Senior Director, Data and Analytics

Who We Are:

The States Project (TSP) connects the importance of state legislatures to every aspect of our lives and brings together communities to help build a healthy, sustainable, and prosperous future for all. 

Our electoral work focuses on winning governing majorities in the states by making state legislative campaigns more effective and better funded. Our policy work provides nonpartisan tools and resources that connect a diverse community of state lawmakers committed to improving lives for the people they serve.  We do it because we believe that state legislatures are the strongest force for change in this country.

We encourage you to find out more about our values here.

Senior Director of Data & Analytics, The States Project

POSITION TITLE:  Senior Director, Data & Analytics

LOCATION:  National. 100% Remote, with 20-25% of expected travel for in-person team meetings and events. 

DEADLINE TO APPLY: February 28th, 2025.

Position Details:

This is a full-time, exempt at-will position. The team currently operates remotely, with occasional in-person team retreats, etc. Some travel will be required. Additional evening and weekend hours are occasionally required to fulfill the duties of this position.

The Opportunity:

The Senior Director, Data and Analytics manages a team that provides critical insights, data-informed recommendations, and strategic guidance to advance our political and policy work. Specifically, the Senior Director develops and monitors systems and processes to identify and improve the data sources we rely on for decisionmaking, analyzes campaign and caucus data to draw conclusions that will drive key electoral decisions, and oversees tracking of states’ progress to achieving America’s Goals.  This position reports directly to the Vice President of Political Strategy and involves strategic planning, leading complex projects, and managing high-level internal and external stakeholders.

This position leads TSP’s  Data and Analytics strategy, manages an Analytics team and collaborates with other senior leaders across the organization to maintain an internal infrastructure of data from outside sources, synthesize data into usable formats, analyze polling, field, and fundraising data, along with information about bill introductions and enactments across the country and progress states are making towards achieving America’s Goals. The SD is an organizational leader and guides strategic decisions across teams based on data as well as develops innovative data-informed campaign and recruitment tactics and support for policy interventions. 

The successful candidate will be a self-starter who loves to innovate and oversee analytics and research projects and guide teams and programs with strategic recommendations and insights from those findings.

• Principal activities will include but not be limited to:

• Ensures all systems for tracking and analyzing data across TSP are scalable, secure, and meet evolving cross-team needs
• Oversees the 99 Chamber Dashboard and designs the process required to build a searchable system to track and analyze bill introductions and enactments from across the country
• Provides analysis to strengthen our policy program and manages team that will track progress and trends towards achieving America’s Goals for each target on a state by state basis
• Develops and manages ongoing improvements and changes to the key systems that shape our district assessment process by overseeing the collection and evaluation of district electoral history, demographics, and other data to refine our district DPI, race ratings, and simulations
• Analyzes strength of campaigns across the country and provides recommendations based on a database with campaign field, finance, and other data
• Provides reports, analysis, and recommendations to senior leadership based on new data tools and dashboards that summarize state legislative data and campaign activity
• Oversees election forecast models and race rating process, providing critical inputs into our state and district selection process
• Ensures that polling and modeling data is actionable for senior leaders and key political staff
• Produces presentations with compelling visuals and statistics for external stakeholders, and analyzes existing data to find and develop compelling narratives for donors and lawmakers about the impact of our work
• Ensures a cutting edge data driven focus throughout all political and lawmaker engagement work

• Develops and implements long-term strategies for system integration, process improvements, and operational excellence across data and analytics work
• Takes a comprehensive approach to proposing, overseeing, and reviewing campaign RCTs and other studies to identify and evaluate innovative tactics that can be used to make recommendations for campaigns
• Serves as a key strategist and thought partner to political and policy team members and provides recommendations and data to inform decisions about what is working and what isn’t
• Initiates and conducts new research that can guide future electoral and policy strategies, such as candidate recruitment decisions, as well as inform donor, lawmaker, and other stakeholder communications
• Ensures campaign and chamber targeting decisions are first class

• Leads the organizational strategy on how to use analytics to advance our work
• Provides strong day-to-day management and development of full-time staff on the Data and Analytics team, as well as overseeing consultants, vendors and service providers, including ensuring strong systems, processes, training, and infrastructure
• Collaborates with department and initiative leads to understand and innovate around ways to resolve data-related challenges and requirements and keeps internal and external stakeholders informed on key decisions
• Proposes and leads new cross-team initiatives to increase efficiency and advance organizational data goals/needs, and identifies opportunities for expanded data offerings both internally and externally

• Bachelor's degree required
• 6+ years of relevant professional experience, including significant staff management experience
• Proven track record of leveraging data and analytics to drive decisions in the political arena and high standards for success
• Strong understanding of the state legislative process and how to analyze legislative trends
• Highly collaborative approach to working with colleagues and stakeholders
• Exceptional understanding of campaign targeting and database management
• A strong understanding of the voter file, polling, and election forecast modeling
• Capable of conducting analyses that can determine whether experimental outcomes are statistically significant
• Capable of independently managing time and tasks associated with a fast-paced organization
• Excellent Excel skills and experience using Civis
• Experience manipulating large data sets and developing quality control processes to ensure data integrity
• Clear communication skills that support internal and external stakeholders’ understanding of complex data findings
• Innovative thinking that can help identify new patterns and trends that may benefit internal and external audiences

• Expert-level coding in Python or R
• Strong experience coding in SQL
• Experience with Airtable Experience with GIS software
• Experience with Shiny, Tableau or other data visualization software
• Deep understanding of political campaigns and best practices
• Experience with polling, support, Monte Carlo simulations, and persuasion models 

Benefits:

The position offers a competitive benefits package. Benefits currently offered include 75% paid coverage of medical, dental, and vision for individuals and dependents, basic life insurance, an employee assistance program, unlimited PTO, 401(k) matching, annual professional development, wellness, and work-from-home stipends and paid family leave.

Compensation:

The salary for this position is  $164,025 - $170,000 per year*. Salary offers are made based on the market rate and the candidate's demonstrated level of proficiency, experience, and credentials.

*The pay rate or range noted for this position is in compliance with NYC’s Pay Transparency Act and other state and local laws.

TSP does not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. TSP values diversity and strongly encourages women, individuals with different ethnic and racial backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, religious beliefs, and military backgrounds to apply.

TSP 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, please contact People & Culture, Logan Booker at Logan@statesproject.org.

What You Can Expect During the Recruitment and Hiring Process:

All applicants will submit a resume and cover letter. Selected applicants will be moved forward to a phone screen. The next steps will include interviews with leadership.