Full-Time Monitoring & Evaluation Director
Job Description
Job information
● Level: Senior
● Department: Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)
● Reports to: President and CEO
● Location: Remote and at the individual’s discretion until hub office opening
(Relocation to Nuru’s hub office in Orange County, CA will be required by August 2015)
● Employment type: Full-time with benefits
● Start Date: ASAP
Job Overview
Nuru International is accepting applications for a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Director. Nuru’s Monitoring and Evaluation approach is intentionally set up to produce useful and relevant information that can contribute to key decision-making about Nuru’s programs (i.e., whether to continue, iterate, replicate and/or scale an intervention). With this focus on utilization at the center of Nuru’s M&E strategy, the M&E team works to objectively monitor and evaluate the performance, impact and cost-effectiveness of Nuru’s integrated approach. Nuru International is a social venture working to build the world’s first self-sustaining, self-scaling, integrated community development model to end extreme poverty in remote rural areas.
M&E at Nuru has entered its next phase of supporting Nuru’s journey toward proof of concept. A solid measurement foundation and strategy has been set to demonstrate the impact of each of Nuru’s four impact programs, as well as Nuru International’s progress toward exit from a country project. This next phase will be focused on implementing, iterating and refining Nuru’s M&E systems and processes toward demonstrating impact of its integrated, graduation and sustainability approaches. The M&E Director will report to the CEO and will be responsible for driving overall M&E strategy, including directing the implementation of Nuru’s M&E approach and the members of Nuru’s International M&E team. This is an exciting opportunity for an accomplished leader, with a deep understanding, and track record of managing M&E strategy, modeling and operations, who will play a pivotal role in Nuru’s next phase of development. The M&E Director will be a solid thought-partner, team player who is passionate about supporting evidence-based decision making processes and eager to contribute to social change in the international development sector.
For more information about Nuru, please see: http://www.nuruinternational.org/model/
Job Responsibilities
Effectively Lead, Implement and Strengthen Nuru’s M&E Strategy, Processes and Systems
● Implement Nuru’s M&E strategy to gauge the efficacy of the Nuru model and ensure that Nuru can assess whether or not it can reasonably attribute integrated and programmatic impact to the model itself
● Be responsible for the management, and revision of Nuru’s global monitoring and evaluation system, ensuring data and metrics can be rolled up from the field
● Lead the M&E team in continuously assessing whether Nuru’s M&E systems, processes, benchmarks, and metrics are optimal and functional based on new contextual cultural knowledge
● Advise CEO, Director of International Operations (DIO) and country team leaders (TLs) on efficacy of the Nuru model and make recommendations (both strategic and tactical per complete and accurate metric and data analysis)
● Advise CEO, DIO and country TLs on progress of country projects toward international exit criteria based on the Nuru International Exit Criteria Strategy
● Effectively manage the international M&E team (currently a team of 2) to support the International Operations team in gauging the efficacy of the Nuru model in all Nuru projects
● Support, through the international and local M&E teams, the work of Nuru country projects via providing guidance, direction, clarity around expectations, and advise at a tactical and operational level so that work in field can be effectively measured
● Develop annual impact assessment reports and dashboards for each country project
● Drive solid communication processes around core impact results to program teams to ensure effective data driven decision-making around scaling, replicating and iterating
● Present to key internal and external stakeholders progress toward impact based on Nuru’s evaluation framework and dashboard
Support Strong Cross-functional Collaborations
● Develop strong relationships with cross-functional units (i.e. Development, Marketing, Finance, IT) to respond to donor reports and requirements including providing feedback, updates, and status on required metrics at all phases of the proposal development and donor relations management process
● Advise COO and IT consultants on the needs of M&E to contribute to the design, construction, and refinement of an online Salesforce-based global operational data system
● Ensure M&E team data processes and systems are aligned with the Quarterly and Annual reporting cycles
● Work closely with the Nuru Leadership Program to measure the capacity level of the local team by ensuring effective data capture, quality, and analysis around Nuru’s leadership and capacity measurement tool, the Leadership Sustainability Index (LSI)
Contribute to Nuru’s Thought Leadership in the Development Sector
● As a public-facing senior leader of Nuru, represent the organization positively and professionally in all venues and conferences
● Stay abreast of the latest advances, techniques, and tools in measurement and assessment of sustainable poverty reduction, graduation models, integrated impact models, and evaluation in conflict states. Optimally use this knowledge to represent Nuru where relevant including using social media to develop a presence in key fora
● Liaise with other organizations and academic institutions to secure robust feedback loops in preparation for presenting Nuru Impact results at conferences and academic settings
● Seek to publish the efficacy of the Nuru model as data showing the Leadership Program and Integrated approach becomes available (inclusive of academic journals where relevant)
Work effectively with the M&E Team
● Lead the direction, development, and implementation of high quality evaluations for Nuru country projects
● Work with the M&E Data and Analytics Advisor and the M&E Program Strategic Adviser (PSA) to support systematic program monitoring and evaluation for Nuru International and country projects
● Collaborate with the M&E team in coordinating blogs and the Nuru M&E community of practice to bring about stronger inter-country working relationships, sustained communication, and sharing of lessons learned over time and country
Qualifications
● At least 8 years of work experience including 5 or more years of monitoring and evaluation and management experience in the international development industry
● Master’s degree required; degree in Business or International Development-related field of study highly preferred
● Thorough understanding of how to build, develop and analyze complex M&E approaches to various kinds of development interventions (integrated, vertical, graduation models, etc.) based on both a centralized and decentralized operational organizational model
● Solid knowledge-base on how to build, develop and analyze complex quantitative models, survey tools, logic models, and sampling frames to ensure statistically significant random samples in geographically diverse areas
● On-the-ground/field-based experience helpful and particularly as it relates to effective relationship development and evaluation strategy roll-out
● Demonstrated ability to balance pragmatism with measurement rigor
● Demonstrated strong leadership ability, team management, and interpersonal skills particularly as it relates to influencing program teams use of M&E results to iterate program design
● Exceptional strategic problem-solving and critical thinking skills
● Strategic and confident communicator with ability to adapt to rapidly changing work environments
● Ability to effectively manage within an entrepreneurial environment of learning to support systems and procedures that ensure a high degree of accountability and transparency
● Extreme flexibility, with a strong work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit to accommodate high level of responsibility and multiple priorities
● Comfortable operating in an environment of uncertainty and ambiguity associated with a rapidly growing social venture
● Passion for Nuru International’s mission and model
Working Conditions
● International and domestic travel to visit country projects and scaling partner projects. Minimum of two trips per year. The trips can be physically challenging and occasionally uncomfortable (basic transportation, accommodation: communal living). Security and safety is generally not a concern in current Nuru countries (Ethiopia, Kenya) but there is always the risk of hazards (e.g. traffic, local unrest)
● Fast paced and evolving environment