Director, Learning and Impact

Rippleworks Foundation believes all people should have equitable access to the resources and opportunities to live life to the fullest. Our mission is to relentlessly focus on the needs of social ventures by providing practical support for impactful entrepreneurs and their teams so Ventures can improve more lives. Rippleworks’ programs has directly supported 250 ventures by running 275 projects in 60 countries, held workshops for over 1,000 leaders and has deployed $150 million in unrestricted funding to our Ventures.

We are a nearly 50 person team on a mission to help impactful ventures thrive. We strive to  create the best possible workplace for purpose-driven professionals to make an outsized difference in the world: learning, growing and having fun together along the way. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) are at the center of our work. It’s a key part of our strategy and shows up every day in the way our team partners and collaborates. We seek individuals to join our team who are equally as committed. 

Rippleworks has been named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (by Fast Company) and one of the world’s Best Workplaces for Innovators (by Fast Company and Accenture)

We support our portfolio of Ventures 3 ways:

Rippleworks Leaders Studio: Rippleworks designs and delivers practical, interactive, expert-led learning sessions designed specifically for social venture leaders who are seeking to learn and grow. Rippleworks partners with leading industry executives to run interactive, results-driven learning programs where social venture leaders gain the critical skills they need to deliver impact at scale. 

Rippleworks Capital: Rippleworks provides hard-to-find capital required for scale (grants and investments in the $1M-$3M range) to 50+ ventures working in 80+ countries.

Our Commitment to Diversity Equity Inclusion & Belonging: We know inequities exist across the globe and are perpetuated by practices such as systemic racism and colonialism. 

Rippleworks is taking an active role in disrupting these inequities that disadvantage historically excluded people. As such, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) is integral to realizing this vision. 

We are an equal opportunity employer and committed to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion at Rippleworks. Candidates from racially underrepresented and marginalized groups  (Black, Latinx, Native American or individuals with national origins from developing countries that reflect the communities we serve) are strongly encouraged to apply. Rippleworks also complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please email christina@rippleworks.org.

The Director of Learning & Impact (L&I) is a new position at Rippleworks to ensure that strategic learning and impact measurement are prioritized across the organization. The Director of L&I reports to the Managing Director of Portfolio, sits on the Leadership Team and will work closely with all teams. The role has three key components: 1) drive Rippleworks’ impact measurement strategy, 2) drive the strategy and implementation of org-wide learning and knowledge management, and 3) manage the systems and data team.

This person is a strategic thinker, who can balance rigor and practicality. The Director of L&I must have a “roll up one’s sleeves” mentality, be collaborative and a true partner to everyone they engage with. This role will require significant cross-departmental collaboration. The role requires someone who can synthesize and communicate learnings, ensure ongoing data collection from ventures and internally, document best practices, and develop recommendations for improving our approach.

Responsibilities

Specifically, the Director of L&I will be responsible for the following:

• Drive the impact measurement strategy 
• Iterate on the impact measurement strategy in alignment with the Rippleworks’ strategy
• Establish a cycle of measurement, learning and improvement
• Maintain a light-weight and venture-friendly approach to how we collect data 
• Identify new data (requirements) to collect based on the impact and learning strategies
• Ensure ongoing data collection from ventures and the Rippleworks team 
• Analyze and translate data (qualitative and quantitative) into actionable insights and use data-driven storytelling to support decision-making
• Support teams in understanding the role of impact data and incorporating it into their decisions. 
• Collaborate with other teams to iterate strategically and operationally on impact 
• Drive the strategy and implementation of org-wide learning
• Create an internal learning strategy that defines and prioritize what we’re learning and how
• Define requirements for finding and using information
• Synthesize & analyze data and communicate learnings, making a recommendation and prioritizing to take action across functions
• Document lessons and project best practices and develop recommendations for improving our practice in current and future projects
• Over time, identify the needs and own the implementation of an internal knowledge management solution
• Actively contribute to our Leadership Team by driving the execution of our strategy, delivering meaningful impact, fostering cross-company collaboration, and advancing our DEIB and People Strategy to create the best workplace for purpose-driven individuals to excel
• Manage the systems and data team
• Partner with key stakeholders across the organization to identify and prioritize cross-departmental data and systems requirements 
• Manage 1-2 individuals that are responsible for Rippleworks data systems and management, specifically Salesforce and its integrations 
• Prioritize the team’s work at a strategic level to meet the organization’s needs
• Drive timelines and execution of translating requirements into systems and processes in service of our team and strategy 
• Work with the team to build data analysis skills across Rippleworks in service of data-driven learning

