Consultant - Cost & Pricing

Overview

The organization is seeking an external consultant to provide on-call “help-desk” advisory services to its Cost and Pricing (C&P) function. This is a consultant contract role that is part-time, with location as Remote/US.

Services are provided as requested by the C&P team, which assigns and prioritizes requests. The consultant will support staff across the organization’s global network through the C&P team, supplementing internal capacity during periods of high proposal volume.

Responsibilities

At the request of the C&P team, the consultant will:

• Help-desk response: Provide first-line responses to cost and pricing queries submitted through the C&P mailbox, and flag policy-level or sensitive issues to the C&P team for decision.
• Budget and budget narrative reviews: Perform technical reviews of assigned proposal budgets and budget narratives, returning written feedback on:
  • Accuracy and consistency of costs
  • Reasonableness of costs
  • Application of indirect cost rates
  • Alignment with donor cost principles and solicitation requirements
• Cost proposal support: For proposals assigned by the C&P team, provide advisory input on solicitation cost and pricing requirements, including:
  • Drafting responses to solicitation questions
  • Preparing budget templates
  • Supporting or leading budget development
• Knowledge transfer: Share guidance and good practices through reviews and advisory interactions that strengthen country office capacity in budget development and cost estimation.
• Capacity strengthening (Advancing the Network): Strengthen staff capacity and confidence worldwide to independently complete proposal budgets through a discrete, time-bound training and support series (activities to be agreed).
• Excel technical assistance: Provide troubleshooting advice for formula errors, broken links, and template issues in budget models, and recommend improvements to spreadsheet structure.

Deliverables

• Written review comments on each budget and budget narrative submitted for review, within agreed turnaround times.
• Monthly progress report of help desk tickets, including a summary of observations, any tool revisions, and other cost and pricing requests.
• Completed capacity strengthening activities as agreed.

Coordination & Work Expectations

• Biweekly check-ins are expected throughout the engagement period.
• The consultant sets their own working hours, with most tasks completed asynchronously.
• The consultant is expected to coordinate with team members to find joint times for meetings, updates, and coordination.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated cost and pricing experience, including developing proposal budgets for a variety of government and non-government funders in the field of international development (e.g., USG Agencies, UN Agencies, Global Fund, Gates Foundation, FCDO, EKN/Dutch Government, GAVI alliance, etc.).
• Experience budgeting for a variety of grant and contract types (e.g., cost reimbursable, milestone based, firm-fixed price, etc.).
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite.
• Strong MS Excel skills, including familiarity with advanced functions (e.g., Pivot Tables, XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF statements, etc.).
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communications skills.
• Flexibility to assume a workload that often necessitates adjustments to priorities.

Preferred Qualifications

Not specified.

Compensation & Benefits

Not specified.

Location

United States (Remote/US).