[Hiring] Chief Research Officer @GoodPower

Role Description

GoodPower is an evidence-based, nimble, and adaptive organization that routinely evaluates our programs to measure impact. Over the last decade, we have continually tested and refined our approach, and have successfully built a set of program offerings that blend cost-efficiency, rigor, scale, and measurable impact. Our programs have demonstrated success through external evaluation, including with partners at Stanford, Yale, and George Mason Universities. We also collaborate regularly with research partners such as Analyst Institute, GrowProgress, One Minus Beta, and Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

The Chief Research Officer (CRO) will direct GoodPower’s Good Data Lab, our in-house empirical research lab. The CRO will work internally with staff, in collaboration with partners, and alongside vendors to design, launch and implement research studies with the goal of understanding how to effectively communicate and increasing GoodPower’s efficacy across a wide variety of key impact areas, including:

• Issue awareness and persuasion
• Issue and advocacy engagement
• Attitude and behavior change
• Civic participation

The CRO oversees in-house research, experimentation, and evaluation, including but not limited to:

• Message-testing experiments with diverse audiences in rural, urban, and international geographies on a variety of energy, economic, and political issues
• Randomized control trials to increase the impact of our voter registration and GOTV programs
• Evaluations of programs to determine if they are ready for scale
• Surveys and focus groups to understand the perspectives and motivations of key audience segments

This position reports to the Chief Executive Officer. Travel will be required to departmental meetings, staff retreats, and other events to represent the department and organization.

Qualifications

• A PhD in research, social sciences, communication, psychology, measurement and evaluation, statistics or similar field is required
• 15+ years of experience in research, experimentation and evaluation
• Previous organizational leadership and management experience, including staff management
• Knowledge of both qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation methods
• Extensive experience with statistical software such as SQL, STATA, R, SAS, SPSS, or others
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English for technical and nontechnical audiences, and experience with public speaking
• Proven experience presenting information to Boards of Directors, funders, partners and cross-functional staff teams
• Experience with grant application and management, and budgeting
• Highly proficient in modern collaboration and project management tools (Google Workspace, Slack, Jira, Salesforce)

Requirements

• Develop and lead research and experimentation strategy and framework to generate evidence for the most effective ways to leverage GoodPower strengths to advance our mission, vision and programmatic goals
• Manage the execution of multiple simultaneous projects to support GoodPower’s key program areas of public education, storytelling, organizing, advocacy, civic engagement, and digital marketing
• Manage Senior Researcher, Senior Research Analyst, and Senior Research Manager and support management of research staff and vendors
• Support the development of research proposals and/or research designs within funding proposals
• Facilitate inter-team communication and collaboration to ensure different program areas are aligned and working together
• Create a culture of shared vision, mutual accountability and individual ownership over work within the GoodPower team
• Design research projects, experiments, and evaluative tools to measure the impact and efficacy of GoodPower’s programs
• Analyze and synthesize results of evaluations and experiments and disseminate results through written communications and presentations for all audiences, including funders and donors, board members, staff, policymakers and partners
• Stay abreast of research findings from partners, peer organizations, and the community, including by attending online and live events and conferences
• Help to establish GoodPower as a visible leader in data-driven impact in the fields of climate and renewable energy education, advocacy, civic engagement, and democracy
• Manage public-facing research reputation and the reputation of the Good Data Lab

Benefits

• Annual salary range: $175,000 - $205,000, commensurate with experience
• Generous benefits include: Medical, Dental, Vision, 403b retirement savings plan
• Vacation, Sabbatical, Paid Parental Leave
• 2 Floating Holidays, 2 Community Service Floating Holidays, sick time
• Two weeks of full-staff time off (July 4 week and Christmas-New Years week) and 13 observed holidays