Company Name
Mellon Foundation
Company City
New York City
Company State
NY
Job Location
New York, NY
Company Information
Mellon Foundation (“Foundation”) believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and we believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. The Foundation makes grants in four core program areas – Higher Learning, Arts and Culture, Public Knowledge, and Humanities in Place – and through its signature Presidential Initiatives. The Foundation seeks a Manager of Strategic Learning and Evaluation.
Job Description
Summary:
The mission of the Strategic Learning and Evaluation (SLE) team is to foster a culture of learning and evaluative thinking. Our team supports the Foundation, in collaboration with grantees and partners, to rapidly learn from and adapt strategies to advance the Foundation’s mission.
This is achieved through:
- A focus on continuous learning aimed at advancing Mellon’s mission;
- Attention to the mindsets, relationships, processes, and structures that facilitate learning;
- Access to timely and meaningful research, analysis, and evaluation that can be used to inform decisions and refine strategies;
- Enabling feedback loops that foster learning with and from our grantees and philanthropic partners; and
- Engagement with the broader philanthropic sector so that we can stay abreast of emerging trends, identify opportunities for partnerships, and share our learnings with other social justice funders.
Position Details:
Under the general direction of the Senior Director, the Manager of SLE will support the Foundation’s ongoing learning. The Manager will work in partnership with SLE staff, the library and archives team, and the Office of the Executive Vice President. The Manager will also work in close collaboration with program staff, grants management, and administrative staff to support the broader programmatic objectives of the Foundation.
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Strengthen the Foundation’s learning culture by working with program staff to develop opportunities for shared meaning with staff, grantees, funders, and other key partners
- Illustrate our impact through compelling visual and narrative data storytelling, utilizing quantitative and qualitative data to capture our learning and impact
- Work with grants management and information technology to collect, maintain, and apply accurate, reliable, and purposeful data
- Design and facilitate engaging and effective meetings that support learning, reinforce the Foundation’s priorities, and drive action
- Develop processes and practices that make the Foundation’s learning more transparent to grantees, other funders, and external partners
- Develop approaches informed by the Equitable Evaluation Framework™, demonstrating principles of Emergent Learning©, and utilizing tools of Results Count© to drive strategic clarity, alignment, and to track effectiveness over time
- Engage with the philanthropic sector so that Mellon stays abreast of trends in the sector and is informed by best practices among social justice funders
- Ensure that the ways the team operates are in alignment with the values of the Foundation and demonstrate a commitment to social justice
Job Qualifications
- Ability to collect, analyze, synthesize and represent quantitative and qualitative data
- Excellent communications skills with the ability to utilize storytelling, data visualization, and other tools to illustrate change, motivate, and inspire
- Capacity to effectively use research and evaluation for learning and strategy development
- Strong facilitation skills with the ability to move groups from talk to action, utilizing emergent learning and other tools to create shared meaning
- Strong project management skills that include establishment of milestones, communication plans, and the timely delivery of final products
- Broad knowledge of evaluation and learning trends and familiarity with key industry publications and associations
- Passion for the development of a learning culture built on trusting relationships that can foster vulnerability, learning, and change
- Flexibility, adaptability, curiosity, and a continuous learner
- Ability to maintain momentum in a dynamic work environment with shifting priorities
- An advanced degree in social science or a related field or an equivalent combination of relevant education and experience