Water Mission

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning, Manager

Who is Water Mission?
Water Mission is a nonprofit Christian engineering organization that designs, builds, and implements safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas. Guided by love, excellence, and integrity, we are driven to share clean, safe water and God’s love with all. To date, we have served more than 7 million people in 57 countries. Working at Water Mission is as much a calling as it is a career, and we are searching for people with the courage, passion, and drive to help us change the world. Read more about our Statement of Faith and Christian Mission.

What is the opportunity?
The Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) Manager is a key position within Water Mission’s Program Development team. This senior manager leads a team of qualitative and quantitative professionals to deliver insights to International Programs and National Offices to support Water Mission’s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs, leadership decision-making, and marketing platforms. The MERL Manager will ensure completion of department responsibilities, calling on available resources to achieve department objectives, and working within approved budget. This full-time position is based in Charleston, SC, or remotely, and reports to the Director of Program Development.

A successful MERL Manager will:
Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy and Systems
* Refine and further develop Water Mission’s monitoring and evaluation strategy.
* Lead methodological and research-driven decision-making for mixed-methods monitoring and evaluation.
* Ensure and maintain high standards for data collection using appropriate tools.
* Manage Water Mission surveys and content; advise on survey design and best practices for data collection.
* Ensure international staff have the training and support needed to implement monitoring and evaluation efforts.
* Design and lead trainings on monitoring and evaluation strategies, tools, and methods.
* Assist in the design and development of Water Mission’s monitoring data management system.
* Proactively seek out best practices and latest methodologies, technologies, tools, and developments in M&E through self-directed study and learning; integrate learning into Water Mission’s M&E strategies.
* Serve as the M&E subject matter expert for the organization.
Study Planning, Data Analysis, and Reporting
* Transform and visualize program data to inform decision-making.
* Lead monitoring and evaluation data analysis for Water Mission programs.
* Ensure and maintain high standards for data analysis and data visualization, using appropriate methods.
* Identify relevant trends in programmatic data.
* Plan and direct pre- and post-project studies and produce timely reports for each project.
* Support data reporting for various stakeholders.
* Engage partners and provide support as requested; program/product evaluation and/or research study design.
* Oversee ongoing impact research studies in order to continually measure the effectiveness of all parts of Water Mission’s programs. * Includes running existing studies and designing innovations for methods, questions, and data collection of these studies, as well as generating new, ongoing impact studies, as needed
Data Interpretation and Applied Learning
* Foster a learning culture across Water Mission.
* Lead regular meetings with in-country leadership to discuss program successes, share learnings, and address challenges.
* Lead the development and maintenance of project logframes; evaluate if projects have desired outputs and outcomes.
* Regularly share program outcomes and learning with the programs team.
* Lead ad-hoc research projects, in collaboration with team members.
* Share learnings from Water Mission’s work in public spheres (e.g., learning groups, conferences, and journal articles).
* Build internal monitoring and evaluation capacity in Water Mission Country Programs and Affiliate Programs, and recommend corrective programmatic action where required.
Leadership and Engagement
* Provide leadership and development to direct reports. Work with staff to foster an environment of professional growth, in alignment with Water Mission’s strategies and objectives. Consults with peer management and senior leaders to successfully align departmental resources and priorities across Water Mission.
* Interface with other departments that collect information and data (e.g., marketing and communications, business intelligence and/or IT) in order to minimize duplication of effort, build cooperation and support the growth of quality information gathering across the organization and data visualization.
* Contribute to or prepare and administer the annual budget and departmental expenses, ensuring accountability for on-time completion of deliverables based on department objectives, division objectives, and other Water Mission standards, ensuring compliance with policies.
* Manage and develop assigned staff, establishing goals and objectives, coach and manage performance, including discipline, motivation, and annual reviews; support continuous learning and development that enhances individual performance and organizational capability.
* Draw on multi-country field exposure to advise program managers, field office staff, and leadership on relevant programmatic issues when requested and through contribution to and/or leadership of multi-departmental project, creative thinking, and analysis teams.
* Lead subordinate specialists in the presentation of research findings to large audiences in a consumable way to engage non-research staff in research results. Personally present research findings as well.
Assist in the development of evaluation and research study design for Water Mission internal initiatives, donor groups, and granting institutions.

What is required?
* Personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
* Master’s Degree in International Development, Economics, Psychology, Public Health, Epidemiology, Ethnography, Anthropology, Social Science, or related discipline.
* 5+ years of experience with qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methodologies required.
* 5+ years of international development experience and WASH required..
* Management and/or supervisory experience required.
* Experience managing data collection teams.
* Experience with statistical analysis software such as SAS, Stata, SPSS or R required.
* Experience designing and leading research projects, data analysis, and reporting utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods.
* Demonstrated experience applying research principles to program assessments.
* Competence in mixed methods research.
* Strong skills in statistical analysis.
* Experience with presenting results to stakeholders through a variety of mediums.
* Advanced computer skills and significant experience developing data management strategies and systems, particularly web-based applications, and databases; mobile data collection experience preferred.
* Strong technical writing skills and ability to write for non-scientific audiences.
* Exceptional written and verbal cross-cultural communication skills.
* Prior experience living overseas and ability to work in challenging environments preferred.
* Fluency in written and spoken English required, proficiency in Spanish or French preferred.
* Ability and willingness to travel up to 25 percent of the time, mostly in developing countries. Most international trips are 10-14 days in length and require this person to ride in long car rides on rough terrain and stand for long periods of time in hot weather.
* Home internet bandwidth strong enough to support video conferencing and other job-related responsibilities.
* Legal authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship.
* Commitment to the values and mission of the organization and ending the global water crisis.