Programme Officer

The Rice Funders Collaborative (RFC) is a new, Asia-led philanthropic collaborative that aims to mobilise coordinated capital to transform rice farming systems – cutting emissions, building farmer resilience, and improving the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers across Asia. By 2030, the RFC aims to mobilise around US$70 million in philanthropic capital and catalyse more in aligned public and development finance.

The RFC initiative is hosted at the Asia Community Foundation (ACF) and the Secretariat team is led by Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC).

Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC) is a leading platform that mobilises Asia-focused philanthropists to deepen their practice of philanthropy and address systemic challenges collaboratively, through shared learning, peer exchange and joint action across the region.

Asia Community Foundation (ACF) is APC's sister organisation, providing the infrastructure that makes collaborative action possible, including regranting, fiscal hosting, shared infrastructure and back-office support, so that philanthropists, funders and impact initiatives can focus on the work itself rather than the operational load.

For more details on RFC, you can find the overview document by visiting https://tinyurl.com/rfcprogrammeofficer

Position Summary
This is a full-time role on a 2-year contract (with the opportunity for renewal based on performance and regulatory approvals) with a preference for candidates living in and/or able to work in Singapore.

Reporting to the Strategy & Programmes Lead, the Programme Officer is responsible for turning the RFC's strategy into grants in the priority countries. The role sources and assesses opportunities, leads due diligence, and manages a portfolio across all aspects of the grantmaking lifecycle. Initial focal countries for grantmaking are Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The role requires country and sector knowledge. Experience of working at a philanthropy is highly preferred.

The role will eventually work alongside other Programme Officers within the Secretariat, and will manage a Programme Associate. This is a hands-on role for someone who wants to build a portfolio in an underfunded field.

Key Responsibilities:
1. Grantmaking and Portfolio Management

• Manage a portfolio of grants in the priority countries, responsible for the full grantmaking and management lifecycle, and serving as the primary point of contact for grantees and supporting them toward success
• Evaluate proposals and prepare clear, evidence-based funding recommendations for review by the Strategy & Programmes Lead and, where relevant, the Grants/Investment Committee
• Monitor active grants, review narrative and financial reports, track progress against milestones, and act on what the results show
• Provide support beyond the grant, helping grantees strengthen proposals, plans, and organisational capacity

2. Opportunity Sourcing and Assessment

• Source and build a pipeline of high-potential opportunities aligned with the RFC's strategy and priorities across Southeast Asia
• Create and update country assessments and landscape scans, mapping actors, interventions, and gaps, and identifying where philanthropic capital can add the most value
• Contribute field-level knowledge and market insight to the Collaborative's overall strategy and country prioritisation

3. Due Diligence

• Lead due diligence on prospective grants and investments, assessing organisational health, financial standing, delivery capacity, and impact potential, in coordination with ACF's grant administration
• Identify risks and trade-offs and bring balanced, well-reasoned judgments to investment decisions
• Ensure grants are structured, documented, and compliant with the Collaborative's and ACF's standards

4. Country and Stakeholder Engagement

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with grantees, governments, research institutions, implementers, and fellow funders across the priority countries and the wider region
• Represent the RFC credibly in-country and in relevant forums, and help connect grantees to partners, co-funders, and networks that strengthen their work
• Coordinate with the Partnerships & Community Lead where country relationships intersect with funder engagement

5. Knowledge, Learning, and Collaboration

• Contribute to the Collaborative's monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL), capturing what does and does not work and feeding it back into strategy and future grantmaking
• Work with the Communications & Knowledge function within the RFC to share evidence and lessons with funders and the wider ecosystem
• Manage a Programme Associate over time, and commission and oversee consultants and technical experts as the work requires
• Contribute to a collaborative team culture through thought partnership and collective problem-solving.

What Success Looks Like in 12 – 18 Months

In the first 12 – 18 months, the Programme Officer will have moved quickly from sourcing to live grantmaking, helping build the RFC's first portfolio in the priority countries. They will have developed a working knowledge of the RFC's strategy, priorities, and grantmaking guidelines and applied them to live sourcing, and built a pipeline of high-potential opportunities in one or more of the priority markets, contributing to the Secretariat's funding deployment.

They will have led due diligence and prepared a portfolio of funding recommendations for review, established relationships with grantees, partners, and fellow funders in the priority countries, and helped put the monitoring, evaluation, and learning approach into practice across the first grants.

What to Expect in this Role

• Sourcing is central to the role. Opportunities in this emerging field are still taking shape, so much of the work involves identifying, testing, and strengthening promising prospects alongside partners.
• The priority countries differ in policy, institutions, and delivery capacity, so the work calls for local judgment and adaptability rather than a single template and approach.
• As an early hire in a new Secretariat, the Programme Officer will have the opportunity to help shape systems and ways of working, not only operate within them.

Experience and Skills
We expect candidates to demonstrate a majority of the following. We are more interested in the right combination of grantmaking experience, country knowledge, and sound judgment than in any single credential.

At least 6 – 8 years of experience in:

• Grantmaking experience. Relevant professional experience, including grantmaking or investment experience, and a strong command of the full grantmaking cycle, including sourcing, diligence, and managing grants or investments toward clear impact goals.
• Country and regional depth. Direct experience working in one or more of the priority countries (Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia), with a genuine understanding of local contexts, institutions, and networks.
• Due diligence and analysis. Strong analytical skills and sound judgment, with the ability to assess organisations, weigh risks and trade-offs, and make well-reasoned recommendations, drawing on both data and informed judgment.
• Portfolio and relationship management. Ability to manage multiple grants and relationships at once without losing attention to detail, and to support grantees' overall success.
• Stakeholder relationships. Skill in building trusted relationships across grantees, governments, researchers, implementers, and funders, often across cultural contexts.
• Communication. Clear, precise writing and confident verbal communication, including the ability to synthesise complexity into funding recommendations. Languages of the priority countries are preferred.

Desirable experience:

• Direct topical expertise in rice, agricultural methane, or climate-smart agriculture; knowledge of interventions such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), seed systems, and/or straw management, and familiarity with the importance and practical approaches to Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) of changes in agricultural systems.
• Experience with blended or catalytic finance, or with public and development-finance partners.
• Experience in or alongside philanthropy, impact investing, or consulting.
• Experience managing consultants or junior staff.

Leadership and personal attributes:

• Proactive, resourceful, and comfortable with ambiguity and iteration.
• A self-starter who delivers results and takes pride in getting the details right.
• Reflective and self-aware, with high integrity, diplomacy, and humility.
• A collaborative style that builds relationships on trust, transparency, and mutual respect.
• Deeply committed to a just transition for smallholder farmers, and to the Asia-led mission and values of the Collaborative.

The Rice Funders Collaborative believes the transformation of rice systems must be shaped by, and serve, the farmers and communities at its heart. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, and we are especially keen to hear from candidates based in and connected to the priority geographies of Southeast Asia.