
?? Manage $2.5-$3 million grant portfolio to organizations
in Russia and Central/Eastern Europe by monitoring compliance
?? Monitor reporting requirements for each grant recipient
and pursue late reports
?? Analyze quarterly financial reports for all grant
recipients to determine compliance
?? Coordinate processing of payments with other Endowment
staff
?? Communicate daily with grantees in Russian
Accomplishments:
?? Resolve reporting, tax, and audit problems with grant
recipients
?? Build successful relationships with grant recipients
across cultural boundaries
?? Examine proposals for grant funding to ensure agreement
with established grantmaking standards
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Job Requirements
I earned a masters degree in international relations in 1993
from Old Dominion University. The quality of my courses was
extraordinarily high and the rigor was likewise. I was able to
get to know my professors, since classes were small. They were
all dedicated to helping me learn as much as possible.
Specifically, they helped me to improve my writing skills. This
has resulted in my writing office procedures, memoranda, and
reports both in English and in Russian.
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Uppers
One of the best aspects of being a grants administrator is that this is a career
that is very closely related to other fields, such as contract administration.
This puts me in a good position for moving up in the government contracting
sector, which remains the mainstay of the Washington, DC economy.
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Downers
One of the worst parts of my job is the monotony of doing the
same work over and over. Although problems do arise from time to
time, grants administration is largely a very repetitive
business.
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Lifestyle
Depending on the type of grants and the nature of the job with respect to the
particular employer, there can be business travel. However, most such business
travel, in my experience, involves relocating overseas to a third world country
or a politically unstable region. Because of the varied nature of the job, work
hours are hard to pin down. My particular organization only demands a 40-hour
work week. Only rarely in the past two years have I had to exceed that. Our
office adheres to a business casual work environment, which helps to make it a
very comfortable place in which to work.
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Compensation
My compensation package includes salary and employer-paid
health, dental, and vision insurance. There is also a matching
program in our retirement plan, whereby the employer contributes
10% of an employee's salary, regardless of whether the employee
contributes directly to his/her retirement plan.
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Advice to Jobseekers
Given that the US Government is pouring ever-increasing levels
of funding into grants, especially for international work (Iraq
and Afghanistan, e.g.), the outlook for the grants adminstration
field looks bright. The real question, though, is in finding a
grantmaking organization that represents your values or at least
values with which you are comfortable working.
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