The Organization – William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Established in 1967, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation invests in creative thinkers and problem solvers working to ensure that people, communities, and the planet can flourish. Together with their partners, they are harnessing society’s collective capacity to solve our toughest problems — from the existential threat of climate change to persistent and pervasive inequities, to attacks on democracy itself. A nonpartisan philanthropy, the Hewlett Foundation has made grants in the U.S. and globally for nearly six decades based on an approach that emphasizes long-term support, collaboration, and trust. Learn more at www.hewlett.org.
Position Overview
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation invites applications and nominations for its inaugural Data Officer to join the Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations (GLO) team. Established in 1967, the foundation invests in creative thinkers and problem solvers working to ensure that people, communities, and the planet can flourish. Together with their partners, they are harnessing society’s collective capacity to solve our toughest problems — from the existential threat of climate change to persistent and pervasive inequities, to attacks on democracy itself. A nonpartisan philanthropy, the Hewlett Foundation has made grants in the U.S. and globally for nearly six decades based on an approach that emphasizes long-term support, collaboration, and trust. Learn more at www.hewlett.org.
The Data Officer will be joining the foundation at an exciting inflection point in its history as it implements the learnings spurred by the continuing pandemic and the national reckoning with racial justice awareness that coalesced around the summer of 2020. The Data Officer will be joining a team that has been reimagined into a foundation-wide resource for ensuring that equity and transparency remain the centerpiece of their grantmaking efforts. With a focus on increasing the foundation’s “collective smartness” through effective utilization of grants data, the Data Officer will partner with GLO team members and collaborate across the foundation to implement a strategy for grants data collection and analysis. The Data Officer will report to the Director, Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations.
The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $165,000 and includes a comprehensive benefits package. Salary offers are based on a candidate’s years of experience and the foundation’s practice of maintaining salary equity.
TEAM OVERVIEW
In early 2021, the Grants Management department was relaunched as the Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations (GLO) team, incorporating responsibility for collating and disseminating insights and learnings from their own work, and from around the foundation, into opportunities to drive process improvements that maintains equity and transparency in their grantmaking efforts. The team is in a continuous learning posture, utilizing their unique vantage point across the organization as embedded partners with programmatic teams and collaborators with administrative functions to facilitate the grantmaking process and achieve foundation goals.
The GLO team plays a pivotal role in all grantmaking activities and has a valued voice in all aspects of the foundation’s work, from developing tools and processes to implementing systems and advancing promising practices through training. The team designs systems to interact with grantees, manages the grant lifecycle, aggregates information, analyzes data, and shares learnings across the foundation. Working on every program and on every grant, the GLO team is a critical partner and respected resource in the management and implementation of program strategies, serving as thought partners and catalysts for innovation.
GLO led the process of launching a new Salesforce Grants Management System (GMS) and remains in deep collaboration with the IT team to continue the refinement and rollout of it. A set of values drove the process and design principles, including: leveraging collaboration and mutual respect in grant practice, transparency and learning for both staff and grantees, and supporting lean Hewlett Foundation staffing with simple and flexible procedures. In addition, an integral part of the design considerations for the new GMS was a focus on equity for grantees and staff.
OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES FOR THE DATA OFFICER
Reporting to Marcus McGrew, the Director of Grantmaking, Learning, and Operations, the Data Officer will be joining the foundation in a new role at an exciting time in its history. In addition to the search for their next president, the foundation has joined with other leading philanthropies to launch BuildUS, a pooled fund to accelerate America’s transition toward a worker-centered, cleaner, and more equitable economy. These developments, in conjunction with the foundation’s robust grantmaking efforts across eight programmatic areas will provide the Data Officer with the opportunity to drive organizational strategy on grants data utilization, while partnering with individual programs and their embedded Grant Officers to provide tailored solutions where applicable. The Data Officer will engage with the following opportunities and challenges:
Utilization of Grants Data
The foundation has a significant amount of grants data that demonstrates the enormous impact that their philanthropic support has via the efforts of their grantees and partners. The Data Officer will collaborate across the foundation with IT, and within the GLO team with the GMS Salesforce Lead, to further streamline the process of collecting grants data to encourage and foster a culture of “collective smartness” around the effective utilization of foundation grants data. The creation of a foundation-wide approach to grants data collection, including grants related data that is not managed by the GMS, will enhance the accessibility of foundation impact for internal and external audiences alike.
