Job Details

Job Title:                     Data Visualization Specialist
FLSA:                            Exempt
Position Type:             Full-time
Interview Group:        Office of Research, Evaluation, and Faculty Development
Reports To:                  Director of Organizational Learning
Location:                      Denver, CO – Remote or Hybrid
Date Modified:            January 8th 2024
Salary Range:              $62,000 -$72,000

Rationale

Founded in 1989, The American Indian College Fund (the College Fund) invests in Native students and tribal college education to transform lives and communities. The College Fund practices community-based and adaptive philanthropy that emphasizes learning and data-informed decision-making. Through its Office of Research and Evaluation, the American Indian College Fund facilitates impact evaluation, guides organizational learning, and leads critical research on Native American experiences in higher education to drive organizational learning and to benefit and empower Native students and tribal colleges. The College Fund centers its research and evaluation work in participatory, culturally responsive, and applied approaches. As a national expert, the College Fund leads scholarly research to remedy the invisibility of Native students and their experiences in higher education, and to underscore the value of the 35 accredited tribal colleges and universities serving Indian Country. All of the College Fund’s inquiry based work is grounded in five core Indigenous values, which come from its learning and evaluation vision statement:

Intergenerational Sense of Being and Responsibility
Native Community Empowerment and Visibility
Sovereignty
Honoring Diverse Native Voices and Experiences To Guide Us
Being a Good Relative to People and Place

This position will be based in the Office of Research and Evaluation and have a strong emphasis on data visualization, data product development, and working with College Fund staff and partners on the College Fund’s data initiatives. The advertised Data Visualization Specialist role will advance the College Fund’s data products, data visualization, and data literacy work in service of its research, evaluation, and learning initiatives. This individual will lead the team’s data visualization work and contribute to the development of program and mission-aligned data products internally and with external partners. This individual will also assist with the College Fund’s scholarly research and impact evaluation work to ensure that the College Fund has clear data and evidence to guide its decisions about how to design future programming.

Description
The Data Visualization Specialist will contribute to key data products, data visualization needs, and research and evaluation projects at the American Indian College Fund. Under the direction of the Director of Organizational Learning, this individual will:

Lead the team’s data visualization, data products, and data democratization initiatives to produce actionable insights for organizational needs and build staff data literacy (70%)

Data Visualization and Data Product Design
Understands and applies data visualization best practices to data products to enhance data storytelling and meaningful information sharing for informed decision-making.
Understands and applies best practices to develop data dashboards in Tableau or PowerBI that provide key insights to answer College Fund questions and data needs.
Hosts data workshops and use case demonstrations for College Fund staff on College Fund data and information tools.
Uses data visualization, data dashboarding, and data storytelling skills to manage and produce the College Fund’s annual compendium of data insights on Indian Country, trends across tribal colleges, and College Fund scholar characteristics and outcomes, which relies on data from AIHEC AIMS, the Postsecondary Data Partnership, IPEDS, the U.S. Census and internal College Fund insights.
Leads a data advisory board made up of College Fund staff to inform the usability, relevance, and democratization of the College Fund’s annual compendium of data insights and other data products.
Responds to data requests from College Fund staff on behalf of the Research and Evaluation team and serves as a data ambassador to staff on AIHEC AIMS, College Fund, PDP, IPEDS, and other key data sources.
Applies data visualization skills to the preparation of annual internal reports, statistics, and insights that are created by the Research and Evaluation Team to support mission-driven work and program delivery.
Envisions and implements new data products and data workshops to respond to College Fund data needs.
Aligns data tools and processes with the College Fund’s learning and evaluation core values and principles of Indigenous data sovereignty.

Data Management
Manages the College Fund’s account, subscription, and employee data access as a third-party subscriber to the National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP).
Works with TCU partners to get their permissions for the College Fund to access their PDP data dashboards as a third-party user.
Stays informed about changes and innovations in the PDP as a higher education data tool through relationships with National Student Clearinghouse PDP staff and attends PDP third party partner meetings and workshops.
Leads PDP-focused communities of practice and workshops with College Fund staff and TCU partners when needed.
Liaises with the staff at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium on the American Indian Measures of Success (AIMS) data and annual data releases and stays informed about changes and innovations in AIMS.
Downloads and manages annual AIMS data prepared for the College Fund
Participates in AIHEC working groups to review and update AIMS data collection tools and measurement approaches.

