Extension Foundation Seeking Evaluation Specialist

The New Technologies for Agricultural Extension (NTAE) cooperative agreement (grant no. 2020-41595-30123) with the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through a partnership with Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation will enter its fourth year on September 1, 2022.

Two key programs in the cooperative agreement are the Program Accelerator and Program Expansion. The Program Accelerator and the Program Expansion concept are a unique partnership between a project/program team and the resources of the Extension Foundation for a year of rapid growth and progress resulting in expanding the team’s local impact and national potential. Our unique methods and a team of catalysts and key informants work uniquely with each team to produce scalable, better resourced, and more effective programs and community-based initiatives through a one-year boost of additional support. This program serves all Land-Grant Universities in the United States.

The Extension Foundation is seeking an Evaluation Specialist to lead in NTAE evaluation and will report to Ashley Griffin, who heads up the Extension Foundation Evidence Based Program effort, and Beverly Coberly, Extension Foundation Chief Operating Officer for grant reporting.

NTAE Evaluation is conducted at the following levels and not limited to the following duties:

• Program Accelerator and Expansion Team Projects
  • Provide contextualized evaluation support to aid the NTAE Program/Project teams in planning, collecting, analyzing, and sharing evaluation data and impacts from their efforts.
  • Guide teams to complete an Impact worksheet and other materials as deemed necessary to inform their program/project impact evaluation.
  • Work closely with the Digital Publishing team to ensure project impact evaluation is embedded in their project publication and outreach communications.
  • Evaluate the Effectiveness of Extension Foundation NTAE Program
  • Accelerator and Program Expansion efforts
  • Assist in making the evaluation matrix responsive to NTAE goals.
  • Using an established evaluation matrix, gather experience and outcome data from teams participating in the NTAE Program Accelerator and Program Expansion.
• Observe secondary impacts of the NTAE Program Accelerator and Program
• Expansion on Cooperative Extension engagement with the Extension Foundation.
  
  

Reports Generated:

• Quarterly Reports for NTAE
  • Participate in review of and update quarterly report surveys throughout the year to ensure alignment with the NTAE Evaluation Playbook and overall grant goals.
  • Synthesize quarterly report data submitted by NTAE teams for the report.
  • Synthesize  Key Informant (Extension Foundation staff leading services) reports on grant progress and program/project teams supported for each report.
  • With the support of the evaluation and overall NTAE team, prepare quarterly reports for submission to the NTAE grant.
• Grant Year Wrap-up Report:
  • Prepare and package program/project team experience, progress, and value of the NTAE with data coming from:
    • Current Year program/project team Fellows
    • Previous Year(s) program/project team Fellows
    • Catalysts (supportive liaison assigned to each team)
    • Key Informants
  • Prepare and present results in Infographic/slide style for use by Extension Foundation.
  • With the support of the evaluation and overall NTAE team, prepare the final report for submission to the NTAE grant.
    
    

The successful candidate will provide demonstrated success in the following areas:

• Developing, leading, and managing evaluation programs, preferably at the national level to include:
  • Needs assessment
  • Development of specific evaluation tools for projects
  • Assist teams in collecting and analyzing data
  • Assist teams with data management and report writing for evidence-based programming
• Demonstrates understanding or experience with the Cooperative Extension System
• Ability to teach project Fellows and project teams how to develop, implement, measure, and conduct evaluation for evidence-based programming
• Ability to work with teams in a virtual environment
• Organizational skills to juggle multiple projects at once, including, but not limited to, individual project/program team support and overall evaluation needs of the grant.
• Ability to communicate and educate others in sound evaluation methods for improved skills among program/project teams. (ie: help train on coding qualitative data)
• Experience in ripple mapping desired.
  
  

The Evaluation Specialist will be a contracted position beginning September 16, 2022, until August 31, 2023.  Additional opportunities for contracting are dependent upon funding.

The deadline to submit an application for this position is Sunday, August 28, 2022.

To apply for this position, please complete the online application here: https://registry.extension.org/222225799927873