Data Officer

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
invites applications and nominations for its inaugural Data
Officer to join the Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations
(GLO) team. Established in 1967, the foundation invests in creative
thinkers and problem solvers working to ensure that people,
communities, and the planet can flourish. Together with their
partners, they are harnessing society’s collective capacity to
solve our toughest problems — from the existential threat of
climate change to persistent and pervasive inequities, to attacks
on democracy itself. A nonpartisan philanthropy, the Hewlett
Foundation has made grants in the U.S. and globally for nearly six
decades based on an approach that emphasizes long-term support,
collaboration, and trust. Learn more at www.hewlett.org.

The Data Officer will be joining the foundation
at an exciting inflection point in its history as it implements the
learnings spurred by the continuing pandemic and the national
reckoning with racial justice awareness that coalesced around the
summer of 2020. The Data Officer will be joining a team that has
been reimagined into a foundation-wide resource for ensuring that
equity and transparency remain the centerpiece of their grantmaking
efforts. With a focus on increasing the foundation’s “collective
smartness” through effective utilization of grants data, the Data
Officer will partner with GLO team members and collaborate across
the foundation to implement a strategy for grants data collection
and analysis. The Data Officer will report to the Director, Grantmaking,
Learning, and Operations.

The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $165,000 and
includes a comprehensive
benefits package. Salary offers are based on a candidate’s
years of experience and the foundation’s practice of maintaining
salary equity.

 

TEAM OVERVIEW

In early 2021, the Grants Management department was relaunched
as the Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations (GLO)
team, incorporating responsibility for collating and
disseminating insights and learnings from their own work, and from
around the foundation, into opportunities to drive process
improvements that maintains equity and transparency in their
grantmaking efforts. The team is in a continuous learning posture,
utilizing their unique vantage point across the organization as
embedded partners with programmatic teams and collaborators with
administrative functions to facilitate the grantmaking process and
achieve foundation goals.

The GLO team plays a pivotal role in all grantmaking activities
and has a valued voice in all aspects of the foundation’s work,
from developing tools and processes to implementing systems and
advancing promising practices through training. The team designs
systems to interact with grantees, manages the grant lifecycle,
aggregates information, analyzes data, and shares learnings across
the foundation. Working on every program and on every grant, the
GLO team is a critical partner and respected resource in the
management and implementation of program strategies, serving as
thought partners and catalysts for innovation.

GLO led the process of launching a new Salesforce Grants
Management System (GMS) and remains in deep collaboration with the
IT team to continue the refinement and rollout of it. A set of
values drove the process and design principles, including:
leveraging collaboration and mutual respect in grant practice,
transparency and learning for both staff and grantees, and
supporting lean Hewlett Foundation staffing with simple and
flexible procedures. In addition, an integral part of the design
considerations for the new GMS was a focus on equity for grantees
and staff.

 

OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES FOR THE DATA
OFFICER

Reporting to Marcus McGrew, the
Director of Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations, the Data Officer
will be joining the foundation in a new role at an exciting time in
its history. In addition to the
search for their next president, the foundation has joined with
other leading philanthropies
to launch BuildUS, a pooled fund to accelerate America’s
transition toward a worker-centered, cleaner, and more equitable
economy. These developments, in conjunction with the foundation’s
robust grantmaking efforts across eight programmatic areas will
provide the Data Officer with the opportunity to drive
organizational strategy on grants data utilization, while
partnering with individual programs and their embedded Grant
Officers to provide tailored solutions where applicable. The Data
Officer will engage with the following opportunities and
challenges:

Utilization of Grants Data

The foundation has a significant amount of grants data that
demonstrates the enormous impact that their philanthropic support
has via the efforts of their grantees and partners. The Data
Officer will collaborate across the foundation with IT, and within
the GLO team with the GMS Salesforce Lead, to further streamline
the process of collecting grants data to encourage and foster a
culture of “collective smartness” around the effective utilization
of foundation grants data. The creation of a foundation-wide
approach to grants data collection, including grants related data
that is not managed by the GMS, will enhance the accessibility of
foundation impact for internal and external audiences alike.

Collaboration with Grants Officers

Grants Officers at the Hewlett Foundation are embedded into
program teams as their dedicated subject matter expert on the
foundation’s grantmaking processes and procedures. In collaboration
with the Grants Officers, the Data Officer will codify a strategy
for grants data collection that enables efficient dashboarding and
reporting efforts. This work will foster greater clarity around the
foundation’s commonly used grants data and provide each program
with a shared resource for addressing their unique data needs. The
additional protocols and policies necessary to satisfy individual
program requirements will be work that the Data Officer, and
relevant Grants Officer, will collectively identify and
address.

