Job description

ROLE PURPOSE

Sport and soccer are the strongest points of engagement for young people in Kenya’s informal settlements. CFK Africa was founded on this insight and brings 25 years of leadership in sport for development, most recently marked by the historic success of CFK’s women’s team winning the national championship in 2025. Building on this foundation, the new YDN program will provide the platform for youth to engage in sports, receiving critical health behavior messaging, and link them to essential educational and economic opportunities. The YDN Program will place youth in employment, enhance public health, improve educational outcomes, and showcase that when talent meets opportunity, slum youth can break from survival mode to purpose-driven pathways.

Working under the leadership of the YDN Director, the Sports Manager provides overall strategic, technical, and operational leadership for YDN’s sport-for-development portfolio and leads the design and roll-out of the Slum Sports Digital Platform (working title, to be named and branded by youth) East Africa’s first digital system linking grassroots athletes to institutions. Building on CFK’s deep community roots, the Manager will use sport as a vehicle to improve health behaviors, keep young people in education, open economic pathways, and strengthen the networks of parents and guardians around them.
The role carries accountability for program strategy and growth, the digital platform, partnerships with sporting and academic institutions, resource mobilization, team leadership, financial stewardship, safeguarding, and demonstrable impact for young athletes and their communities.

SCOPE OF ROLE

Strategic reach: Overall leadership of YDN’s sports leagues, coaching, and health programming across informal settlements, plus the new digital platform, from the Kibera base towards wider reach.
People: Leads a multidisciplinary team of program officers, coaches, coordinators, content and health-promotion staff, and a network of volunteers, referees, and community mentors.
Technical oversight: Oversees the development, testing and deployment of a robust Sports Digital Platform annual planning and budgeting of Sports activities, preparation of periodic reports, and documentation and dissemination of key lessons for program improvement and adaptation.
Partnerships: Serves as CFK’s senior representative to sporting bodies, scouts, clubs, schools, scholarship programs, health partners, and donors.
Resources: Accountable for Sports budgets, donor compliance, and prudent utilization of resources to sustain and scale delivery.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Leadership & Program Direction

Set and drive the overall strategic direction of YDN’s sport-for-development work, ensuring alignment with CFK Africa’s mission, values, and strategic plan.
Build on CFK’s 25-year heritage and recent successes to position the organization as the reference model for sport-for-development in Kenya’s informal settlements.
Oversee the development, testing and deployment of a robust Sports Digital Platform that integrates with the YDN digital directory and other program components.
Responsible for annual planning and budgeting of sports-for-development activities, ensuring alignment with YDN overarching goal and integration with other program components.
Keep track of sports-for-development performance, opportunities, and risks, and represent CFK’s sports agenda in external and sector forums.
Sport-for-Development Programming
Oversee the coordination and quality of soccer and multi-sport leagues, coaching, and youth participation across slum communities, ensuring inclusion of girls and young women.
Integrate health-behavior messaging and life-skills into sporting activities, sustaining CFK’s tradition of using sport as a platform for health and social change.
Uphold the gains reflected in the 2025 women’s national championship by embedding gender inclusion and pathways for female athletes throughout the program.
Establish standards, curricula, and quality benchmarks that allow the model to be strengthened and replicated without loss of quality or impact.

The Slum Sports Platform

Lead the design, launch, and continuous improvement of the youth-named digital platform East Africa’s first system linking grassroots athletes to institutions delivering its core functions:

League coordination — run and schedule leagues across slum communities through the platform, streamlining fixtures, results, and participation tracking.
Verified athlete profiles — host trusted, verified athlete profiles that scouts, coaches, and scholarship programs can rely on to identify and progress talent.
Content & health messaging — deliver multimedia content and health-behavior messaging that informs, motivates, and engages young athletes.
Education & economic linkages — connect sport with educational and economic opportunities, turning athletic engagement into wider life pathways.
Parent & guardian networks -build a support network that keeps parents and guardians informed and engaged in their child’s athletic and educational progress.
Ensure the platform is co-named and co-branded by youth to maximize ownership, trust, and engagement.

Partnerships & Institutional Linkages

Build and steward partnerships with sporting federations, clubs, scouts, schools, universities, scholarship providers, and health and youth agencies to create real pathways for participants.
Negotiate placement, scouting, and scholarship arrangements that connect verified athletes to opportunity.
Facilitate stakeholder forums, workshops, and events that strengthen collaboration and elevate the visibility of CFK athletes.

Resource Mobilization & Sustainability

Work with the YDN Director and other CFK teams to develop compelling proposals and secure the funding required to sustain and scale the portfolio and platform.
Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with local partners and stakeholders and create linkages that support the mobilization of community resources.
Provide high-quality reporting on sports-for-development activities that demonstrate impact and value for money.
Develop sustainability pathways including sponsorship, partnership, and platform-based models that reduce long-term grant dependency.

Team Leadership & People Management

Lead, motivate, and develop a high-performing, multidisciplinary team, setting clear objectives and holding staff accountable for results.
Build the capacity of program officers, field officers, coaches, and volunteers, acting as a mentor and role model and fostering a culture of learning, inclusion, and safeguarding.
Manage performance, workforce planning, and recruitment for the program in partnership with the HR team.
Financial Management & Compliance
Hold overall accountability for sports-for-development budgets, ensuring spending is on-target, well-documented, and compliant with CFK Africa procedures and donor regulations.
Oversee sports-for-development procurement, sub-grants, and partner agreements in line with organizational policy and value-for-money principles.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning & Impact

Work with the MEAL team to define indicators and evaluation frameworks capturing participation, retention, health, education, and talent-progression outcomes.
Ensure timely, accurate data collection including data generated by the platform and use evidence to drive learning, adaptation, and continuous improvement.
Embed accountability mechanisms responsive to youth, parents, and communities, and report regularly on impact to internal and external stakeholders.
Responsible for preparation of sports-for-development periodic reports, analysis and presentation of results, and documentation and dissemination of key lessons for program improvement and adaptation.

SAFEGUARDING

This role works directly with children and young people in sporting settings and manages a digital platform hosting youth athlete profiles. Safeguarding is central to the post. The Manager must actively promote a safe environment, uphold CFK Africa’s safeguarding and child-protection standards including data protection and consent for minors on the platform and ensure that all staff, coaches, volunteers, and partners understand and comply with them. The successful candidate will be required to undergo relevant background checks.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

A master’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. sports management, development studies, public health, education, or social sciences); a bachelor’s degree with exceptional relevant experience may be considered.
At least 7 years’ progressive experience in sport for development, youth programming, or a related field, including significant senior leadership responsibility.
Demonstrated success in leading, growing, or transforming a program, ideally in informal-settlement or resource-constrained contexts.
Proven track record in managing multi-donor budgets and delivering against ambitious targets in compliance with donor regulations.
Experience building partnerships with sporting, academic, or institutional stakeholders and mobilizing resources / winning funding.
Experience commissioning or managing a digital product or platform or working closely with a technical delivery team.
Knowledge of Kenya’s sporting ecosystem federations, clubs, scouting, and scholarship pathways.
Experience designing or leading gender-inclusive or girls’ sport initiatives, or sport-based health programming.

How to Apply

Compensation is dependent upon qualifications and experience in line with CFK Africa Salary Band.

Application Instructions

Qualified applicants may send a cover letter and CV indicating the Position title to recruitment@cfkafrica.org by 5:00pm 12th August 2026. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

CFK Africa is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against race, color, religion, gender, physical and mental disability and age.

Requirements

Apply by email: recruitment@cfkafrica.org

Sports Manager NGO Job CFK Africa Nairobi, Kenya