The Foundation
We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: that people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. By building a global and cultural workplace that supports greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — together with our employees and partners, we can help all people improve their lives from poverty and health to education. As an organization we offer full healthcare premiums coverage, generous paid time off, contribution to your retirement fund, several employee communities, and a commitment to embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do.
The Team
Program Works On Five Key Drivers Toward Our Goal
The foundation’s U.S. Program (USP) works to expand access to life-changing opportunities. That is why our primary focus in education is ensuring that all students – especially Black and Latino students, and students experiencing poverty – have an opportunity to earn a degree or certificate that prepares them for a successful career and fulfilling life. But often, education is not enough. Factors outside of schools and the classroom have an enormous impact on a student’s success. We hope to help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty that prevents families and communities from accessing opportunities to reach their full potential by improving education systems so that more students get on track to obtain a postsecondary credential with labor market value and to make sure that race, ethnicity, and income are no longer predictors of outcomes for young people. The U.S.
- Ensure early childhood programs provide high-quality Pre-K experiences for young children.
- Support the K12 system to ensure students meet key achievements towards high school completion and transition successfully to a post-secondary program of study.
- Transform colleges and universities in ways that increase the number of students who complete two- and four-year credentials that deliver value in the labor market.
- Partner with stakeholders to increase mobility from poverty for workers in low wage jobs.
- In our home state of Washington, improve education from preschool through college, and strengthening community engagement, to ensure that every child has a chance to reach their full potential.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success strategy seeks to transform colleges and universities to ensure that many more students, particularly Black, Latino, Indigenous students, and low-income students, obtain quality, affordable credentials offering value and mobility. This strategy will assist in meeting the nation’s workforce development needs by working to close attainment gaps by race, ethnicity and income.
Your Role
We are currently seeking an exceptional candidate for Senior Program Officer, Solution Delivery. This role will have primary responsibility for collaborating with the Deputy Director and other Program Officers to lead a cross-solutions portfolio consisting of multiple foundation funded solution networks (Every Learner Everywhere, Strong Start to Finish, Advising Success Network). These networks are actively supporting colleges and universities across the nation to advance their implementation of evidence-based reforms in service of broader institutional transformation. In addition, this role handles investments across other solution portfolios as necessary and as the needs of the Solution portfolio evolves over time. The Senior Program Officer (SPO) will be a key collaborator within our Solution portfolio, across the Postsecondary Success strategy, and across our partner ecosystem. This individual will report to the Deputy Director for Solutions and Deputy Director of Delivery.
What You’ll Do
- Lead the foundation’s solution delivery portfolio – including the management of three foundation funded technical assistance networks (solution networks) provisioning equity centered technical assistance across our three solution domains to prioritized institutions and institutional intermediaries (e.g., Intermediaries for Scale).
- Plan, lead and implement a wide range of activities and investments to advance the foundation’s impact, including growing solution network service delivery quality and efficiency; monitor and accelerate network maturity, network progress, to ensure improved impact of these solution networks across the foundation’s grantee ecosystem; pursue time-bound strategic opportunities to support network impact or network sustainability even more broadly.
- Also play a role in planning, managing, and implementing activities and investments across other programmatic areas potentially extending to core and strategic solution portfolios that require additional management and execution support.
- Work with colleagues to ensure that our solution delivery portfolio accelerates and integrates with a college or university’s broader change journey to eliminate opportunity gaps by race and income.
- Prospect and develop high impact and strategic investment opportunities (often complex, multi-stakeholder investments including RFPs and potential PRI investments), grants management and cross foundation and external relationship management to further the advising solution portfolio’s impact.
- Support the management and development of a portfolio of grants and contracts that demonstrate the Foundation’s prior investments in this space, strategic vision, and future needs with respect to the success of these approaches and the broader goal of institutional change and continuous improvement.
- Undertake and support research and market analysis to develop and provide recommendations and insights required for effective, multi-year strategic grant making and investment approaches.
- Conducting research and literature reviews, landscape analyses and other analytical reviews on a regular basis to track and understand market opportunities and challenges. Prepare and write briefs and synthesize existing literature. Provide written analysis and presentations and summaries of key topics for Foundation Management and external partner audiences.
- Cultivate and optimize lasting and high impact relationships with key partners and grantees. Provide guidance, consultation, and support to grantees and external stakeholders to achieve desired impact of grants; organize and conduct site visits when appropriate, provide technical guidance, lead, and convene meetings (internal and external) and apply and evaluate milestone-based performance objectives to achieve successful outcomes.
- Lead internal processes and portfolio progress while ensuring appropriate documentation, grant budgeting and reporting. Improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.
- Contribute to both development and coordination of key investments related to this portfolio. An effective collaborator across teams and organizations (including our PS Delivery and US focused Policy and Advocacy teams and other philanthropic partners) actively collaborating with us across our Solution portfolios.
Your Experience
- Bachelor’s degree with advanced degree (Master’s or MBA) preferred
- Experience with and/or deep understanding of higher education student success efforts, including technical assistance and service delivery to improve a college’s transformation efforts.
- Exceptional knowledge and ability in gathering and interpreting analysis about service delivery impact, service optimization, and service and technical assistance ROI, in a postsecondary context.
- Experience with and/or understanding of any number of related areas critical to the success of this role: higher education change and transformation models including both at the institution and system/state level; higher education service implementation and service procurement practices.
- Knowledge of qualitative research methodologies related to evaluating the effectiveness and impact of high impact student success initiatives at the undergraduate level (effectiveness of technical assistance to support institutional change efforts).
- Excellent quantitative, analytical, writing, and verbal skills essential for communicating progress, strengthening partnerships, and engaging in learning with a diverse audience, including internal senior foundation leadership, as well as external leaders such as philanthropic partners, chancellors, presidents, provosts, deans, and student success and retention focused evaluation researchers.
- You are an enthusiastic and effective collaborator. You have a growth mindset and can adapt in a dynamic and feedback rich environment.
- Strategic – able to wrestle with complex and multi-dimensional problems. Excellent ability to lead complex projects and to bring complex ideas to fruitful execution and implementation.
- Creates and gives others energy and positivity. Credible and dependable partner across the PS strategy and with grantees and partners.
Other Attributes
- Strategic philanthropy or social impact investing experience preferred.
- Knowledge and experience in creating, delivering, and improving multi-sequenced supports and technical assistance programs based on evidence-based and high impact practices (tuned to respond to data driven insights about an institution’s performance for equitable continuous improvement) so that colleges and universities can make concrete and measurable progress on transformation and equitable student success.
Hiring Requirements
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Depending upon your work location, we may require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 and any recommended booster doses. All employees based in the United States are to provide proof of full vaccination upon hire and any recommended boosters, subject to applicable laws.
Accommodations
If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request to hr@gatesfoundation.org.
Inclusion Statement
We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We’re committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve—in race, gender, age, cultures and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all of our employment practices.
All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.