Director, Impact Assessment and Measures

Director, Impact Assessment and Measures
Location: Arlington, VA
FLSA Classification: Exempt
Reports to: Senior VP, Global Programs
Last Updated: April, 2010
Travel: 25%

This is a challenging opportunity for a monitoring and evaluations subject matter expert to help create a scientifically rigorous and unique monitoring and evaluation program for Rare. This role will be responsible for creating and validating a set of standards to ensure that Rare is designing and executing projects with clear and measurable outcomes, especially around: behavior change, conservation threat reduction and biological impact. Joining a team of global programmatic specialists, the Director of Impact Assessment and Measures will work to establish monitoring protocols and to convene specialized external expert panels to support Rare’s social marketing (Pride) campaigns that inspire conservation action and community behavior change around the world.

Description of the Organization
Rare is a fast-growing, international environmental organization that runs social marketing campaigns in more than 50 countries. Named to Fast Company magazine’s list of “Top Social Capitalists” for the last four years,Rare is committed to bringing a spirit of entrepreneurship and creativity to solving one of this century’s great challenges – protecting biodiversity.

Rare is also committed to hiring entrepreneurial, best-in-their-field staff at all levels of the organization -- each staff member at Rare possesses a desire to change the way non-profits do business and to help scale an exciting model for social change.

The Rare Board adopted a five year strategic plan that entails tripling in size and impact by 2012. They have made significant investments of time and funding to kick start growth and asked Rare to focus on recruiting top talent.

Description of Position
The Director of Impact Assessment & Measures will develop, maintain and improve the organization’s conservation evaluation function. S/he is responsible for working with Rare’s staff, Board of Directors, grantees and other conservation partners to develop and improve an outcome-based evaluation strategy. S/he will serve as spokesperson for, and coordinate Rare’s evaluation of its threat reduction and conservation impact, as well as other associated applied research activities.

Rare is seeking an individual with a broad knowledge of conservation measures, evaluation, and auditing. These skills should be complemented with a willingness to work with staff and partners to help make Rare’s evaluation of its projects an industry-wide “gold standard”. The Director will work closely with Rare’s leadership team and our field programs around the world to create prototypes and pilots of monitoring tools to quantify behavior change, threat reduction and biodiversity conservation, in accordance with the organization’s vision and strategic plan. The ideal candidate will have a demonstrable record as an innovator in the field, and serve as a catalyst within Rare to establish leading practices in the field for measuring program effectiveness. It is expected that with training, support, and mentoring, Rare’s entire field staff will develop a culture of accountability, evaluative inquiry, and the discipline to apply what’s learned in order to drive continuous improvement.

Areas of Responsibility/Performance Expectations

Measurement and Reporting on Program Effectiveness
• Maintain, improve, and report on key measures for Rare’s Balanced Scorecard, particularly those metrics relating to biodiversity outcomes, the reduction of threats to the environment, and the changes in behaviors of the communities in which we work
• Work with our regional staff to develop, endorse, validate and implement tools/methods for collecting data that helps Rare evaluate its efficacy for each project
• Develop and report on measures that help Rare assess the relative Return on Investment (ROI) of its work around the world

Standards Development
• Identify and coordinate best practices and work with leading practitioners in conservation measures and monitoring protocols
• Identify and facilitating “expert panels” to review project plans and results, as well to advise on metrics and measures for impact assessment and ROI
• Facilitate 3rd party research to independently validate and, potentially “audit”, Rare’s strategies and findings

Internal Research
• Design and implement internal longitudinal and cross-sectional research projects
• Support the internal quality control function in assessing project performance and contributing to the development of a predictive model for project design

Monitoring Management
• Set standards and help field staff and partners to design and write rigorous quantitative and qualitative surveys
• Establish standards and help field staff and partners write monitoring plans
• Coordinate expert monitoring at each site to ensure best practices, given pre-determined constraints
• Review and critique monitoring plans developed by our local partners as part of the Pride campaign
• Manage the Threat Reduction and Conservation Results processes for high potential, “signature” campaigns

Intellectual Capital Development and Knowledge Management
• Build Rare’s internal capacity to assess best practice scientific monitoring techniques for our key areas of conservation focus
• Develop internal expertise in community-level and grassroots monitoring techniques; create and disseminate manuals
• Publish and present papers on Pride and its importance as a program that can influence and accelerate behavior change for the benefit of conservation

Required Qualifications (Skills & Knowledge, and Abilities)

• MA or MS degree in Conservation Science, Biological Sciences, Environmental Studies or a related field. PhD preferred.
• At least 10 years experience in developing and validating scientifically rigorous monitoring plans and/or other evaluative instruments for conservation projects, with at least five years at the management or senior management level
• Demonstrated experience in training and evaluation of monitoring plans in the developing tropics
• Ability to work well and communicate effectively cross-culturally; role includes serving multiple constituencies and moving initiatives forward
• Superior interpersonal, organizational, planning and analytical skills are essential
• Advanced knowledge of the principles, practices and procedures relevant to monitoring and evaluation is required
• Demonstrated ability to develop sound recommendations and effectively direct and evaluate the work of others.
• Proficiency in MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint). Advanced modeling and SPSS (or similar) a plus.
• Fluency in English; Spanish, Chinese or Bahasa Indonesian language skills preferred
• Ability to and willingness to travel internationally roughly 25% of the time
Benefits
Rare not only inspires conservation, we also inspire our employees. In addition to generous health insurance coverage, a retirement savings plan, and generous vacation/holiday leave time, Rare’s benefits include an annual training budget for continuous learning and growth, a bonus plan that ties to individual and organizational performance, and a flexible and fun work environment. And to make sure no one gets cabin fever, there’s an annual staff retreat that brings every staff member together to support our work around the world.
Application Procedure

Please email a resume and cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position and stating you heard this opportunity from DevNetJobs, both in Word format, to Deborah Chamberlin, Sr. Director of Human Resources: humres@rareconservation.org, subject line “Director, Impact Assessment & Measures.” Please indicate current salary and salary expectations. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Rare is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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