Director, Impact & Evaluation

About the role

The Director, Impact & Evaluation is a key member of Campus Compact's Strategy team, reporting directly to the Senior Vice President of Strategy. This role leads the organization's efforts to measure, understand, and communicate the impact of its work, both at the program level and across the organization's broader strategic priorities.

The Director brings a practitioner's rigor and a strategist's lens to their work. Approximately half of their time will be dedicated to hands-on program evaluation for specific Campus Compact initiatives emphasizing performance, outcome, and impact evaluation across our diverse set of activities and priorities including member engagement, professional development, institutional capacity building, and national service. The Director's work will be grounded in our commitment to be responsive to the needs and priorities of our members and the field. The remainder of the role focuses on developing and monitoring the metrics and KPIs that anchor our strategic plan, building the capacity of staff across the organization to engage confidently with evaluation and evidence within their designated areas of practice, and developing systems and practices that emphasize continuous improvement.

The Director serves as the organizational hub for evaluation practice: a skilled practitioner, a credible thought partner, and a champion for a culture of learning and evidence-informed decision-making. This is not a role that evaluates all of Campus Compact's work all of the time as some projects will continue to draw on internal staff and external consultants when funding is available.

This is a highly collaborative, cross-functional role that requires both methodological depth and the ability to translate findings into clear, compelling narratives for a range of audiences, from program staff to the board of directors to external funders and partners.
This is a remote, full-time, exempt role, with travel required. This position is funded through a multi-year philanthropic investment and contingent on continued funding.

Key Responsibilities

Program Evaluation (~50%)

• Design and lead evaluations for designated Campus Compact programs and initiatives, from assessment framework development through final reporting
• Develop evaluation plans, data collection instruments, and analysis frameworks appropriate to each project's scope and context
• Analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to produce clear, actionable findings and supportive stories
• Produce evaluation reports and briefs that translate evidence into recommendations accessible to non-technical audiences
• Serve as internal lead and liaison on projects that engage external evaluation consultants, ensuring quality and organizational alignment
• Ensure evaluation findings and data support grant proposals and funder reporting requirements

Strategic Plan Monitoring & Reporting (~20%)

• Assist in developing a comprehensive KPI and metrics framework aligned to Campus Compact's strategic plan
• Build and maintain systems for monitoring and tracking progress across all strategic priorities
• Design accessible dashboards and reporting tools that allow leadership and staff to engage meaningfully with strategic data
• Produce regular, high-quality progress reports on strategic plan implementation for the President, senior leadership team, and Board of Directors
• Analyze trends and surface insights that help the organization identify areas of strength, emerging gaps, and opportunities for course correction
• Represent the Strategy team in cross-functional conversations where strategic plan data and evidence are relevant

Staff Capacity Building & Organizational Learning (~20%)

• Collaborate with staff to enhance program design process
• Serve as an accessible, practical evaluation resource and thought partner for program staff across the organization
• Develop tools, templates, guides, and frameworks that staff can use independently to design and conduct light-touch evaluation proportional to their project scope
• Facilitate learning sessions and workshops to build staff confidence and fluency in evaluation concepts, translating data for storytelling, and evidence-informed practice
• Champion a culture of learning and continuous improvement helping the organization move from data collection to effective use through genuine reflection and action
• Help establish clear norms about when internal staff, the Director, or external consultants are the right evaluation resource for a given project

Leadership & Cross-Organizational Contribution (~10%)

• Build formal mechanisms for staff, program, and organizational continuous improvement using key data, analysis, and insights
• Contribute strategic input and guidance on organizational initiatives as a member of Campus Compact's leadership team
• Build and maintain relationships with key external partners, peer organizations, and networks in the civic engagement and higher education evaluation space
• Represent Campus Compact at sector convenings, conferences, and public forums as appropriate
• Model Campus Compact's shared values in daily practice, including a deep commitment to equity, transparency, accountability, and growth
• Supervise staff including hiring & onboarding, goal setting, providing regular supervision, structure, mentoring, and feedback.
• Support cross organizational collaboration on designated priorities.
• Take on other responsibilities as needed and appropriate

Qualifications:

