The Organization
Stupski Foundation is a private spend down foundation investing all of its assets in the next nine years to address some of the Bay Area and Hawaiʻi’s biggest challenges. The Foundation primarily funds organizations in San Francisco and Alameda Counties and Hawaiʻi that address Food Security, Postsecondary Success, Early Brain Development, and Serious Illness Care. Between 2016 and 2017, the Foundation focused on what to address in each issue area. In 2018, it focused on creating an initial set of strategies within each issue area. From 2020 onwards, the Foundation will work with its partners to determine which investments are most impactful. The Foundation will work quickly and iteratively to help create sustainable, lasting impact before closing its doors in 2029. The Foundation is also embarking upon an equity advancement process and seeks candidates who are committed to equity and who are eager to help build its organizational culture.
Position Overview
The Foundation is looking for a highly-collaborative, equity-centered and inquisitive professional to work with its fast-paced, innovative, and growing team. In alignment with the Foundation’s spend down strategy and equity advancement process and in expression of the values driving the Foundation’s work – accountability & courage, curiosity & compassion, innovation & entrepreneurship, and discipline & persistence – the new Director of Learning position has been created to help maximize the impact of the Foundation’s community investments with a deep focus on community engagement. Reporting to the Chief Program Officer and directing a small team of consultants, the Director of Learning will design, lead and draw implications from traditional and equity-centered methods of learning and evaluation to inform strategy, grantmaking, and organizational change efforts. Above all, as a member of leadership, the Director will apply their passion for social change; ability to engage with multiple stakeholders; research and analytical capabilities; and unique experience to advance the Foundation’s mission and ambitious strategies over the next nine years while actively engaging in ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Key responsibilities for the Director include providing leadership in:
- Organizational Learning & Development: Define and strengthen the Foundation’s internal learning culture and build the learning capacity of the Foundation’s team through inventive, equity-centered and synergistic principles, processes, systems, coaching and trainings
- Measurement & Evaluation: Augment and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Program Directors and community to reimagine how the Foundation measures impact; design, test, iterate and institutionalize multiple qualitative and quantitative evaluative approaches and methods; and draw out implications from data sets, research, stakeholder feedback, and grantee reports to make recommendations and collaborative decisions to inform effective grantmaking
- Strategic Learning: Investigate at a grant cluster, initiative and/or issue area level and aggregate learnings across issue areas to inform overarching strategy
- Constituent-Centered Learning Design: Identify key assumptions and success metrics for impact and scale within each issue area and, with Program Directors, design effective experiments, shorten feedback loops, and execute continuous learning cycles
- Grantee Learning: Advance systems and processes for partnering with Foundation grantees to improve programs and services and to track progress
- Engagement & Management: Forge relationships with Foundation staff, the Board of Directors, and external stakeholders, including diverse communities; revolutionize the Foundation’s community engagement approach; and identify, cultivate and oversee supportive and values-aligned learning partnerships with external consultants, evaluators, community members to ensure success
- Community & Field Learning & Development: Stay abreast of and leverage effective practices in communities and the field; transition the base of knowledge and power from the Foundation to the community via inclusive processes, convenings and co-learning sessions; and work with the Director of Communications to share the Foundation’s learnings more broadly with peer funders, grantees and communities
A successful Director is an adaptable, emotionally intelligent, and relationship-oriented leader who is committed to learning and growth, and possesses the following competencies and qualifications:
Core Competencies
- Seeks opportunity for continuous learning and growth
- Comfortable creating, testing, and revising strategy in an agile environment
- Has an ability to turn data into actionable insight and develop recommendations for strategic shifts
- Listens with an open mind and a deep commitment to respecting diverse viewpoints
- Fosters trusting relationships with multiple stakeholders including community members, grantees, internal staff/consultants and the Board
- Has strong written and verbal communication skills with an ability to create original written content and adapt to deliver verbal presentations in multiple settings with multiple audiences and diverse stakeholders
- Capable of juggling multiple priorities, effectively delegating, and delivering timely results in a fast-paced environment with clear team communication
- Has a demonstrated commitment to equity, personally and professionally
- Able to adapt learning and evaluation processes based on context, needs, and audiences
Key Qualifications
- Relevant Experience: Minimum of 10 years of experience supporting teams, organizations and/or initiatives in data- and impact-driven, social-sector environments such as community-based organizations; government agencies; consultancies; or philanthropic organizations
- Centering Community: Demonstrated ability to work in and as part of community and facilitate community engagement, participatory learning, and community research
- Centering Equity: Willing to meet staff and Board where they are and artfully influence change by guiding the Foundation into a new equity- and community-centered approach
- Learning Orientation: Focused on building a continuous improvement and learning culture through assessment of outcomes and promoting organizational change
- Structural & Cultural/Racial Equity Analysis: Fluency in social, political, structural and historical factors contributing to inequities
- Research: Skilled in a range of quantitative and qualitative research and data methods
- Education: Has a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or work experience in excess of the minimum requirement; an advanced degree is a plus
How To Apply
Stupski Foundation is partnering with Walker and Associates Consulting – a national strategic management consulting and search firm located in Alameda County – to facilitate this search. To apply, email a cover letter, resume, and list of three references (candidates will be notified in advance of any outreach to your references) to stupski@walkeraac.com on or before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, 2020 noting the following additional instructions:
- Use the subject line: Director of Learning.
- To foster an open and impartial application review process that minimizes the potential for bias, please remove any reference to academic institutions from which you obtained any degree, if applicable. You should still list any degrees without reference to the school just simply list the type of degree conferred, for example: “Bachelor of Arts in Economics.”
- Submit Microsoft Word or PDF files only (one combined PDF file is preferred).
Stupski Foundation strives to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture focused on continuous learning and welcomes individuals with work and lived experiences in the issue areas and communities we seek to serve. The Foundation does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, size, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law and is an employment-at-will company.