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About Gary Community Investments
Gary Community Investments, which includes The Piton Foundation, invests in for-profit and philanthropic solutions for Colorado's low-income children and their families. It was founded with the belief that business and philanthropy can—and should—work together to create opportunities for those who need it most.
Gary Community Investments is committed to investing in quality early childhood and youth development systems, expanding sustainable economic opportunities, and developing and supporting programs that create healthy family and community environments.
By aligning all of our assets with our mission, we make creative investments that not only yield a financial return, but can also improve the lives of Colorado's children.
At - A - Glance:
- Founded in 1976
- Multi-division entity consisting of both foundation and for-profit arms
- 32 full time staff
- Located in Denver, CO
- Certified B Corporation
About the Role: Director of Learning and Impact Evaluation
We're looking for a self-motivated individual to join our unique hybrid organization, consisting of both for-profit and foundation arms, in a key architect role as the Director of Learning and Impact Evaluation. Together, with the VP of Assessment, you will collaborate directly with our partners and investees to apply your substantial knowledge of evaluation and assessment approaches to develop impact measurement learning, and capacity building strategies. You will help guide the design, implementation, and stewardship of an integrated evaluation and organizational-wide learning system. Your work will drive continuous improvement at GCI and maximize our investee impact.
You have a passion for challenging conventional wisdom and boardroom polish. Success in this role requires relentlessly looking for channels to measure impact and create a strategic learning culture for GCI and our stakeholders. You will provide expertise, guidance, and standards for planning, measurement, and evaluation.
Here's what to expect from the role…
LEGACY
The Outcomes from Your Work in this Role
Our work invests in for-profit and philanthropic solutions for Colorado's low-income children and their families.
- You will join a team of change agents that are fostering and thriving in a culture of outcomes-based investment and cross sector collaboration.
- You will pioneer new ways to enable our team, as well as the broader field, to truly understand the impact of our investment approach – and help to increase that impact.
- You will collaborate with our investees to grow and communicate their impact through the development of measurement and evaluation frameworks.
MASTERY
How This Role Will Help You Develop as a Professional
- You will fuel the measurement and evaluation process, having a finger on the pulse of projects from start to finish, helping our team understand more broadly the outcomes of each invested programs individual, collected, and accumulated impact.
- You will hone your expertise in intentionally developing and cultivating an internal culture of strategic learning.
- You will influence the orientation of our work, providing strong leadership and recommendations for learning-based pivots and course redirections.
FREEDOM
The Tangible and Intangible Perks and Benefits of this Role
We expect you to be your full self while working with us. To do so, we offer:
- Generous benefits including health insurance and a retirement plan.
- An ambitious, purpose-driven working environment within a non-traditional foundation and impact investing company.
- A space to demonstrate your creative intrapreneurial skills and mix of high levels of intellectual rigor and curiosity.
- A flexible, open workplace in the heart of lower-downtown Denver.
Your responsibilities will include…
- Designing, implementing and evolving measurement and evaluation systems in order to effectively learn from GCI's individual grants and market-based investments and portfolio-level impact.
- Working with GCI's Integrated Investment Team's Investment Directors on evaluation prerequisites, such as development of program hypotheses, logic models, theories of change, and evaluation plans.
- Co-designing strategies with investees to build capacity to support impact measurement and information-driven decision-making.
- Initiating and managing third-party comprehensive evaluations (including process, cost and outcome studies) of complex, multi-site program and policy reform initiatives.
- Developing tools and managing systems to provide critical measurement and evaluation information to the leadership team, and to make actionable recommendations on both strategy and operations.
- Engaging leadership, the investment team, and broader audiences around issues, trends, and changes that pertain to the Colorado impact space.
- Ideating, designing, and prototyping internal initiatives that promote a metrics-based learning culture that is aligned across organizational work streams and new program initiatives.
- Serving as a leader, designer, and manager of an organization-wide strategy for continued actionable learning.
- Thinking creatively about how to leverage the GCI's data to optimize future investments and create partnerships that maximize our impact in Colorado's low-income communities.
We're looking for someone …
- With a graduate degree and/or 5-10 years of professional experience in social impact measurement and evaluation to support organizational change and improved outcomes.
- With proven experience working directly with organization leaders to build supportive monitoring and evaluation plans and capacity building strategies that are attuned to their stage of organizational development - from seed to scale.
- Who has the ability to select the most appropriate evaluation and research design along a spectrum of methodologies (e.g. experimental research design, social return on investment and developmental evaluation).
- With strong creative thinking skills, who is passionate about trying new approaches above conventional wisdom.
- With working knowledge and expertise in relevant areas such as child development, education, financial asset building, and economic development.
- With experience in managing complex, multi-year projects involving multiple contractors and stakeholders.
- Who proactively fosters a culture of learning with the political savvy to navigate large systems and organizations.
- With demonstrated leadership in driving organizational change and development while working across diverse team environments.
- Who can synthesize complex, interrelated material and distill large amounts of information into relevant, dynamic learning opportunities.
- With excellent business acumen and interpersonal skills, who displays influence, persuasion, and active listening in pursuit of change.
- Who is an effective communicator at all levels in the organization, with excellent verbal and written skills.
- Who is confident in their opinions and ideas, who loves collaboration as well as independence.
- With a deep commitment to the mission and core beliefs of Gary Community Investments.
- Who is quickly adaptable, flexible, and nimble in an ambiguous environment.
- Who is proficient in using technological tools to advance efforts (e.g. statistical packages, data visualization, project management tools, etc.)
Bonus if you are someone…
- Who has strong experience in human-centered design approaches to solving organizational and community level challenges.
- Who has experience supporting partner organizations in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
- Who has a background in assessment related specifically to impact investing.
How will we know you're the right person for the role?
Please complete the following application by Monday, January 26, 2015. These short-answer questions are designed to replace a cover letter, please take your time with them and copy in your answers from a separate document. If you are chosen as a finalist, you will first be interviewed by ReWork and then by Gary Community Investments leadership. The final step in the hiring process will be to arrange personal reference calls to confirm details of your work history and performance.
What happens if you're selected?
You'll be invited to join our growing team in Denver, Colorado. You'll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package. If you have any questions about the role, please feel free to email us at talent@rework.jobs. We look forward to reading your application!