Support evaluation, research, and learning projects at the program and organizational level (30%)

Conducts and assists with program evaluations, organizational learning projects, and evaluation planning in collaboration with the Director of Organizational Learning and College Fund program officers.
Supports the Director of Organizational Learning in collecting, analyzing, and producing relevant data and statistics on identified program metrics and organizational key performance indicators (KPIs).
Helps produce evaluation reports, data visualizations, and dashboards to clearly present evaluation findings and foster learning.
Assists with training College Fund staff and program officers on the fundamentals of evaluation, learning, and impact assessment.
Collaborates with the Vice President for Research and Evaluation to collect qualitative and quantitative data for College Fund research projects through interviews, surveys, other primary data collection, and the review of large national datasets.
Analyzes qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources to produce research findings.
Assists with the presentation of meaningful and actionable evaluation and research findings in reports, PowerPoint presentations, publications, conference presentations, and on College Fund social media platforms.

This position must share the College Fund’s Guiding Principles of respect, relationship-building, reciprocity, and responsibility. This role will need to demonstrate respect for Native cultures and communities and a strong understanding of culturally responsive research and evaluation. This individual will also need to be a detail-oriented team player who can collaborate with staff and departments across the organization to coordinate research and evaluation efforts and participatory data processes. Finally, this individual has a responsibility to practice ethical and collaborative research and data collection that upholds Indigenous data sovereignty; and to ensure that all assigned tasks are completed in a timely and accurate manner to meet project deadlines.

Essential Job Functions
Supports highly participatory and inclusive data product design and development, including the management and preparation of the College Fund’s annual data insights summary.
Supports academic research and applied learning and evaluation projects.
Provides expertise in data visualization and dashboarding to make College Fund insights more actionable and accessible.
Supports a culture of organizational learning and data literacy through training and workshops.
Conducts research, gathers, and analyzes data from multiple data sources while recognizing multicultural validity, and produces actionable insights to meet College Fund strategic priorities.
Understands, manages, and serves as an ambassador for key data sources the College Fund uses in its work.
Other duties as assigned.

Job Requirements
A deep passion for the College Fund’s mission and approach to social change.
A commitment to advancing social and racial equity.
Demonstrated ability to establish and maintain highly collaborative working relationships with colleagues and across teams.
Understanding of how to practice data visualization and data product design and implementation in a highly applied context.
Communicates complex and nuanced ideas and findings clearly and effectively, both orally and in writing
Demonstrated ability to manage data projects with high levels of detail and complexity.
Flexibility to adapt to a fast-paced and dynamic work environment with multiple complex projects and priorities.
Highly self-motivated, willing to problem-solve, and manage ambiguity.
Deep sense of curiosity; a commitment to continual learning and growth; and a desire to learn new skills as part of this role.
Strong commitment to connecting research and evaluation data back to organizational and program strategies and building partner capacity.

Competencies
Demonstrated experience designed and implementing data products and initiatives that are highly participatory and emphasize engaging partners in project design and data use.
Demonstrated experience and expertise in data visualization.
Demonstrated experience building data dashboards in Tableau or Power BI
Experience and interest in implementing research and evaluation projects in ways that reflect a nuanced understanding of rigor and evidence that prioritizes multi-cultural validity and multiple ways of knowing.
Knowledge of social science research and evaluation methods and approaches
Skills and experience in both quantitative and qualitative research methods including conducting inferential statistics.
Experience supporting or contributing to scholarly research and program evaluations in a highly applied context.
Strong project management skills
Experience collaborating on research and evaluation projects with internal and external stakeholders.
Experience with technical report writing and presenting actionable insights (presenting findings, implications, and recommendations) to diverse audiences.
Ability to create, manage, and analyze large and complex datasets with a strong eye for detail.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office – including Excel, Outlook, Access – and in citation management software like EndNote.
Proficiency in data analysis software packages and programming languages like SPSS, R, Alteryx, NVivo, Python, SQL
Experience disseminating research and evaluation findings in applied and professional settings (conferences, with partners, with College Fund staff, website, social media, journal publications)
Ability to work with the College Fund’s internal database manager to generate the data necessary to inform data products.
Knowledge of culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) practices
Demonstrated success meeting deadlines while working on a variety of projects simultaneously.

Education/ Experience
Master’s degree in a relevant social science field with excellent applied data visualization, data product development, and research and evaluation skills
A minimum of 2-3 years of experience producing data visualizations and dashboards, leading data product development, and conducting social science research and evaluation

Preferred Qualifications
Knowledge of and experience with Indigenous research and evaluation methodologies
Experience with empowerment evaluation and participatory evaluation frameworks, especially in the context of data product design
Experience co-designing and implementing participatory data products projects with diverse audiences.
Experience with evaluation, learning, and data projects in the non-profit sector
Demonstrated aptitude for presenting data findings and learnings in meaningful ways.

Work Environment and Physical Activities
Professional work environment
Frequent sitting, keyboarding, computer and monitor usage.
Lifting from 10-15 pounds
Travel as assigned.

Note:    The intent is not to provide an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications associated with this position.  Incumbents may perform other duties as assigned.

American Indian College Fund is an Equal Opportunity Employer