Job  Board

About the Foundation

The James Irvine Foundation is a private, nonprofit grantmaking foundation dedicated to expanding opportunity for the people of California. The Foundation’s vision is a California where all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. Since 1937 the Foundation has provided more than $2.92 billion in grants to organizations throughout California. The Foundation ended 2025 with more than $3.6 billion in assets and provided $160.2 million in grants.

The James Irvine Foundation (“Foundation”) seeks a curious, adaptive, and highly collaborative learning strategist to serve as its next Senior Impact Assessment & Learning Officer (IA&L). Guided by the Foundation’s Impact Assessment and Learning Framework and working across different teams, the new Senior IA&L Officer will help facilitate strategic learning within grantmaking initiatives, across grantmaking teams, and more broadly in the organization to inform grantee, staff, and board insights and decision-making. This is an attractive opportunity for an accomplished and dynamic learning professional to play a key role in strengthening strategic and comprehensive learning and impact efforts.

IA&L at the Foundation supports assessment and learning efforts to guide strategy and enhance impact; advance accountability and transparency about what the Foundation is doing and learning as well as how that learning is being applied; and, where relevant, uplift these experiences so that they can be leveraged by others. We seek to ensure that evaluation is done equitably and in service of equity with those we seek to serve at the center of our work. To accomplish this, the Senior IA&L Officer will serve as a collaborator and facilitator with others to build multiple spaces and modalities for Foundation staff, grantees, and partners to interrogate and evolve their practices, determine how/if they align with evolving focus and principles, identify next steps, and provide strategic tools and resources to advance their work.

Reporting to the Director of Impact Assessment & Learning, Kim Ammann Howard, the Senior IA&L officer will work closely and collaboratively with IA&L team members, program staff, and foundation leadership around institutional learning and impact. As each initiative manages its respective programmatic evaluation efforts, the Senior IA&L Officer will be charged with advising Initiative Directors and their teams throughout their learning journey. They will understand and navigate both the potential and challenges for the Foundation and its key stakeholders, working to facilitate learning by building capacity, providing a suite of learning tools and methodologies tailored to each situation, and possessing the organizational acumen to work deftly with a range of personality and professional types. In this sense, they will serve as a trusted advisor, sense maker, and learning concierge for Foundation constituencies – helping to select resources and facilitate learning in each appropriate context as well as exploring pathways for emergent and cross-portfolio learning. As a result, it will be important that, more than a tolerance for ambiguity, the Senior IA&L Officer possess a keen appetite for creativity and the ability to support the curiosity of others.

Ideal candidates will have an appreciation for the ways that learning and evaluative practices drive reflection and inform strategic decision-making at all levels: institutionally, programmatically, within ecosystems and in relations to systems change. Compelling candidates for this position must be highly motivated, capable of self-directed work, detail-oriented, and able to work collaboratively across teams and departments. Incumbents must exhibit a keen sense of responsibility and enjoy working with multiple demands, shifting priorities, and ongoing change. While an understanding of current evaluation and learning concepts, norms, and practices is important, formal education in evaluation or experience as a professional evaluator is not required. Candidates must have experience facilitating convenings, workshops, and peer learning across issues; a history of working with an explicit focus on equity and inclusion; and proficiency in developing learning agendas, materials, and other products that advance learning and adaptation. An understanding of the principles, strategies, and mindsets required to organize individuals to influence institutions and a broader field is critical. They will also bring an extensive amount of experience in applied social science activities, which preferably includes philanthropic contexts.

Previous experience working in a complex organization is highly desired, as is the ability to hold space for others, understand multi-directional power flow and experience working in collaboration with a kaleidoscope of organizations, consultants, and sector leaders with different missions. The successful candidate will be a strong relationship builder and bring a consultative and facilitative posture to their work. Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills are necessary. Strong verbal and written communications skills are absolute musts. Most importantly, a personal and professional commitment to equity and inclusiveness is vital to advancing the work, including the understanding of how one’s own identity and lived experiences inform their work.

Core Responsibilities:

1. Help lead cross-Foundation learning efforts both organization-wide and across initiatives by partnering with others to create the learning infrastructure and support a culture of curiosity aimed at uplifting through-lines of the work across grantmaking portfolios and departments
2. Advise on the implementation of IA&L plans for grantmaking initiatives and programs and related measurement, data collection, and feedback systems that support strategy, grantmaking, and ongoing learning and adaptation
3. Lead planning, facilitation, and documentation of internal reflection and learning events
4. Inform assessment and learning activities by researching, synthesizing, and presenting best practices and innovations in the field
5. Support efforts to build the IA&L capacity of Irvine’s staff and grantees (e.g., through group training, outside workshops, identifying and curating key resources)
6. Collaborate with program and communications staff to synthesize lessons and findings of research, evaluations, and other relevant assessments for sharing with the field
7. Actively identify and facilitate opportunities for learning and improving the Foundation’s work within assigned projects.

Qualifications and Experiences of the Ideal Candidate

1. While this role requires the abilities often associated with people with bachelor’s and, ideally, master’s degrees, the totality of candidate’s academic, professional, and lived experiences will be taken into account, including equivalent work experience in a related field, such as social science, change management, organizational development, capacity-building, public policy, etc.
2. Demonstrated experience advancing strategic learning in support of institutional or system-level decision-making and strategy setting. Direct experience in the design, application, and efficacy of a wide range of evaluation, research, and learning approaches and methodologies employed at the intersection of program and strategic learning.
3. Experience working in or with a variety of types of nonprofit organizations and/or foundations that focus on program, policy, and/or community change efforts
4. An organizational learning and effectiveness orientation, with experience developing and implementing processes that advance rigor and learning across an organization and team
5. Experience, comfort, and flexibility to apply different learning approaches and take on a variety of roles (e.g., managing a team, being a thought partner and coach, upfront role, and behind-the-scenes support), depending on needs, timeframes, and resources
6. Strong interpersonal, facilitation, and group process skills, including the ability to work collaboratively with individuals and teams representing different interests and needs
7. Strong project management and organizational skills, self-directed with excellent follow through and the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously
8. Good judgment with a high degree of attention to detail and accuracy
9. Excellent written and oral communication, including the ability to distill and explain complex concepts
10. A personal style characterized by humility, flexibility, self-awareness, accessibility, curiosity, a sense of humor, and the ability to work with grace under pressure
11. Excellent computer skills, including intermediary proficiency in PowerPoint and Excel, and the ability to learn and use web-based platforms and databases
12. Curiosity and aptitude to learn about and leverage Enterprise AI applications, such as Microsoft Copilot and Claude as a tool to strengthen learning and impact

Compensation & Benefits

The James Irvine Foundation’s compensation philosophy is reflected in its Talent Advancement Program, which was created to assure equity in staff compensation. While every staff member is assigned a Tier based on demonstration of competencies, the Foundation looks to outcomes as criteria for advancement through the program’s Tiers. The positions are benchmarked against relative industry and occupational groups and reviewed each year, with the goal to deliver compensation equitably throughout the organization.

The non-negotiable starting compensation for this role is set at $164,000 and the full compensation range is $164,000 – $217,000. The James Irvine Foundation offers a competitive benefits package, including comprehensive medical and retirement options. A summary of these benefits can be found here.

How to Apply

Irvine has partnered with Talent Citizen to assist in this recruitment. To express interest in this opportunity, please contact President Tracy D. Welsh and Senior Associate Eva Kotilinek to