Director, Evidence for Outcomes

Director, Evidence For Outcomes

At a pivotal moment for the team, we are seeking a people-centered, operationally strong, and entrepreneurial leader with meaningful experience in philanthropy who can steward significant, multi-year funder relationships and engagements, strengthen internal systems, and help evolve our service delivery model, particularly through the thoughtful integration of digital tools that enhance learning, insight generation, and impact.

The Director, Evidence for Outcomes will be responsible for delivering client engagements, business development and practice, and staff management to ensure excellence for the nonprofits and funders we serve. Reporting to the Senior Director, the Director will be responsible for leading successful client engagements through extraordinary client relations, delivering high-quality work on time and within budget, and managing a team of staff and contractors to deliver against these goals. The Director will be passionate about and committed to driving impact, delivering excellent client services, and be a very strong people and project manager. Specifically, the Director may be focused more closely on career pathways and career exploration project(s). As such, experience in and passion for career pathways and workforce will be critical.

As a leader on the Evidence for Outcomes team, this role is critical to advancing Project Evident's mission to help funders and nonprofits better plan, implement measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL) strategy in service of better, more meaningful and equitable outcomes. The Director will oversee a portfolio of client engagements spanning direct service nonprofit organizations and foundations. This leader will manage and mentor a team of Associate Directors and Associates delivering high-quality, capacity-building support across diverse projects, ensuring both strong execution and a cohesive team culture. In addition, the Director will contribute to Project Evident's thought leadership by leading research, developing field-facing tools and frameworks, and producing high-quality, shareable content that advances evidence-building practice across the sector.

Internally, the Director will contribute to Project Evident's growth and culture of belonging and accountability by engaging and contributing across the organization to advance performance, learning, growth, and impact. This role will also serve on the organization-wide management team to ensure effective operations, feedback, and improvement.

Essential Duties

Project & Client Relationship Management (70%)

• Lead and steward engagements with philanthropic clients and nonprofits focused on building or strengthening evidence and MEL functions, serving as a trusted advisor to leadership and translating strategy into practical systems, tools, and implementation supports. This may include the leadership and stewardship of an intermediary portfolio focused on subgranting for impact, evidence building, and learning.
• Accurately scope engagements and lead project teams, ensuring strong project management, clear communication, effective facilitation, and alignment across concurrent projects.
• Build, manage, and sustain strong relationships, especially with philanthropic partners and clients working across the education and workforce sectors. Strong people and facilitation skills are a must. Serve as primary relationship manager for engagements, ensuring on-time, on-budget, high-quality (NPS score >.70) delivery.
• Lead and manage critical aspects of 1:1 and 1:some engagements: executing portfolio strategy; creating and managing project plans; facilitating learning and discussion, leveraging full team and consultant expertise; deploying existing tools, resources, and frameworks to ensure effective content; and providing actionable feedback to client and project team members.
• Develop and generate content for in-person and virtual meetings/working sessions, training sessions, and/or workshops or platforms that is clear and actionable and aligned with existing practices.
• Collaborate with colleagues to develop appropriate tools to facilitate efficient and effective delivery of services and build field knowledge.
• Drive quality control, including reviewing, editing, and providing meaningful and actionable feedback on deliverables.
• Oversee research and analytical components of engagements, ensuring rigorous design, clear synthesis of findings, and production of high-quality reports and publications for funder, client and field audiences.

Business Development (15%)

• Build and maintain a robust pipeline of prospective clients and partnersincluding funders, policymakers, education and workforce leaders, nonprofits, and strategic collaboratorssufficient to meet annual revenue goals and support long-term practice sustainability.
• Independently secure new engagements and resources aligned with individual and team revenue targets, including leading or supporting proposal development, grant submissions, and scope development through to close.
• Represent Project Evident at conferences, convenings, and external forums to strengthen brand presence, cultivate strategic partnerships with funders and philanthropic networks, and generate new business opportunities.

Practice Leadership (15%)

• Identify and complete tasks that strengthen Evidence for Outcomes practice and drive practice efficiencies through process design, accountability management, and internal learning.
• Works with the team and consultants to codify tools and product innovations to support repeat execution across multiple engagements. Develops internal training resources to advance team skills and build consistency.
• Attract, develop, coach, supervise, and retain high-performing team members, give and receive actionable and productive feedback, and empower others to elevate their level of responsibility, span of control, and performance. Will follow all Project Evident people processes effectively and on time.
• Contribute to Project Evident's thought leadership by producing field-facing content (e.g., reports, tools, frameworks, briefs), leading or contributing to research initiatives, and representing the organization in sector conversations to advance evidence-building practice.
• Embody Project Evident's values and performance behaviors to help build and strengthen a culture of belonging and accountability.
• Contribute to strategy development and implementation for Project Evident overall and the Evidence for Outcomes team.
• Actively contribute to Project Evident's management team.

Education and Experience

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree required; master's degree preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in philanthropy, education, workforce, nonprofit leadership, evaluation, strategy consulting, or related fields, including:
• Demonstrated experience working at or directly with foundations, including grantmaking, portfolio strategy, or funder-facing MEL, with a track record of serving as a trusted advisor to philanthropic leadership.
• Demonstrated success selling and leading complex, multi-client engagements with executive-level stakeholders in measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL), evidence building, strategy development, or organizational capacity building
• 57+ years of people management experience, including managing and developing managers; in a consulting practice context that requires systems improvement, innovating on service delivery models, preferably with technology.
• Demonstrated experience in workforce development or career pathways.
• Ability to serve as a collaborative partner across teams within the department and across the organization while leveraging the senior director to expand the department.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

We are also looking for candidates who have demonstrated experience:

• Managing funder and grantee relationships, including navigating the dynamics of philanthropic partnerships, portfolio oversight, and MEL capacity building in a funder context.
• Managing clients (nonprofit and funder) and client projects, including working effectively with multiple stakeholders who may have evolving priorities.
• Managing projects, processes, and teams and proven ability to work under tight timelines, accurately assess problems, and develop solutions.
• Creating and effectively executing work plans, processes, and documentation that helps to streamline and codify existing practices.
• Building or growing new initiatives, programs, ventures, or areas of work from the ground up.
• Developing/designing curriculum/workshop content and providing successful training sessions, coaching, and implementation support.
• Working independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment on multiple projects, effectively prioritizing time and tasks.
• Translating data and evidence into action and sharing the information in an understandable and actionable manner with external stakeholders, which requires an understanding of evidence-based practices.
• Attracting, developing, supervising, coaching, and retaining high-performance team members, giving and receiving actionable and productive feedback, and empowering others to elevate their level of responsibility, span of control, and performance.

Candidates should also have:

• Demonstrated experience with fund or portfolio management, including learning and evaluation functions within a philanthropic institution.
• Demonstrated ability to serve as a trusted advisor to executive-level stakeholders (e.g., foundation leadership, nonprofit CEOs, senior policymakers), translating strategy into practical systems and organizational action.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and collaboratively on multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven ability to work under tight timelines, accurately assess problems, and develop solutions; ability to effectively prioritize time and tasks.
• Experience working effectively with multiple stakeholders who may have evolving priorities.
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to respond adeptly to rapidly changing priorities, comfortable