ABOUT SPARK MICROGRANTS      

Spark MicroGrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. For nearly ten years, Spark MicroGrants has been pioneering a new approach to international aid. We believe in local solutions and catalyzing rural villages facing poverty into action.

At the heart of Spark’s model, the Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP), are ‘town-hall’ style weekly meetings, in which women and men plan together for their community’s future. Each village democratically elects a leadership committee, establishes a village savings account, and launches a project of their choice. Members receive weekly training on financial management and transparency, accountable leadership, village planning, and advocacy. Each village then receives US$8,000 in seed funds to turn project ideas into reality and receives an additional two years of management support. Over 260 villages have used the Spark process to collectively launch nearly 300 local impact projects, benefiting over 190,000 lives.

In the next three years, we aim to prove the success of our approach and work with governments and civil society organizations around the world to change the conversation around and practice of how development is achieved – with communities in the driver’s seat of their own development. In order to achieve this, we need a strong Data & Systems Manager who will own our data and discover the information hidden within. Helping us make smarter business decisions that contribute to our continued growth and the delivery of even better products.

Our team of 50+ people is spread across 4 countries in East Africa and the US, sharing a common vision and value system: above all we are community-driven: putting our communities’ needs at the forefront of all our work.

 YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE:

Ownership of Sparks Impact Data:

• Ensure all technical systems are managed appropriately that presents the organization with a singular “version of the truth”

• Developing and maintaining database structures  that allow an efficient and innovative analysis of their contents

• Develop and maintain data flows between platforms and systems

• Work closely with Senior Product Officer to incorporate new platforms, systems, and initiatives into our data ecosystem

• Manage, develop and retain Impact team members  and ensure all staff have clear responsibility domains, deliverables, growth opportunities, and support to achieve their goals

• Ensure all data is clean, accurate, and recorded. As well as ensuring all data is managed in line with data protection regulations

Enabling the organization to take Data-driven decisions:

• Responsibility for the setup and maintenance of core organizational dashboards

• Leading ad-hoc analysis and  presenting results in a clear manner

• Contribute to a culture of data-driven decision making by ensuring that the data collected meets program needs and is analyzed and disseminated in a format that inspires conversation

• In collaboration with Spark’s learning officer, support teams in building out their understanding of analysis and ensuring recommendations are enacted.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

• Bachelor’s Degree (Master’s preferable) in a quantitative discipline, 4+ years of work experience, English fluency required.

• Significant statistical analysis skills

• Experience in data visualization and able to present insights to non-technical staff

• Understanding of database setup, maintenance, and  quality assurance

• Proficiency in SQL.

• A strong understanding of data flows within a system

• Experience in GIS or a willingness to learn

• A self-professed data geek who seeks to understand the story that our data is telling us

• A self-starter and problem-solver – sees an opportunity for improvement of systems and processes and acts on it including exploring the role of big data, machine learning and AI in our business strategy.

• You should be comfortable and experienced working within distributed teams

• Willingness to travel to remote locations to develop an in-depth understanding of our work and our users.

OTHER INFORMATION:

• The location will be Kampala, Uganda, or Kigali, Rwanda with ~10% travel within the region.

• We will agree on a six month probation period with learning and performance objectives. You are committed to this role for at least 3 years.

• Salary – USD $1,500 – $1,900 per month dependent on experience

• Preferred start date Monday 1st February

• Closing date for applications: Thursday 17th December