Job Description

1. Background and Rationale

The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), founded in 2000 and registered in 2001as a Trust, strategically transitioned into the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation (ZELO), a Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO), to strengthen legal compliance, governance alignment, and operational efficiency. The organisation maintained its mandate of promoting environmental justice, sustainable resource governance, and community empowerment in Zimbabwe and beyond.

Over the past 25 years, the organisation built a strong reputation both locally and internationally for using the law to advance equitable and sustainable governance of natural resources. ZELO operates within a dynamic and evolving natural resource governance landscape with complexities including institutional fragility, shrinking civic space, and a history of contested governance institutions. These realities require a thoughtful and responsive approach in partnership with government, civil society and communities. To navigate this complex landscape, the work of ZELO for the next 5years will be guided by a 5-year Strategic plan (2025 – 2029).

This Strategic Plan is the anchor for driving positive and lasting change in the way natural resources are governed, regulated and managed, with the aim of contributing to sustainable organisational and programmatic growth and in response to Zimbabwe’s and the world’s most pressing challenges and other emerging issues in the natural resources and environmental sector. Most importantly, the Strategic Plan lays out how our work will respond to inequality and climate change, the twin crises of our time. A robust fundraising strategy is required to effectively execute the strategic mandate for 2025-2029, in view of the changes that have been happening in the development assistance landscape. It is against this background that ZELO is seeking consultancy services, for the development of a Philanthropy engagement strategy.

2. Overall Objective
The overall objective of this consultancy work is to assist ZELO in developing a practical, actionable Philanthropy Engagement Strategy that enables ZELO to identify, prioritise, and cultivate philanthropic partners aligned with its strategic plan and programmatic priorities. Specifically, the consultant is expected to deliver on these objectives.
(i) Review ZELO’s current Strategic Plan 2025 -2026 to understand priorities, outcomes, and funding needs.
(ii) Identify and profile philanthropic organisations relevant to ZELO’s thematic focus and geographic footprint.
(iii) Develop a clear engagement and outreach strategy for connecting with and securing support from priority philanthropic organisations.
(iv) Support connection-building, including sharing contact details and, where feasible, facilitating introductions on a best-effort basis

Duties and Responsibilities

3. Scope of Work and Key Tasks
3.1 Task 1: Inception and Document Review
An inception meeting between the Consultant and ZELO team shall be convened. This meeting will enable the Consultant to seek clarification and understand more about the nature and scope of this consultancy work. The Consultant shall present an inception note that includes the timelines for this consultancy work guided by the deliverables/milestones as indicated in these terms of reference, and the methodology for conducting this consultancy work.
4.2 Task 2: Philanthropy Landscape Mapping and Prioritisation
Building from Task 1, the Consultant shall conduct the philanthropy scoping/mapping exercise to identify philanthropic organisations such as foundations, family philanthropies, corporate foundations where relevant, high-net-worth platforms, philanthropic intermediaries aligned with ZELO’s work. This mapping should adopt a nuanced approach to segment the landscape such as environment/climate justice, business and human rights, extractives/critical minerals, just transition etc. It should then apply prioritisation criteria to rank prospects of getting funding. This prioritising should be based on for example thematic fit, geographic interest, typical grant size, openness to new grantees, application cycles, risk appetite, etc. This will culminate in the development of a ranked pipeline, as guided by the ZELO assignment lead.
4.3 Task 3: Philanthropy Engagement Strategy Design
Task 3 is the core “strategy design” work and should produce a practical, implementable plan that enables ZELO to systematically engage philanthropic organisations, move prospects from interest to commitment, and secure sustainable support aligned to ZELO’s Strategic Plan, building on Task 2 (Mapping and Prioritisation). The strategy should operationalise a pipeline management tool with stages (identified → contacted → meeting → concept note → proposal → due diligence → funded).
4.4 Task 4: Practical Outreach Toolkit and Connection Support
The Consultant shall develop a comprehensive set of ready-to-use practical, editable tools that ZELO can immediately deploy to engage priority philanthropic organisations identified under Task 2. The toolkit should include a suite of email templates, a one-page pitch deck, a meeting briefing template for internal preparation and a pipeline tracker structure.
4.5 Task 5: Validation and Finalisation
The Consultant shall facilitate a validation session with ZELO team to review and stress-test the draft outputs, including the ranked pipeline, engagement strategy, and outreach toolkit. The session should be designed to confirm strategic alignment with ZELO’s priorities and assess the feasibility of proposed engagement pathways, The consultants should prepare and circulate an agenda and pre-read materials in advance, document key inputs and decisions during the session, and capture agreed revisions.
4. Deliverables, timelines and Payment Terms
Payment for this consultancy shall be tied to deliverables and within the timelines indicated on this table
Deliverable Timing (Indicative) Payment (Milestone-based)
1. Inception Note (2–4 pages) – confirmed workplan, methodology, information needs Week 1 20% on approval
2. Philanthropy Landscape Mapping Report – funder list & profiles; segmentation & prioritisation criteria; ranked pipeline (Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Watchlist) Weeks 2–3 40% on submission (mapping + ranked pipeline)
3. Draft Philanthropy Engagement Strategy and a draft Outreach Toolkit (including objectives, approach, proposed pathways, internal processes, a roadmap and draft templates/tools) Weeks 4–5 Included in final package milestone
4. Validation Session and Strategy Package finalisation – validation session; final engagement strategy; final outreach toolkit; updated contact sheet/pipeline tracker; close-out presentation/briefing Week 6 40% on acceptance of final strategy package

5. Confidentiality, Data Protection, and Intellectual Property
The Consultant must treat non-public information including Personally Identifiable Information (PII) as confidential and will not disclose it without written consent from ZELO, in respect of privacy norms and applicable data protection principles. All deliverables produced under this ToR will be the property of ZELO, unless otherwise agreed in writing.
Timeline: The consultancy will run for 6 weeks

Qualifications and Experience

6. Required Qualifications
• Proven experience in development of funding partner related strategies or interacting with Philanthropies.
• Demonstrated expertise in fundraising, strategic planning, or organisational development.
• Advanced understanding of environmental law, natural resource governance, or sustainable development.
• Experience with donor frameworks and digital learning tools.
• Strong facilitation, participatory research, and report writing skills.
• Proven familiarity with Southern Africa’s governance and environmental policy context

How to Apply

7. Application Process
Interested candidates should submit:
• A technical and financial proposal (maximum 5 pages) outlining methodology, timeline, and work plan.
• CV(s) of the lead consultant(s) and institutional profile.
• Samples of previous relevant work and contact details for three references.
Interested candidates to submit applications with subject line clearly marked DEVELOPMENT OF A PHILANTHROPY ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY, to [email protected] by 2 February 2026