Collaboration with Grants Officers
Grants Officers at the Hewlett Foundation are embedded into program teams as their dedicated subject matter expert on the foundation’s grantmaking processes and procedures. In collaboration with the Grants Officers, the Data Officer will codify a strategy for grants data collection that enables efficient dashboarding and reporting efforts. This work will foster greater clarity around the foundation’s commonly used grants data and provide each program with a shared resource for addressing their unique data needs. The additional protocols and policies necessary to satisfy individual program requirements will be work that the Data Officer, and relevant Grants Officer, will collectively identify and address.
Advising and Training
The Data Officer will regularly assess the areas of expertise that exist within the GLO team to identify opportunities to provide trainings and facilitate knowledge sharing for their colleagues. Ranging from forecasting and planning to data analysis, and developing and deploying learning modules, the Data Officer will utilize a storyteller’s mindset as they actively seek ways to share the expertise of the GLO team and incorporate the learnings that programmatic data has helped engender across the foundation. Opportunities to implement these learnings may include partnering with programmatic teams, and other areas of the foundation, to influence the continued alignment around the usage of data sets commonly used across the foundation.
Project Management
The Data Officer will lead projects of varying complexity across all levels of the organization to advance promising practices and the Foundation’s goals. This includes establishing a project plan, setting the scope, timeline and budget, working with relevant consultants and vendors, and managing the project team(s). The Data Officer will foster and facilitate inclusion and consensus-building, while advocating for their own point of view and ensuring project goals are achieved.
DESIRED ATTRIBUTES OF THE DATA OFFICER
The Data Officer will be motivated by the Hewlett Foundation’s guiding principles with an understanding of the influence that a foundation can have within its chosen areas of focus. Ideally, they will have some experience with collecting and analyzing grantmaking data and deploying an effective dashboard and reporting strategies within a grants management system or similar data repository. The GLO team highly encourages philanthropic recipients and partners to consider bringing their experiences and expertise into the candidate pool. While no one candidate will embody all the qualifications below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:
- A minimum of 7 years of professional experience is desired, preferably in a context that developed the skills needed for effective utilization of grants data.
- A bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Management, or related field.
- An authentic commitment to collaboration, flexibility, knowledge, and learning; diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) principles; and implementation of strategies that drive equity in grantmaking processes.
- While this is a hybrid role that requires regular in-office attendance, experience working in a virtual environment with remote partners and teams is preferred.
- Adept at data cleaning, developing analysis and reporting capabilities, and linking data sets.
- Proficiency in navigating software applications and learning new data systems quickly with Salesforce and data visualization tools such as Tableau or Power BI would be highly valued.
- The ability to translate operational and programmatic opportunities for partnership into analytical questions, utilizing a consultative thought partner approach to project management that centers inclusion and consensus-building, that produces generative dashboards and reports.
- Critical and strategic thinking skills, highly motivated and organized with the ability to work well in teams and independently on multiple simultaneous projects.
- The ability to collect, organize, analyze, and disseminate significant amounts of information with attention to detail and accuracy.
- Strong emotional intelligence and the ability to build trusting relationships across silos and teams.
- Possess the presence and confidence to facilitate robust conversations, welcoming and recognizing the value of differing perspectives.
- Adept at navigating nuance, ambiguity, and complexity in a decentralized, autonomous organization culture.
- Effective written, oral, and presentation communication skills.
- Strong data storytelling and visualization with the ability to effectively communicate technical and general information regarding grants data to a variety of audiences.
- A growth mindset with an optimistic approach to get things done.
Possessing any of the following qualifications would be welcome value adds to the foundation:
- Experience in a decentralized organizational culture with ability to flex across dynamic teams.
- Financial or business analysis skills.
- Experience in adult learning and training including designing effective training and learning sessions.
- Experience in a consulting environment managing large scale projects.
- A commitment to mission driven work and interest in a broad range of social issues.
- A respectfully candid approach to advocating for oneself.
- An aptitude for pivoting between being relational and technical engagements.
The salary range for this role is $135,000 – $165,000 and includes a comprehensive benefits package. Salary offers are based on a candidate’s years of experience and the foundation’s practice of maintaining salary equity.
How To Apply
To learn more about the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation please visit: www.hewlett.org
This search is being led by Cara Pearsall and Robert Diggs of NPAG. NPAG welcomes expressions of interest and/or nominations submitted via this form. Candidates may submit their cover letter, outlining their interest, qualifications, and commitment to equity and transparency as a central tenet of effective grantmaking, along with their resume via NPAG’s website.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation embraces the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion both internally, in our hiring process and organizational culture, and externally, in our grantmaking and related practices. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.