Advising and Training

The Data Officer will regularly assess the areas of expertise
that exist within the GLO team to identify opportunities to provide
trainings and facilitate knowledge sharing for their colleagues.
Ranging from forecasting and planning to data analysis, and
developing and deploying learning modules, the Data Officer will
utilize a storyteller’s mindset as they actively seek ways to share
the expertise of the GLO team and incorporate the learnings that
programmatic data has helped engender across the foundation.
Opportunities to implement these learnings may include partnering
with programmatic teams, and other areas of the foundation, to
influence the continued alignment around the usage of data sets
commonly used across the foundation.

Project Management

The Data Officer will lead projects of varying complexity across
all levels of the organization to advance promising practices and
the Foundation’s goals. This includes establishing a project plan,
setting the scope, timeline and budget, working with relevant
consultants and vendors, and managing the project team(s). The Data
Officer will foster and facilitate inclusion and
consensus-building, while advocating for their own point of view
and ensuring project goals are achieved.

 

DESIRED ATTRIBUTES OF THE DATA OFFICER

The Data Officer will be motivated by the Hewlett Foundation’s
guiding
principles with an understanding of the influence that a
foundation can have within its chosen areas of focus. Ideally, they
will have some experience with collecting and analyzing grantmaking
data and deploying an effective dashboard and reporting strategies
within a grants management system or similar data repository. The
GLO team highly encourages philanthropic recipients and
partners to consider bringing their experiences and expertise into
the candidate pool. While no one candidate will embody all the
qualifications below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the
following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and
experiences:

• A minimum of 7 years of professional experience is desired,
  preferably in a context that developed the skills needed for
  effective utilization of grants data.
• A bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer
  Science, Information Management, or related field.
• An authentic commitment to collaboration, flexibility,
  knowledge, and learning; diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice
  (DEIJ) principles; and implementation of strategies that drive
  equity in grantmaking processes.
• While this is a hybrid role that requires regular in-office
  attendance, experience working in a virtual environment with remote
  partners and teams is preferred.
• Adept at data cleaning, developing analysis and reporting
  capabilities, and linking data sets.
• Proficiency in navigating software applications and learning
  new data systems quickly with Salesforce and data visualization
  tools such as Tableau or Power BI would be highly valued.
• The ability to translate operational and programmatic
  opportunities for partnership into analytical questions, utilizing
  a consultative thought partner approach to project management that
  centers inclusion and consensus-building, that produces generative
  dashboards and reports.
• Critical and strategic thinking skills, highly motivated and
  organized with the ability to work well in teams and independently
  on multiple simultaneous projects.
• The ability to collect, organize, analyze, and disseminate
  significant amounts of information with attention to detail and
  accuracy.
• Strong emotional intelligence and the ability to build trusting
  relationships across silos and teams.
• Possess the presence and confidence to facilitate robust
  conversations, welcoming and recognizing the value of differing
  perspectives.
• Adept at navigating nuance, ambiguity, and complexity in a
  decentralized, autonomous organization culture.
• Effective written, oral, and presentation communication
  skills.
• Strong data storytelling and visualization with the ability to
  effectively communicate technical and general information regarding
  grants data to a variety of audiences.
• A growth mindset with an optimistic approach to get things
  done.

Possessing any of the following qualifications would be welcome
value adds to the foundation:

• Experience in a decentralized organizational culture with
  ability to flex across dynamic teams.
• Financial or business analysis skills.
• Experience in adult learning and training including designing
  effective training and learning sessions.
• Experience in a consulting environment managing large scale
  projects.
• A commitment to mission driven work and interest in a broad
  range of social issues.
• A respectfully candid approach to advocating for oneself.
• An aptitude for pivoting between being relational and technical
  engagements.

The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $165,000 and
includes a comprehensive
benefits package. Salary offers are based on a candidate’s
years of experience and the foundation’s practice of maintaining
salary equity.

 

TO APPLY

To learn more about the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation please visit: www.hewlett.org

This search is being led by Cara Pearsall and Robert Diggs of
NPAG. NPAG welcomes expressions
of interest and/or nominations submitted via this
form. Candidates may submit their cover letter, outlining their
interest, qualifications, and commitment to equity and transparency
as a central tenet of effective grantmaking, along with their
resume via NPAG’s website.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation embraces the
importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion both internally, in
our hiring process and organizational culture, and externally, in
our grantmaking and related practices. We are an equal opportunity
employer and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds,
cultures, and experiences.