SFF is seeking an M&E and Data Analysis professional to support the work of the MEL Department and the Foundation overall by drawing insights through analyzing and reporting on qualitative and quantitative data primarily related to the Foundation’s grantmaking, capacity strengthening, and community building efforts, as well as its partnerships and influencing work with peer funders.

Join us in changing the game and re-imagining Monitoring and Evaluation practice to shift power and accountability in philanthropy in favor of local change leaders and communities.

About Segal Family Foundation

Segal Family Foundation is a social impact funder and donor advisor on a mission to transform how change happens in Africa. We invest in visionary local leaders with bold ideas and huge potential to transform society, and we help progressive donors do the same.

We support 300+ incredible organizations who are finding local and scalable solutions to Sub-Saharan Africa’s most pressing development challenges. We strive to be true partners to our grantees by offering them flexible, unrestricted grant funding, leadership and organizational strengthening support, and connecting them to a vibrant network of peer organizations and like-minded funders to enable them to build strong resilient organizations and grow their impact in their communities.

We’re American born and African driven, with deep, long-term relationships in the communities we serve. Our vibrant team of 20 works across two continents, and is supported by a network of consultants across all our focus countries who enable us to punch above our weight. We move fast and adapt quickly as we find new and exciting ways to push our mission forward.

Our Africa team of 13 is spread across our Hubs in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Rwanda and is responsible for finding and nurturing our community of grantee partners. They also lead in implementing our unique Active Partnership model of building deep relationships with our grantee partners, and designing innovative programming to amplify our grantee partners’ reach, impact and influence. Our Global team is responsible for supporting our Africa-side programs and operations through executive leadership, M&E & data systems and communications. Through our partnerships work, we also engage actively with peer foundations and philanthropy networks across the world to share what we are learning about trust-based philanthropy in Africa, and urge them to adopt equitable philanthropic practices and channel funding to local leadership, local knowledge, and local solutions.

MEL at SFF:

The MEL department was set up in 2022 as SFF’s newest department. We have spent the last couple of months laying the ground for an exciting, centrally-positioned department that will collaborate with SFF’s Africa hubs and our global teams to:

• Systematically measure and assess progress and performance in key areas of the foundations work, and come up with ways to improve productivity and effectiveness.
• Better understand our grantee-partners’ organizational growth and social impact journeys in order to improve our support to them and elevate their work.
• Evaluate our impact, i.e how our work contributes to change for our grantee-partners, their communities and the wider development and philanthropy sector.
• Document what we are learning about equitable grantee-centric philanthropy, and local solutions and share with the world.
• Drive a culture of reflective learning to sustain continuous improvement and innovation in all areas of SFF’s work

Key audiences of SFF’s MEL are the internal team, SFF’s board and management, our vibrant network of grantee-partners, peer funders, and other external audiences looking to learn about equitable philanthropy, and local solutions that work in addressing various development challenges across Africa.

About the Opportunity:

The M&E and Data Analysis Associate will work closely with the Director of Learning and Impact to support the roll-out and continuous improvement of SFF’s new Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning (MEL) and Knowledge Management system. This will entail:

• Collection and analysis of robust data for monthly, quarterly, annual and ad-hoc reporting, and sharing insights with SFF management, Africa programs and global support teams.
• Streamlining and improving SFF’s M&E tools, methods, and processes through regular feedback and input from the key users in order to maximize their use in prioritization, decision making, and learning.

Scope of Work:

Co-lead piloting and improvement of SFF’s M&E tools and processes

• Ensure we have efficient ways to collect accurate data against the indicators in our MEL framework. Review what data we already collect across the organization and how to use it, in a bid to streamline and increase efficiencies in data collection across the team.
• Drive continuous efforts to improve data accuracy, quality, and enhance data systems. This will require building deep familiarity with the TOC, and the foundation’s key programs, initiatives, and activities in order to understand the data sources and tools at SFF.
  • Validating data and regularly engaging the SFF teams on data collected to build shared understanding of the different indicators in our MEL framework, and ensure that the data collected is meaningful and relevant to their work.
  • Facilitate team conversations to create shared understanding of what the data means.
• Share and implement suggestions on bringing order and structure into our knowledge management, e.g Google Drive
• This has an iterative character, where we listen to feedback from our internal users and keep improving the tools and processes.

Partner with our five Hubs in Africa on the monthly Data & Insight Conversations to drive a culture of continuous learning & improvement

• Compile monthly data dashboards for each Hub, drawing from the various existing data sources (Salesforce, Slack, grantee partner reports, Google Drive, etc)
• In conversation, support Hub teams to interpret data and draw useful insights on their programming, i.e. grant making, grantee capacity strengthening, community building and partnerships/ advocacy, to improve support to grantee partners.
• Facilitate the follow-up of priorities and partner support actions coming from the Data & Insight Conversations.
• The centrality of your role & your regular interactions with all SFF Hubs and data across the organization uniquely positions you to draw patterns, identify trends and insights, and make linkages between the Hubs for cross-learning.