About You

• Manages Complexity: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory  information to effectively solve problems. Gathers data from diverse sources, sorts through it, and then distills it into simpler, understandable themes. Evaluates the pros and cons of potential solutions. Tests out the best options. Learns and shares lessons along the way. 
• Strategic Mindset: Develops a broad, big-picture view while fluidly operationalizing tactical plans; anticipates and prepares for various outcomes, future consequences, and trends; articulately paints credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; creates competitive, flexible, and breakthrough strategies
• Communicates Effectively: You actively listen and transparently share relevant information using oral, written, visual, and non-verbal communication to establish a clear understanding. You consider the unique communication needs of different stakeholders to meet people where they are.
• Data Analysis: Uses analysis techniques to distill learnings and insights from quantitative and qualitative data. Can identify trends, recognize inaccuracies in data sets or analysis and understands the nuances of data collection in the social impact field.  

Core competencies for all Rippleworks employees

• Customer Focus:  You have a customer-first mentality (both internal and external customers) and seek out opportunities to stay close to our customers to understand and meet their evolving needs.
• Agile Learning: You continuously and actively learn through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as growth opportunities. 
• Interpersonal Skills: You relate openly and comfortably with diverse groups of people. You use deep empathy to build relationships and work collaboratively in a team environment and are particularly attuned to different and at times competing stakeholder needs and requirements. You treat everyone fairly and equitably.
• Managing Ambiguity: You’re able to navigate dynamic, changing situations and make decisions or create a path forward with imperfect or incomplete information. You Remain calm when things are up in the air; comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Driving for Meaningful Results: You consistently and effectively deliver, and mobilize others to deliver, results as well as identify ways to improve that make a positive impact.   

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant experience in the social impact space
• Deep experience developing, implementing and owning frameworks for impact measurement and data collection with global social impact organizations
• Prior responsibility analyzing qualitative and quantitative data and translating data into clear insights and recommendations at an organizational and/or sectoral level
• Experience driving strategic learning within an organization and managing knowledge management tools
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, ideally familiar with data-driven storytelling 
• High-level proficiency with Google Suite/Workspace, Salesforce and an understanding of technology systems and processes, particularly for learning and impact measurement

• Experience managing multiple, diverse projects, teams, or processes
• Extremely strong time management, prioritization, and organizational skills

What We Offer

• Don't take a pay cut to do good in the world! We offer a competitive salary  of  $189,000, with competitive benefits: Medical, dental, vision, life, and short term + long term disability insurance, 401K + employer match, company holidays, flexible Paid Time Off, wellness and remote-work stipends, and more.
• Engage with our global community: Everyone at Rippleworks will have the opportunity to embark on work travel at least once a year – whether that is to meet others in the social impact ecosystem or see and experience our impact in the field directly with our ventures. We offer the chance to expand that learning via our Study Abroad Program which covers the cost for you to extend a work trip by a few days to further explore the region. 
• ​​Boost your lifelong journey of giving back: Through our Community Grants program, employees have the opportunity to give a $50K grant to a local community nonprofit doing meaningful work in an area that the employee is passionate about. We also provide a $2,500 charitable donation match for financial and volunteer hour contributions.
• A culture that values professional & personal growth: We provide an external professional coach for every team member who wants one and a generous individual learning budget to put towards professional development as well as regular team learning events. 
• A diverse and inclusive workplace that actively seeks and attracts people across the world from different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives.
• A flexible, remote-first work environment in which team members have flexible work hours as well as flexible time off.  We provide the tools and support needed for team members to work 100% remotely as well as a generous remote-first monthly stipend. 
• We value connection and gather in person as departments and as a whole company 2 - 3 times per year for Core Collaboration Weeks. These weeks focus on fun and connection with the team as well as opportunities to meet and be inspired by the ventures we support and the social-impact ecosystem, and they give us a chance to collaborate on the work we are doing across Rippleworks face-to-face. In our remote-first workplace, we create meaningful opportunities for virtual team-building and connection. 
• We offer a Sabbatical to Rippleworkers after five years of tenure with us to take four weeks off. Some of us may see magic in travel or other learning opportunities and others may see magic in taking time off to unplug and do something completely unrelated to our work. Whether to refresh, or be reinspired, the time is up to you and your particular needs.