• Education: Master's degree in program evaluation, public policy, social science, education, or a related field preferred; equivalent professional experience will be considered.
• A minimum of 5 years of experience in program evaluation, applied research, or a closely related field at a comparable level of responsibility
• Demonstrated experience designing and leading evaluations from inception through dissemination, independently or in coordination with others
• Experience in higher education, civic engagement, nonprofit, and/or membership-based organizations
• A track record of working effectively across teams and building others' capacity, not just completing evaluation work in isolation
• Experience designing or monitoring programs that create change through difficult to quantify means (e.g. capacity building activities)
• Experience leading or significantly contributing to strategic planning, particularly with a focus on on the measurement, on the organizational, department, or team level
• Experience contributing to organizational strategy, KPI development, or data for storytelling
• Direct experience or close collaboration working with grant writing or funder reporting that integrates evaluation data

Expectations:

• Communication Skills
  • A confident, clear writer who can translate complex findings into compelling, accessible language for varied audiences - from program staff to board members to external funders
  • Excellent attention to detail across all written work
  • Strong facilitation and presentation skills; comfortable leading workshops, briefings, and learning sessions with groups of mixed expertise
• Organization, Time & Priority Management
  • A strong self-directed project manager who can hold multiple evaluation projects and organizational priorities simultaneously without close supervision - consistent with the autonomy expected at the Leadership Level
  • Consistently meets deadlines, communicates proactively about changes, and delivers high-quality work in a remote, fast-moving environment
  • Comfortable operating with minimal direction while knowing when to escalate or seek input
• Data & Methods
  • Proficient in both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods; knows when and how to apply each appropriately, and can integrate the methodologies for richer impact analysis
  • Skilled at developing logic models, theories of change, and KPI frameworks
  • Experience with data collection tools (surveys, interviews, focus groups), data analysis, and data visualization
  • Ability to interpret organizational and program data and make evidence-based, action-oriented recommendations
• Technology Demonstrated expertise with data management, survey, and visualization platforms (e.g., Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Tableau, Excel/Google Sheets, or equivalents)
  • Experience integrating evaluation metrics within other data collection systems including experience with CRMs (i.e. Salesforce, Hubspot)
  • Able to coach and support staff in the use of evaluation-related tools and approaches
  • Facility with remote collaboration tools standard to a distributed organization
• Values & Approach
  • A deep personal and professional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, with the ability to bring an equity lens to evaluation design, data interpretation, and organizational learning
  • Approaches their work with a growth mindset: motivated by learning, open to feedback, and energized by helping others grow
  • Leads by example, holds themselves and their work to high standards of integrity and accountability

Would Welcome Additional Experience:

• Direct experience in the higher education civic engagement, national service, or democracy/civic health sectors
• Participatory or equity-centered evaluation approaches
• Developmental evaluation or evaluation in complex, adaptive organizational contexts
• Working in or alongside coalition or membership-based organizations
• Published or publicly presented evaluation work

Preferred Experience With:

SYSTEMS & TOOLS

• Data visualization platforms (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, Google Looker Studio)
• Survey and data collection tools (e.g., Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, etc.)
• Project management platforms (e.g., Asana or equivalents)
• CRM or constituent management databases

PARTNERS

• Higher education institutions, associations, or accreditation bodies
• Civic engagement, democracy, or national service organizations
• Philanthropic funders in the education or civic space
• Peer evaluation or learning networks (e.g., AEA, regional evaluation associations)

SKILLS

• Mixed-methods evaluation design and implementation
• Strategic planning and KPI framework development
• Facilitation of learning and reflection processes with adult audiences
• Data storytelling and translating findings for non-technical audiences

Internal & External Relationship Management

This role requires regular, substantive engagement across the organization and with external stakeholders. The Director of Impact & Evaluation is expected to build and maintain strong working relationships that support both individual projects and the broader organizational learning culture.
Primary Internal Contacts

• Senior Vice President, Strategy (direct supervisor - regular strategic collaboration)
• Senior Manager, Strategy Operations (supervisee - strategic plan tracking, cross organization collaboration)
• Executive & Leadership Team (reporting on strategic plan progress, board preparation)
• Program Directors and Managers across all teams (evaluation partnership and capacity support)
• Development/Grants team (aligning evaluation data with funder requirements and proposals)
• Communications team (translating findings for external audiences and publications)