Conduct data analysis to draw insights on grantee impact, sector trends and SFF’s ToC.

At SFF we have a large amount of data that we’ve collected over the 15+ years of working with 400+ organizations across Africa. We’d love to dig into this data universe, draw insights and package some of them for public consumption (e.g website articles, case studies, impact spotlights showcasing our grantee-partners’ impact, and donor issue briefs educating peer-funders on supporting meaningful change in various sectors, etc.

• Under guidance from the Director of Learning & Impact, carry out data analysis and data mining projects that create value for SFF and the larger community.
• Package and present the findings for internal learning and discussion.
• Participate in conceptualizing and creating knowledge products for external audiences.

Lead on progress & outcome reporting:

• Draw from data and insights to contribute to reporting and conversations (program reports, quarterly reports, board briefs, annual reports, ad-hoc reports)

Desired Profile

Passionate about building the case for locally-driven social change and grantee-centric philanthropy

• You align with SFF’s mission on finding, funding and nurturing local solutions to pressing challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Excited to learn more about trust-based, grantee-centric philanthropy and build the knowledge and evidence based for this approach.
• You are obsessed about using data for learning (rather than just reporting!), and are passionate about providing insights to inform decisions in organizations to optimize processes, programs and systems. You love helping people see the potential of data, whether qualitative and quantitative and from various sources in answering strategic questions.

Strategic problem solver who thrives in a fast-paced environment:

• You’re energized by making things work smoother and more effectively. You are excited to be a thought partner in designing new systems/processes and optimizing existing ones.
• You welcome and navigate complexity well. You pay attention to detail and also zoom out to consider the bigger picture. You can apply big ideas and also break them down into everyday tools, processes, and plans.
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and embracing the challenge of driving new initiatives in an environment of growth and change.
• You are highly organized, think ahead to anticipate workflows, create/request clarity on priorities, accomplish tasks with quality and attention to detail under a deadline.
• You are very proactive, suggest ideas and take initiative in problem solving.
• You are curious about emerging technologies and love to explore how they could be applied to strengthen MEL.

Proven experience in M&E and in facilitating teams and organizations to adopt MEL practices

• Given the many moving pieces in our SFF MEL Department, we are looking for a demonstrated track record of delivering multiple MEL projects at a time, whether working individually or collaboratively with others.
• Strong experience linking Theory of Change with quantitative & qualitative data
• You have strong analytical skills. You are excited by what is between the lines and beneath the numbers. You enjoy working with different types of data from multiple sources and analyzing it to find trends, answer questions and inform decisions.
• You have used various software applications for data management and analysis. Advanced skills in Excel and/or Google Sheets are required. (SFF currently uses Salesforce as our CRM).
• You have experience implementing a nimble, thoughtful M&E plan for social sector orgs (NGOs, social enterprises) that lead to learning and improvement.
• You have experience leading or facilitating data discussions and reviews with teams and training and supporting them to incorporate M&E practices into their work
• Ability to tailor, creatively package and share data, knowledge and insights from M&E initiatives to various audiences, making M&E accessible/understandable to various audiences.

Collaborative and service-oriented across cultures and departments

• Proven ability to build and maintain meaningful collaboration with colleagues across cultures and time zones.
• You balance being meticulous and action-oriented. You roll up your sleeves to get the job done and provide value.
• Great interpersonal and active listening skills and bring an open mind, curiosity, and humility when entering conversations with others. Ability to adapt to different working styles and contexts.

Why work with us

• Mission and Impact: We want to change the face of philanthropy while uplifting incredible local leaders (who we like to call rockstars). Every day we support local leaders changing the lives of their communities.
• Autonomy: We hire smart and talented people and let them lead the way. You will get a team behind you for support and will be given the autonomy to execute.
• Work Hard, Play Hard: We put in the extra time and go the extra mile to support our grantee partners. But we also love to laugh, have fun, and enjoy the camaraderie we’ve built amongst our team.
• Variety and Adventure: We support 300+ grantee partners across 10+ African countries. You will get to experience new cultures, places, and exciting organizations across the continent.

Other Information

The position will initially be a consultancy position. Time commitment will be at least 3 days a week up to 5 days a week depending on the availability of the selected individual and budget considerations. The specific deliverables will be agreed upon on a monthly basis. Fees are paid on a monthly basis.

The consultancy will begin immediately and continue through the end of 2023, at which point SFF may consider in-house full-time roles or longer-term consultancies in MEL.

This role is for someone based in one of our locations in East Africa (Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Kigali, Kampala, Arusha). We operate in a hybrid fashion with SFF staff in-office 3-4 days per week and working remotely the other 1-2 days. Our ideal candidate is an EAC (East African Community) citizen.

SFF values diversity and therefore welcomes all applications from suitably qualified candidates.

Segal Family Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Please note in your application if you require any accommodations for physical or cognitive accessibility in the interview process.

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