Freelance Research Director – Early Childhood Development

Description

Communitas Consulting specializes in developing the custom solutions and committed
partnerships that help leaders at nonprofits, foundations, and government organizations
implement and achieve their vision of success. By using research, strategic planning, coaching,
coalition building, and in-depth analysis, we bring social change into focus, answering the
challenges and building on the strengths of each client.

Communitas Consulting seeks a freelance Research Director to design, advise, and implement a
high-quality social sector needs assessment of early childhood education across Virginia. For
2019, the position requires approximately 8-12 hours per week for the early childhood project,
and has the potential to include expanded hours for additional projects for national, regional, and
local philanthropies, nonprofits, and public agencies. The Research Director reports to the
Founder and Principal of Communitas Consulting and leads the practice’s innovative approach
of linking customized needs assessments with organizational capacity building, providing clients
with immediate strategic and practical guidance for moving forward.

Job Duties

The Research Director will have responsibility for the following four elements:

1. Evaluation Design and Implementation
Design and build practical, timely, and rigorous evaluation and needs assessment processes
that provide valuable information to social sector clients. Develop the overall research plan and
approach–ensuring this approach can be conveyed to clients and has direct links to client goals.
Support client understanding of their programs through the development of program logic
models, measures, and criteria for evaluation. Support the execution of the research by guiding
the sampling, measurement creation (e.g., surveys, interviews, focus groups) and/or
measurement selection, and ensuring teams adhere to protocols to protect the quality of data
collected. Guide the analytic approach to include sample definition, handling of missing data,
coding scheme creation, and database management. Analyses tend to emphasize quantitative
descriptive analyses, qualitative analysis, and some inferential quantitative analysis (e.g.,
ANOVA, regression-frameworks).

2. Analysis and Writing
In partnership with Communitas Consulting team members, analyze information and data and
convey key insights and findings in accessible and compelling narrative language. Contribute to
writing final project documents and reports and providing visual charts and graphs to support
findings.

3. Engagement and Communication
Serve as the practice’s lead on communicating and presenting research results to diverse
audiences (e.g., technical/non-technical, community/client, multi-cultural, etc.). Develop and
manage ways to engage communities and program beneficiaries in participatory research
design, implementation, and decision making.

4. Proposal Design
Contribute to the development of high-quality responses to requests for proposals—including
preparing the project research framework, projecting a detailed scope of work, estimating and
finalizing work plans for a team, and designing high-quality studies that exceed clients’
expectations and deliver insights and actionable recommendations.

Skills Required

Among other qualities, the ideal candidate will possess: (1) a track record of completing
rigorous evaluations, with at least 5 years of practice in the social sector; (2) experience
managing relationships with clients outside of the academic sector and translating research to
practice; (3) community-based experience engaging low-wealth populations as partners in
research; (4) excellent writing skills and client relationship capacities; and (5) demonstrated
quantitative analysis experience, as well as qualitative. Additional qualifications include:

• Doctorate in a social policy area (psychology, education, sociology, public policy)
  preferred
• Minimum of 5+ years of assessment and evaluation experience
• Demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion
• Experience working with low-wealth populations
• Experience with SPSS, Stata, or other statistical software
• Experience with and trust in collegial decision-making, coupled with the ability to work
  independently, flexibly, and with good humor
• Ability to handle multiple assignments and anticipate and meet inflexible deadlines
• Ability to pay attention to accuracy and detail while thinking broadly; excellent
  organizational and project management skills
• A strong results orientation
• Effective communicator and writer; publication record preferred

Work Schedule

The work is contractual and weekly hours depend on the size and scale of the
evaluation and assessment projects underway. While much of the work is virtual, the Research
Director will be expected to meet in person with the team in the Charlottesville and Richmond
Virginia area. The position requires approximately 8-12 hours per week for the early childhood project,
and has the potential to include expanded hours for additional projects for national, regional, and
local philanthropies, nonprofits, and public agencies.

Additional Info

Compensation
The pay for this part-time position is hourly and is commensurate with experience and salary
history. The work is contractual and weekly hours depend on the size and scale of the
evaluation and assessment projects underway. While much of the work is virtual, the Research
Director will be expected to meet in person with the team in the Charlottesville and Richmond
Virginia area.

Location
Charlottesville or Richmond, Virginia

Deadline and Submission
Please submit a cover letter, resume, and the names of three references by email to Saphira
Baker, baker@communitasconsulting.com, by December 28, 2018.