Senior Manager - Research & Insights Storytelling

Position type: Full-time, open-ended contract

Location: Remote 

Priority Application Deadline: May 2

About the Role

We are seeking a Fundraising-Focused Research Senior Manager to help surface and package compelling insights, data, and evidence from our direct cash programs to engage and inform high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and foundation donors. This role will sit at the intersection of research, fundraising, and communications—transforming complex programmatic and research findings into accessible and persuasive donor-facing content.

The ideal candidate will have a strong research analytical background, excellent storytelling skills, and experience translating data into engaging narratives for external audiences.

This Senior Manager should spike on:

• Curiosity: empowered to be an ‘internal journalist,’ you dig through our data, outside research, and recipient narratives to discover original throughlines

• Lateral thinking: you’re focused on connecting the dots into a compelling narrative, saying something clear and compelling even amidst ambiguity

• Code-switching: on an average day, you will be thinking like an academic researcher, writing for a time-poor layperson, and speaking with program staff on the ground. 

• Details: your layperson assets will be scrutinized by research experts, so plan to triple-check

• Doggedness: to move your projects along, you’ll need members of the research, programs, communications, and design teams along with outside researchers to answer your requests and hit deadlines 

Key Responsibilities

• Research & Insights Generation

  • Identify, analyze, and synthesize key data points and evidence from GiveDirectly’s programs, surveys, and external research.

  • Conduct deep dives into our program data to uncover trends, case studies, and insights relevant to donor engagement.

  • Stay updated on external research related to cash transfers, poverty alleviation, and philanthropy to contextualize GiveDirectly’s work.

• Donor-Facing Content Development

  • Translate program data and impact evaluations into digestible, donor-friendly insights, decks, reports, blogs, and case studies (example) 

  • Support the fundraising team by crafting compelling narratives backed by data to demonstrate GiveDirectly’s impact (example)

  • Work closely with the partnerships and communications teams to refine messaging and tailor research outputs to different donor segments (example)

• Cross-Functional Collaboration

  • Partner with internal teams (programs, research, fundraising, communications) to ensure alignment in messaging and storytelling.

  • Work closely with frontline fundraisers to anticipate donor questions and proactively develop data-backed responses.

  • Serve as a resource for the partnerships and philanthropy teams, providing analytical support for grant proposals, donor presentations, and impact reports

• Strategic Thought Leadership

  • Identify opportunities to position GiveDirectly as a leader in evidence-based philanthropy.

  • Collaborate on thought leadership content, including white papers, blog posts, and donor briefings.

  • Train key GiveDirectly staff to be well-versed in our body of research and able to sell in the room.

Qualifications (must haves)

• 4-7+ years of experience in research, impact evaluation, or a related analytical role.

• Strong ability to translate complex research data into compelling narratives for external audiences, particularly donors.

• Familiarity with impact evaluation methods and the ability to interpret and summarize research findings.

• Familiarity with data analysis tools (e.g., Excel, Stata, R, Python) and data visualization tools (e.g. Adobe, Canva, Flourish)

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills - particularly critical is strong writing free of jargon, but the strongest candidates will be able to communicate using a variety of media, including presentations, charts, etc. 

• Strong project management skills and the ability to juggle multiple workstreams.

• Ability to work cross-functionally and translate research insights into actionable fundraising content.

Nice to haves

• Experience in international development, global health, philanthropy, fundraising, or poverty alleviation.

• Experience in writing or data storytelling for large layperson audiences. 

• Fluent in a language other than English, especially German, French, Swahili, or Portuguese

Compensation  

At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third-party salary aggregator to ensure that staff’s total compensation package (base compensation + bonus) falls within the 75th percentile of similar roles, at similar organizations. We also have a no-negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles.

• The United States base salary for this role is $108,000.

• The Kenya base salary for this role is $77,500.

If you are not based in the US or Kenya, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.

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