The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is launching a new U.S. strategy focused on increasing mobility from poverty over the next decade. The strategy is informed by three years of learning in more than three-dozen communities across the country. Along the way, we’ve met with hundreds of families, advocates, local government leaders and experts. From these conversations, we’ve learned that lack of opportunity in America is bound tightly to complex issues around employment, housing, health, family, race, gender, and education. We also know that where one grows up – the local context – matters greatly when it comes to moving up the income ladder in the U.S. There are no simple answers to poverty and no single funder can do all that is required to dramatically increase mobility. Instead, progress will require actors of all types and at all levels – public and private; local, state, and national – working together to pursue promising ideas.
Our strategy will be focused on generating tools and insights to help all who are ready, willing, and able to take action to achieve the greatest impact. We will partner with leaders in the field, pilot new approaches, and invest in platforms to help coordination and collaboration among funders, decision-makers, the private sector, scholars, practitioners, and families experiencing poverty. Our strategy is organized around five initiatives:
Improving Coordination and Leverage: Making it easier for groups tackling the underlying issues of poverty to work together. Increasing Public Understanding: Ensuring we have more accurate stories about why people experience poverty and the nature of pathways out of poverty. National Data and Metrics: Gathering evidence to help diagnose barriers to opportunity and highlight exemplar approaches for increasing access to opportunity. Local Decision Support: Supporting local decision-makers by increasing access to data and other tools that will help them develop promising strategies to increase mobility from poverty. Low-Mobility Jobs: Helping workers in low-skilled jobs get a chance to move up the economic ladder and support their families.
The Senior Program Officer will partner with the Director on overall strategy development as well as lead the low mobility jobs initiative. We believe that energized people, working well together, fueled by great leadership in an inclusive environment in which they thrive, will do phenomenal things.
- Partner with the Director to develop and implement a strategic framework, objectives, and outcome measures across all five initiatives.
- Provide strategy development support to the Director and leads the team’s annual strategy review process.
- Collaborate with the Director to set, manage, and implement a strategy for the Low-Mobility Jobs initiative and manages all related investments. This will include developing, managing, resourcing, and implementing a low-mobility jobs program that aligns with foundation strategy and is operationally integrated with other foundation programs.
- Work with the Director to negotiate, execute, and manage high-level partnerships with other national and local funders, public and private sector organizations, and relevant intermediaries.
- Make and Manage Investments:
- Consult with grantees and other partners to maximize impact of projects and ensure grants are meeting strategy goals. This may include: site visits, providing operational guidance and convening meetings of key stakeholders.
- Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals; provide clear, concise and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding, including drafting and editing proposal summaries and progress reports for review by foundation leadership.
- Manage internal processes and portfolio progress while ensuring appropriate documentation, grant budgeting and reporting. Improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.
- Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.
- Willingness to travel 15% of the time.
- Expertise in labor market issues and a track record in developing and implementing strategies focused on increasing opportunity for workers in low-mobility jobs.
- Strategic thinker with experience working independently and collaboratively to build and launch new initiatives.
- Experience in strategy development within a management consulting context or similar role.
- Proven ability to lead and influence others in a constructive and inclusive manner; and to build and sustain collaborative relationships.
- Experience as technical resource to teams and leadership on impact, cost effectiveness and decision analyses is preferred.
- Experience developing and implementing programs focused on solving for labor market failures and/or creating business incentives.
- Highly-skilled in relationship management; experience working with high-level/senior leaders.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and build consensus.
- Experience working on issues of mobility and poverty in the United States.
- Knowledge of methods of impact evaluation, operational research, and modeling preferred.
- Strong proficiency with Microsoft PowerPoint.
- Culture contributor: can endorse, model, and reinforce creation of the team’s culture in the areas of developing trust, showing respect, being transparent, and creating energy.
- Shows a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.