Impact Assessment Manager

About Slingshot Memphis

Slingshot Memphis is an independent assessor of poverty-fighting impact. Slingshot assesses the capabilities and measures the impact of nonprofits fighting poverty in Memphis to help them understand which interventions create the greatest benefits and identify opportunities to further enhance their impact.

Slingshot’s mission is to create a demonstrable reduction in poverty by promoting a results-driven poverty-fighting ecosystem throughout our city. Slingshot partners with existing nonprofit organizations to assess their poverty-fighting impact and help slingshot them on a trajectory to create even greater impact. First, we help nonprofits understand their poverty-fighting capabilities and highest-impact interventions. Second, we identify opportunities for growth to help nonprofits enhance their capabilities and impact. Third, we directly invest and influence further investments to help scale high-impact interventions and address opportunities for growth.

 The Slingshot Impact Assessment evaluates evidence across four dimensions of performance: benefit-cost analysis, use of best practices, measurement infrastructure, and systems-level change. The four dimensions are designed to be complementary, aimed at capturing the overall effectiveness of an organization in reducing poverty.

Slingshot currently works with a portfolio of 23 poverty-fighting nonprofits in Memphis across the following focus areas: early childhood and youth, education, jobs and economic security, and stabilization. Each year, Slingshot updates its assessment of all nonprofits in its portfolio and adds new nonprofits to its portfolio. Over the next three years Slingshot aims to add 30-50 nonprofit organizations to its portfolio.

A few organizations exist across the U.S. that share Slingshot’s perspective for philanthropic investment, including the Robin Hood Foundation in New York City, Tipping Point in San Francisco, A Better Chicago, the Lever Fund in Washington DC, and the Constellation Fund in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Slingshot collaborates with these organizations and is unique in that we have developed our own proprietary framework for assessing poverty-fighting impact. 

Slingshot is an equal opportunity employer.

About the Impact Assessment Manager Role

Slingshot seeks a manager to help lead its poverty-fighting impact assessment process. This role reports directly to the Managing Director of Assessment and is responsible for coordinating the day-to-day activities of the Assessment Team. This includes supervising the Slingshot Impact Assessment process for approximately 6-10 nonprofits each quarter, assisting with the creation of deliverables to communicate the assessment insights, and providing feedback and professional development to the Assessment Team members.

The Slingshot Impact Assessment (SIA) requires a 2-4 month process to gather information from a nonprofit, conduct the necessary research, create impact profiles to store the information and insights, assign ratings for each of the four dimensions, identify opportunities for growth, and create the associated deliverables. An Associate is responsible to lead the SIA for a specific partner and serve as the point person for the nonprofit. The Associate is supported by one or more Analysts. The Assessment Manager is responsible to help Associates and Analysts follow the assessment process with fidelity, to provide quality control for the work performed, and to ensure a positive assessment experience for nonprofits.

In addition, the Assessment Manager will help lead assessment meetings with nonprofit partners, conduct research, assist with benefit-cost analyses, document findings and insights, and conduct internal planning and prioritization meetings, among other responsibilities required to manage Slingshots’ poverty-fighting assessment work.

Requirements

• Passion for leading disruptive change and not settling for the status quo
• Personal interest in poverty alleviation and leading people
• Desire to build a mission-driven organization, focusing on achieving needed outcomes and not just checking tasks off a list
• Exceptional emotional intelligence with a consistent track record of being empathetic and successfully working with diverse personalities
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to lead a team to arrive at solutions that maximize its collective knowledge and experience
• Proactively seek constructive feedback and can share feedback with others in a way that inspires them to be their best
• Demonstrated project management skills, including effective organization, efficient process management, and ability to structure ambiguous situations
• Excellent verbal and written communication, including the ability to synthesize critical insights and takeaways
• Relevant postgraduate degree and/or 5+ years of applicable work experience

Application

To apply, send your resume and a brief statement of interest to Jared Barnett at careers@slingshotmemphis.org with Assessment Manager in the subject line. Your statement of interest should describe why you are interested in working with Slingshot and how your skills and experience fit with the responsibilities for the role. Slingshot will follow up with selected applicants to schedule an interview, at which time professional and personal references will be requested.