Director of Evaluation & Impact

Overview

The Director of Evaluation & Impact provides strategic leadership for all evaluation, data, and learning functions of the organization and across the collective impact network. The role operates at the intersection of public health, community voice, and systems change, as it is responsible for designing and overseeing a comprehensive, equity-centered evaluation framework that ensures programs and initiatives are effective, accountable, and responsive to community needs. As a senior leader, this role partners with government agencies, healthcare systems, community-based organizations, and funders to align data strategy with policy and practice. The Director serves as both a technical expert and strategic advisor to executive leadership and external stakeholders, in addition to supervising program managers and staff across multiple grant-funded and general-funded initiatives. Under general direction, this role is responsible for the development and coordination of special projects or programs initiated in the Mayor’s Office; performs related duties as required.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Vision

• Lead the development of a shared measurement system that supports collective impact efforts to reduce adverse birth outcomes in Franklin County.
• Establish enterprise-wide performance metrics and dashboards to support optimal monitoring and surveillance of infant mortality reduction activities and outcomes.
• Advise executive leadership and the CelebrateOne Board on data trends, risks, opportunities, and policy implications.
• Contribute to long-term strategic planning according to the collective impact framework.

Evaluation Oversight & Staff Supervision

• Lead the development and implementation of evaluation frameworks that monitor progress on internal programmatic performance measures and external population-level indicators to assess outcomes, effectiveness, and impact.
• Oversee the design and implementation of rigorous mixed-method evaluations (i.e., process, outcome, impact, and implementation science approaches).
• Ensure integration of logic models, theories of change, and equity frameworks across all internal programs and externally funded partner initiatives.
• Guide advanced quantitative and qualitative analyses using variable, known datasets; lead planning of primary data collection efforts for issues or topics without an established dataset.
• Establish data governance policies, privacy standards, and data-sharing agreements.
• Supervise program managers and direct service staff in a matrixed environment; oversee the management of high-risk client situations and provide structured supervision, coaching, and support to build internal data literacy capacity as well as an inclusive, high-performing team culture.

Community-Driven Evaluation

• Embed equity and community accountability principles into all evaluation practices to promote culturally responsive and trauma-informed evaluations.
• Work alongside internal staff and external partners to ensure meaningful engagement of impacted communities in defining success indicators and interpreting findings.
• Lead data disaggregation efforts to identify, understand the root causes of, and address racial and geographic disparities in birth outcomes.

Cross-Sector Partnerships

• Collaborate with organizational leadership to strengthen partnerships with community organizations, healthcare systems, public health agencies, and residents to support collective impact strategies.
• Collaborate with CelebrateOne’s Operations and Communications/Community Engagement teams on grant proposal development, performance metrics, budgeting, and funder reporting.
• Oversee compliance of grant-funded programs, ensuring fidelity to scope, budget, timelines, evaluation requirements, and reporting obligations.
• Represent the organization in highly visible external meetings, partnerships, and community collaborations as needed.

Continuous Quality Improvement

• Lead organization-wide learning cycles and performance review processes.
• Implement systems for high-quality data collection, analysis, reporting, and management practices that support continuous improvement and transparent communication with partners and funders.
• Translate frontline experiences and evaluation findings into actionable insights that inform strategic decisions and collaborative planning across the collective impact network.
• Partner with CelebrateOne’s Operations and Communications/Community Engagement teams to ensure continuous communication of evaluation results and impact stories.
• Monitor emerging needs, trends, and evidence-based practices to strengthen program effectiveness.
• Build evaluation capacity among staff and partner organizations by providing trainings on data collection, outcomes measurement, and continuous improvement practices.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, public policy, health services research, social sciences, or closely related field required; Doctoral degree (e.g., DrPH, PhD, etc.) preferred.
• 7-10+ years of progressive leadership experience in program evaluation, applied public health research, or programmatic performance management.
• Demonstrated expertise in program design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation methods.
• Advanced analytical skills and fluency with statistical software (e.g., R, SAS, Stata, SPSS) and data visualization tools.
• Proven ability to translate complex data into compelling insights for community partners and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working with grant-funded programs and familiarity with monitoring, compliance, and reporting requirements.
• Proven experience leading and supervising multi-disciplinary teams.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, organizational, and leadership skills with the ability to work with diverse stakeholders.
• Ability to work collaboratively, manage priorities, and adapt to changing needs.

Preferred Skills

• Experience working in Maternal & Child Health, infant mortality reduction, perinatal quality collaboratives, community-based programs, early childhood systems, collective impact, or other population health initiatives, especially in nonprofit or public-sector environments.
• Familiarity with Vital Statistics, Medicaid claims data, hospital and healthcare data, and social determinants of health datasets.
• Experience with quantitative and qualitative research methods, particularly community-based participatory approaches.
• Demonstrated experience with and/or certification in process improvement, quality improvement, the IHI Model for improvement, Lean Six Sigma, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with collective impact frameworks, shared measurement, and systems-change strategies.
• Capacity-building experience supporting staff and partners in integrating evaluation practices.

Work Environment/Culture

CelebrateOne is an infant and maternal health collective impact initiative seated within Mayor Andrew Ginther’s administration. We are made of a staff with a mix of professional expertise and lived experience in Maternal Child Health challenges. Every staff member is required to bring a high degree of respect, collaboration, honesty, humility, and relentless resourcefulness to work, and should expect to experience this from others in return. CelebrateOne is a matrixed working environment, which means that employees have one primary supervisor, but also have shared accountabilities on various initiatives and projects.

We are a flexible, family-friendly working environment that welcomes employees to bring their whole-person to work and to admit when they need support. As an employee of The City of Columbus, positions have posted competitive pay ranges and a full range of employee benefits with Human Resource consulting support by The Mayor’s Office.

Special Note

A person who has been selected by an appointing authority in accordance with the Columbus City Charter, Section 148(1) is said to have received an unclassified appointment. Those individuals receiving unclassified appointments serve at the pleasure of their appointing authority and may be terminated from employment at any time. Please contact the Civil Service Commission if you would like additional information regarding this process.

Physical Demands 

The physical demands described herein are characteristic of those that must be met to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals to perform the essential physical activities of this position described below.

Constantly operates a computer/smartphone/tablet.   Regularly required to maintain a stationary position, move about the office and around the local city limits, determine what others have said or written, and communicate with others and exchange accurate information.
Regularly required to sit, stand, bend, reach, and move about the office and travel (locally, throughout Ohio, and on occasion out of state).  Also includes occasional bending, stooping, squatting, and/or pushing or pulling or moving, e.g. to pack, unpack, and/or move objects.
Occasionally required to move, raise, reach, and/or retrieve binders, books, boxes, and files up to twenty (20) pounds.