[Hiring] Deputy Director - Planning and Learning @Ascendium Education Group

Role Description

In partnership with the Vice President—Planning, Learning & Impact (PLI), deputy directors in the planning, learning and impact team provide leadership and oversight for at least one of the PLI team’s core learning responsibilities:

• Ascendium’s operations as a funder
• Ascendium’s grantmaking strategy and its execution
• Ascendium’s North Star

This deputy director supports and supervises one team member primarily responsible for execution of activity in the first category. In addition, operating across all three categories, this role is to develop and implement a strong internal infrastructure to help facilitate collaboration and ongoing learning across Ascendium’s matrixed teams. It will help team members effectively elevate Ascendium Education Philanthropy’s achievements, challenges, lessons learned to continuously improve our work and advance progress towards our philanthropic goals.

This position sits alongside three other deputy directors responsible for the core grantmaking strategies (Expand, Support, Connect) and another deputy director in planning, learning and impact.

This role is currently a remotely based position, with the expectation of travel to the Madison, WI, headquarters for semi-annual staff meetings in addition to other travel as required for the position.

The starting salary range for this position is $145,000-$160,000.

Job Responsibilities

• Develop and oversee processes, practices, and tools required to support organizational learning.
• Develop and steward a cohesive vision and implementation of the internal learning infrastructure for Ascendium Education Philanthropy.
• Create and implement processes for engaging Ascendium Education Philanthropy staff in sensemaking and learning from work in ways that are relevant, timely, and applicable to their work.
• Facilitate and further refine emerging processes that bring together staff to reflect on and improve execution of discrete portfolios.
• Develop and then execute processes that bring together staff to reflect on and improve execution of three overall strategies (Expand, Support, Connect).
• Identify and then build cross-strategy learning opportunities about shared strategy components (e.g., state policy, technical assistance).
• Create, along with the Senior Strategy Officers and leadership team, opportunities to learn about and deepen our commitment to the learner populations named in our North Star.
• Liaise with other internal committees and roles, which have responsibility for supporting targeted learning needs across the division, to help create a calendar of cohesive, intentional learning opportunities through the year.
• Create tools that undergird structured strategy review and planning processes that support staff in understanding the impact of and learning from its work.
• Support staff to— and, at times, directly— extract, synthesize, share, organize and apply strategic insights and lessons learned.
• Regularly plan and facilitate staff meetings related to systematic learning for ongoing strategy refinement and improved funder operations.
• Prepare reports and other materials to communicate strategy learning to Ascendium’s board of directors and others, in partnership with Vice President—Planning, Learning and Impact.
• Provide internal and external expertise on topics related to learning within philanthropy and represent Ascendium’s philanthropy in strategic field engagements. Deputies attend 6 to 8 conferences or other offsite meetings annually.
• Develop and maintain relationships with other philanthropic staff responsible for monitoring, learning and evaluation and for strategy planning to exchange information and leverage each other’s efforts.
• Manage and develop a team member focused on learning about Ascendium’s operations with contributing to the leadership team.
• Provide day-to-day management of one existing team member focused on leading the design, collection and use of data and evidence to improve the funder practices, policies and procedures most directly in our control.
• Recruit, vet, and oversee a hiring process for new team members when the opportunity arises for new hires, in partnership with Ascendium’s HR team and the Vice President – Planning, Learning and Impact.
• Provide regular performance feedback, coaching and support, including identifying and supporting direct report’s professional development in alignment with their roles and strategy objectives.
• Serve as a member of the Education Philanthropy leadership team supporting development and execution of cross-team priorities within division-wide annual goals, development and accountability for annual administration budgets, conducting periodic policy reviews, and practicing shared accountability towards common goals.

Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• Knowledge equivalent to an advanced degree, with training in social science, education, public policy, nonprofit or business management, organizational change, or other related fields.
• At least 7-10 years of professional experience, with prior experience working at or in close partnership with philanthropic organizations.
• Knowledge of key topics in postsecondary education and workforce training.
• A track record of supporting group learning, including developing structures and practices to collect and synthesize a wide variety of inputs, from experience gained on the job to formal evaluation findings.
• Experienced facilitator that creates psychologically safe spaces where staff can make meaning out of data and identify opportunities to act on those findings.
• Proficient in integrating work across various strategies and breaking down siloes to unlock shared insights.
• Familiarity with research and evaluation, including both qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Strong project management skills with demonstrated ability to facilitate the work of multiple teams.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Employer-provided legal insurance.
• Generous time off, including up to eight weeks of paid parental leave.
• Student loan repayment assistance and tuition reimbursement.
• Retirement savings plan with employer match.