Community Development Program Manager – Costa Rica

Location: Costa Rica

Start Date: January 2025 

Type of Role: Permenant, full-time & Live-in 

Experience Level: Senior 

🌍About GVI

GVI Planet  | GVI People

At GVI, we’re driven by the desire to make a positive impact on our planet and its people. Our dedicated teams are actively working to address global challenges and together, we leverage a diverse set of specialised skills to pursue a shared vision: fostering a brighter and more sustainable future for all.

We offer award-winning conservation and community development programs in 13 countries, all aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and led by our teams and experts from the communities we operate in. These programs include an extensive range of nature conservation and community development programs through which people from all walks of life can volunteer, intern and study. 

Working at GVI is fast-paced and fun. We value passion, authenticity and innovation, and we treat each other with respect. But we can do better than words to show you who we are! To see what it’s really like to work for GVI: 

🎥 Watch Here 

📰 Read Here

🎓 About the role

The Program Manager’s role is to deliver world-leading volunteer and internship programs and manage the GVI hub. This person is responsible for ensuring effective day-to-day running of the program operations, building and maintaining partnerships with the community, effectively managing staff and participants, and achieving the financial and quality goals of the organisation.

The ideal candidate for this position will speak proficient Spanish, be hugely passionate about community development and thrive off living in a communal setting among staff and program participants. You will have a background in operations, have strong staff and volunteer management experience, and be comfortable being responsible for the health and safety of the participants on base.

☀️Role and responsibilities:

• Oversee the overall day to day delivery of projects, including quality, impact and safety, and the overall effective functioning of the hub.
• In conjunction with the People function and line manager, recruit new staff for your base as well as oversee training and onboarding of all new staff and participants.
• Effectively manage any issues that come up in the field on a day to day basis, including participant complaints, medical issues, natural disasters etc.
• Oversee day to day logistics of the project including participant arrivals, departures, visits off base, day to day needs, base scheduling, ensuring all participants know what they’re doing, when, and the day to day functions smoothly.
• Connect and liaise with in-country partners to build and maintain relationships.
• Responsible for financial and overall reporting of the hub.
• Work with the Program Director to roll out defined best practice covering all key aspects of the hub’s programs and operations.
• Ensure the successful implementation and delivery of all GVI marketing and internal communication initiatives.
• Work with the central support office to ensure in-country legal compliance and maintain desired legal status through accurate and timely reporting.

✨ About you

If you are ambitious, purpose-driven, and you have a great sense of humour,  we want to meet you. As an organisation, we know that welcoming a broad range of people with unique identities makes us powerful and we are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

🌱 Personal attributes:

• Strong people and time management skills
• Commitment, drive and enthusiasm to develop yourself and others
• Hardworking, with the ability to lead and problem solver
• Flexible, open-minded, adaptable team player

✅Professional skills and experience:

• Fluent Spanish is required for this role
• Proven leadership experience (3-5 years experience managing staff and volunteers/interns)
• Operations experience (in the tourism/travel industry is advantageous) 
• Health and safety management experience 
• Teaching and community development experience is advantageous
• Advantageous: 
  • Trained in First Aid 

🎉Benefits

Here’s what our global team enjoys:

• Collaborative, flexible culture
• Transparency – hear directly from the CEO consistently
• We laugh a lot, genuinely care about and support each other, and do the occasional dress-up
• Leadership development
• In-house counselling support
• Growth opportunities across our 17 locations!

Package includes:

• Monthly salary 
• Accommodation
• Food
• Visa costs (if applicable) 
• Emergency medical and travel insurance

🎯 To apply:

Please send your CV along with a cover letter stating why you feel you would be best suited to this position at GVI.

GVI is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and values diversity in our organization. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or national origin.

Please note: We will do our utmost to respond to all applicants, however, given the large volume of applications we receive, this isn’t always possible. If you do not hear back from us within three-four weeks, please take it that on this occasion your application was unsuccessful.