Senior Research Manager

GiveDirectly (GD) aims to reshape international giving – and millions of lives – by providing cash grants directly to the world’s poorest. The Brookings Institution estimates that $70B of cash transfers would be required to eliminate the poverty gap; the aid sector currently spends $135B each year, much of it on evidence-free interventions. GiveDirectly wants to change that, establishing cash transfers as a benchmark for foreign aid – as the index fund is a benchmark for the financial industry – and in the process accelerating the end of extreme poverty.

GD has raised over $1B since launching in 2011 and delivered cash to more than 2 million people in 15 different countries. We’ve also supported large-scale, experimental research that indicates strong recipient impact of our programs. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies by Fast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs, and The Economist.

Our culture is candid, analytical, agile, and non-hierarchical. Our global team of ~150, and country operations teams of ~650, span 21 different countries and 69 languages. From software engineers to seasoned humanitarian workers, management consultants to public servants, researchers to field operations -- it’s an incredible group of people.

Our values are central and deliberately opinionated. We genuinely center the people we serve in our decision-making, and strive to build an ambitious, dynamic and high-performing environment. We strongly encourage you to read through our values carefully; if they reflect how you like to work and energize you, this could be a great fit.

We work hard to create an environment in which all our team members can thrive, succeed, and grow. We support high ownership, flexibility, take care of each other, have fun, and create professional growth opportunities.

This Senior Research Manager will own GiveDirectly’s impact learning agenda for our core Large Lump Sum (LLS) programming, in close collaboration with relevant Product Leads and M&E staff. They will own the development and advancement of our organizational learning for Large Lump Sum transfer programs, including:

• Responsibility for GiveDirectly’s impact learning agenda for LLS programs, helping counterparts around the organization to use a common theory of change, identify critical open questions about the impact of LLS programs, and develop M&E practices or research proposals to address those open questions.
• Defining measurement and analysis best-practices for LLS programs, providing technical leadership for org-wide M&E standards and developing new indicators/analyses to address emergent questions.
• Supporting LLS “default” product design through primary analysis and evidence reviews on key features such as transfer size, tranching, cadence, targeting criteria, and “plus” components.
• Responsibility for strategic impact evaluations and impact-focused research on LLS programs across multiple countries, both directly through in-house M&E capacity and through external research partnerships.

They will be a key contributor to every proposal involving in-depth research on LLS programs, and serve as a resource for priority LLS programs during implementation. They will have broad oversight of LLS-specific M&E practices, and ensure the continuity between GD’s research agenda and M&E practice for LLS programs.

Core Responsibilities:

• Technical ownership of GD’s impact learning agenda for LLS programs, with particular focus on national/regional poverty graduation objectives.
• Maintain the “canonical” Theory of Change for GD’s LLS product, with deep understanding of the current evidence and emergent hypotheses about different pathways in this TOC; serve as the internal reference point on the evidence underlying the theory of change.
• Develop a clear, shared prioritization for impact-focused learning questions based on this TOC, with input from stakeholders across the Product, Partnerships, Programs, and Comms teams; develop organizational awareness and buy-in for these priority questions.
• Support Product Leads and the Partnerships team as they develop variations of the LLS Theory of Change, including reviews of research from economics, sociology, psychology, etc. that bound GD’s expectations about newly hypothesized mechanisms of impact.
• Proactively identify opportunities to address key questions through M&E or new research projects, and de-prioritise research or M&E work that does not sufficiently or credibly address key impact questions.
• Own the development and application of standard outcome-focused indicators for LLS programs, building on the LLS theory of change and measurement best practice across the sector.
• Stay abreast of advances in measuring expenditures, consumption, asset accumulation, labor supply, and psychosocial wellbeing, from the wider research community.
• Support M&E colleagues in the RME team to ensure indicators are appropriately embedded around the organization, e.g. in Program Quality framework, in standard forms, etc.
• Develop standardized training materials for data collection, data quality checks, etc., based on use cases and feedback from M&E colleagues.
• Ensure that LLS indicators and mechanisms are appropriately captured in GD data, serving as key reference for M&E colleagues in the RME team who are working on standard data cleaning, analysis, and presentation tools (e.g. Gold Tables, dashboards).
• Develop models to predict GiveDirectly’s longer-term impact from LLS programs, based on standardized M&E data and the global literature on cash transfer programs.
• Own the creation of cost-effectiveness and ROI models, for internal decision-making and external influence.
• Building on the existing default large transfer design, provide analytical capacity and on-call research synthesis for Product Leads and Program teams that informs variations in LLS product design.
• Support periodic updates to the “canonical” LLS theory of change, based on lessons from research and M&E across the organization; build org-wide understanding of how M&E and research conclusions have fed into default product design.
• Serve as key reference point for the use of evidence about LLS programs in all LLS proposals; develop re-usable materials that summarize the evidence underlying LLS product design, based on use cases and feedback from Partnerships and Programs teams.

Technical ownership of strategic research projects on LLS programs:

• Lead RME team engagement in all proposals with a substantive research element around the LLS product; ensure alignment of new proposals with LLS theory of change and priority research questions.
• Strategically identify and cultivate research partnerships with individuals and institutions that can help GD advance our understanding of key learning questions for LLS programs.
• Directly own strategic research projects on LLS programs, maintaining end-to-end management of these research partnerships; in other cases (i.e. Malawi) coordinate closely with in-country Research SM to provide quality assurance and support.
• Represent GD research on LLS programs externally, including reviewing written materials by GD Comms or partners, and participating in external events as needed particularly in “national scale” countries.

At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to calculate what we believe to be competitive pay based on role, location, and cost of living. We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles.

We’re dedicated to having a direct impact on the lives of the poorest people in the world. The truth is: the world is messy, and to create full‑scale change we rely on research evidence and data. That means turning budgets into knowledge: we use data to make our programs better, we do rigorous studies to test assumptions, we want learning every year, and we encourage cross‑disciplinary teams and evidence‑based conversation.

GiveDirectly is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to the person’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

As a global organization working with communities to eliminate extreme poverty, GiveDirectly takes the safeguarding of its recipients, staff, and partners seriously. To that end, GiveDirectly is a member of the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, and will systematically check with previous employers about any abuse or misconduct related matters involving potential new hires. We may also employ other robust pre‑hire screens, including in‑depth reference checks, criminal background checks, and sanctions screens.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible work environment. If you require any accommodations during the application or interview process, or to perform the essential functions of the role, please email us at careers@givedirectly.org with the email subject “Accommodation Needed”. We will work with you to ensure reasonable accommodations are made to support your needs.