Senior Learning and Evaluation Officer (SLEO)

For nearly 100 years, generous individuals and families have
trusted the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to help them make
a lasting, positive impact in their community and in their own and
future generations. Under its strategic commitment, the
Hartford Foundation is poised to move to a greater level of impact
and growth that will enhance our ability to support nonprofits and
other partners to identify and serve community needs. We also seek
to enhance our role as a trusted steward, collaborator, and
innovator.

 

Summary

The Senior Learning and Evaluation Officer (SLEO) reports
to the Director of Learning, Evaluation and Capacity Building and
helps lead the organization-wide monitoring, evaluation, and
learning (MEL) function that drives Foundation strategic planning,
reflective thinking, practice improvement, and data-driven
decision-making – particularly around grantmaking. In this
role the SLEO helps to build Foundation staff capacity for
evaluative thinking and learning to improve results and champion
transparent, culturally responsive, and equitable evaluation with
staff and community partners externally.  

 

Essential Duties
&  Responsibilities 

• Establish and manage learning and
  outcome strategies and workplans.
• Supervise 1-2 direct reports,
  providing mentorship and development of officers and
  ensuring appropriate assignment of responsibility, goal
  setting, implementation of departmental work plans and effective
  cross-departmental collaborations.
• Work collaboratively with Foundation colleagues to
  build and manage a centralized, coordinated MEL function
  to inform decision-making and continuous improvement and understand
  the Foundation’s contribution to the community.
• Develop and facilitate appropriate timelines and
  learning opportunities for reflection and refinement of strategy
  based on data and MEL findings.
• Develop and produce progress reports and other learning tools
  to inform staff, Board, and community stakeholders about strategy
  progress and learning.
• Support monitoring and evaluation activities of the
  Foundation’s outcome-focused grantmaking/learning
  teams.
• Play a central role in developing
  databases, processes and platforms to manage
  organizational data and learning.
• Produce and/or oversee the production of literature reviews,
  field/landscape scans, and needs assessments to inform ongoing
  refinement of strategy.
• Leads Learning & Evaluation’s (L&E) RFP
  processes and other procurement processes in collaboration with the
  Director, Foundation staff, grantees, and other
  partners.
• Lead the implementation and improvement of L&E’s
  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Culturally Responsive
  and Equitable Evaluation (CREE) practices.
• Play a critical role in developing the local and regional data,
  research, and evaluation ecosystem.
• Represents the Learning & Evaluation team on
  Foundation special projects and initiatives.
• Other related duties.

 

Competencies and Attributes 

• Deep commitment to the values of equity, diversity and
  inclusion and the ability to embed those values in all aspects
  of work.
• Demonstrated experience with applying culturally responsive
  and equitable evaluation (CREE) frameworks, principals,
  approaches, and tools.
• Demonstrated understanding of quantitative design,
  methods, analysis and visualization including basic
  statistical techniques and software (e.g. Excel, R, STATA,
  SPSS, Tableau). 
• Demonstrated understanding of qualitative design, methods, and
  analysis including relevant techniques and software
  (e.g. NVivo, ATLAS.ti, Dedoose).
• Proven ability to select evaluation designs appropriate to a
  wide variety of projects, services, and initiatives to ensure
  effectiveness and efficiency. 
• Demonstrated excellent communications skills for writing,
  speaking, listening for understanding, and presenting and adapting
  content for a range of audiences, persuading and
  influencing.
• Exceptional interpersonal and
  collaboration skills with an openness to new
  ideas and perspectives on a wide range of topics.
• Demonstrated ability to explain complex and technical research
  and evaluation concepts and approaches to non-researcher
  audiences.
• Proven ability to translate abstract ideas into
  actionable findings. 
• Proven ability to make significant contributions to
  organizational learning and depth of experience in knowledge
  management. 
• Ability to meet physical demands typical of a sedentary office
  environment with reasonable accommodations as
  needed.

 

 

Education and Experience  

Degree requirement can be substituted with equivalent practical
experience 

• Advanced degree or equivalent experience in social sciences,
  public administration, public policy or other relevant area with
  significant training and practical experience in data analysis and
  evaluation design and methodology
• Five or more year of experience in nonprofit or public sector,
  research and evaluation design and implementation, and/or strategic
  planning

    

     Preferred

• Knowledge of Greater Hartford, especially Hartford, and the
  disparities in opportunity faced by its residents or of residents
  in a similar metropolitan area.
• Strong data visualization skills and experience preparing and
  incorporating visualizations in reports and
  presentations.
• Demonstrated experience with relational databases and/or grants
  management platforms.

 

Location and office information

Hartford, CT; Hybrid schedule that includes in-office work,
remote work and site visits to

community partners throughout the Greater Hartford Region.

 

For more information about the Hartford Foundation for Public
Giving visit:

https://www.hfpg.org/

 

HARTFORD FOUNDATION FOR PUBLIC GIVING IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
EMPLOYER RELYING ON A DIVERSE GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR
RESPECTIVE TALENTS TO ACHIEVE OUR MISSION 

 

Any and all offers to applicants are contingent on the
candidate’s completion of a comprehensive background and
reference check to the satisfaction of the Hartford Foundation