Join us
Hey Community! Our facilitation and research & design practices are growing and we need to expand our team! See below for open roles.
Senior Strategic Facilitator
About Us
Founded in 2014, GRID Impact is a mission-driven research, innovation and design social enterprise collective that specializes in behavioral and human-centered approaches to complex social and economic challenges. Specializing in social impact design, behavioral design, strategic and creative facilitation, and design education, GRID’s clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, United Way, Mercy Corps, BRAC, and other mission-driven organizations.
GRID Impact is a social impact research, design, and facilitation organization. We partner with organizations and communities to co-create equitable, inclusive, and impactful approaches to economic, health and social challenges. Our facilitation practice has grown over the last 8 years as we design, organize, and facilitate meetings, convenings, strategy development processes, and organizational development journeys for social impact, international non-governmental, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations around the world. We are trained in a variety of facilitation approaches and methodologies that we leverage to create space for the kinds of complex conversations that the social sector demands.
GRID Impact’s approach to facilitation is rooted in our core competencies of research and design. We believe in deeply understanding context and purpose so that we can design conversations and experiences that resonate with people and allow groups to achieve impactful outcomes. Our planning process is extensive and requires several rounds of iterations with our clients to co-create the right content, experience, and outputs.
The Role
At the moment, we are recruiting a Senior Strategic Facilitator who has experience working as an external facilitator for philanthropic and nonprofit clients. Specifically, we hope to find individuals who currently work as consultants with a focus either in the facilitation discipline or the social impact world. In this particular context, experience with managing and navigating complex organizations and multi-stakeholder engagement will be highly valued.
The Senior Strategic Facilitator will work collaboratively across the collective and at times with the Visual Design members of our team. As such, they should have project management experience and be an inclusive member of the collective as well as a strong team communicator.
In particular, we have several facilitation engagements in the next 8 months for which we’d like to build out our team. Most engagements are in-person, although there are some virtual facilitation opportunities as well. Ability to travel internationally and be on site is required as is proof of COVID19 vaccination. Travel will be covered by GRID Impact through our client agreements. More information would be provided upon contact.
Ideally, the Senior Strategic Facilitator would have experience designing and facilitating in both virtual and in-person environments and would have fluency in a number of different facilitation methods and approaches. We are an interdisciplinary team who prides itself on being human-centered with our clients and partners. We also create bespoke experiences for client retreats, board meetings, grantee convenings, and other gatherings. Some facilitation frameworks and approaches we draw from include: Liberating Structures, the Art of Facilitation, Gamestorming, Design Thinking, the Art of Gathering, Social Change Now, Participatory Decision-Making, and others. Finally, we don’t limit ourselves as being technical facilitators but we want to become thought-partners for our clients. This means we would like strategic facilitators who can think strategically, are curious and adaptable to engage deeply with our clients’ subject matters, and can bring creativity and dynamism to the spaces we hold.
Our current facilitation clients are based around the world with 2023 opportunities in the United States, South Africa, Kenya, Indonesia, Canada, and virtual.
The Ideal Candidate
Can work independently and is entrepreneurial, with natural tendency to be adaptable, collaborative, approachable, as well as calm and collected under pressure
Is able to support clients (with skill and care) through complex strategy and learning transitions
Works in alignment with the values of GRID Impact and is broadly guided by values of care and collaboration
Has familiarity with general project management tools such as Slack and Google Drive as well as facilitation-specific tools such as Session Lab
Has worked as a consultant, with teams across multiple time zones
Can hold the complexity of systems-level work while designing experiences for individuals
Has experience navigating groups through high stakes decision-making processes. Types of decisions may include policy decisions that can affect external beneficiaries and partners, granting and budgetary allocations, organizational transformation, etc.
Has experience consulting and working on a project-basis; is able to fill their “other” time adequately as this work is not likely to be full-time
Hiring and Contracting
We are a Collective of independent consultants who each manage our own portfolios of clients and come together for compelling social impact projects. For this particular set of opportunities, we would create a scope of work and you would join our Collective as a consultant!
We are hoping to identify and on-board the new team member as soon as possible so we have enough time to connect and prepare for some of the upcoming events in May and June.
After an initial project working together, and assuming it is a good fit for both, we have a series of other facilitation opportunities scheduled for 2023 and would love to have this person join us to design and execute those as well.
If you are interested in exploring this opportunity with us, please send an email to info@gridimpact.org with the subject line “2023 Strategic Facilitator” and the following information:
Your resume, CV, or personal website
A list of recent facilitation engagements you have led (ideally naming the client, which we will of course keep confidential!) and what the objectives of the engagement were.
Your hourly or daily rate
We hope to be in touch with as many applicants as possible but if the number of submissions is high, we’ll only be able to contact those applicants with whom we would like to connect with. Please accept our apologies for not being able to interact with everyone! We are a small team managing a number of responsibilities at this time.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration!
Regional Project Lead (Africa)
About Us
Founded in 2014, GRID Impact is a mission-driven research, innovation and design social enterprise collective that specializes in behavioral and human-centered design. We partner with organizations and communities to co-create equitable, inclusive, and impactful approaches to economic, health and social challenges. Specializing in social impact design, behavioral design, strategic and creative facilitation, and design education, GRID’s clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, United Way, Mercy Corps, BRAC, and other mission-driven organizations.
Our hybrid methodology uses insights from applied behavioral science to enhance the innovative, adaptive and creative discipline of human centered design. GRID Impact is considered a leader in innovative, customer-centered product and service design and has pioneered the adaptation of human centered design and behavioral science to social impact challenges. To date, our work has focused on challenges in areas such as financial inclusion, global health, equity and inclusion, water and sanitation, alternative energy, agriculture and education.
The GRID Impact model allows independent, freelance consultants who specialize in a variety of domains and technical areas to come together as interdisciplinary teams for social change. Member consultants are able to continue working independently but also have the opportunity to join GRID Impact project teams for specific engagements. This flexible and adaptable model allows GRID Impact to offer its partners hand-selected teams and tailored solutions. As some of you know, we’re a non-traditional organization that approaches just about everything in a non-traditional way.
Location
We are a remote team and always have been! This means you need to want to work remotely as we don’t have traditional, brick and mortar offices. In non-Pandemic times, we travel together for client work but mostly work remotely using a range of virtual collaboration platforms and technologies.
For this particular role, we are seeking African candidates who are currently based in Africa and have experience leading projects in the region.
The Role
At the moment, we are recruiting a Regional Project Lead (Africa) who has experience working as human centered researcher or designer for philanthropic and nonprofit clients. Specifically, we hope to find individuals who currently work as consultants with a focus in the design-for-social-impact world. In this particular context, experience with managing and navigating complex organizations and multi-stakeholder engagement will be highly valued.
The Regional Project Lead (Africa) will work collaboratively across the collective with the Visual Design, Research, and Facilitator members of our team. As such, they should have project management experience and be an inclusive member of the collective as well as a strong team communicator.
In particular, we have several design projects in the next 8 months for which we’d like to build out our team. These engagements will be a mix of virtual and in-person, with some travel throughout Africa required. Ability to travel internationally and be on site is required as is proof of COVID19 vaccination. All travel and work-related expenses will be covered by GRID Impact through our client agreements. More information would be provided upon contact.
Ideally, the Regional Project Lead (Africa) would have experience designing and facilitating research in both virtual and in-person environments and would have fluency in a number of different methods and approaches. We are an interdisciplinary team who prides itself on being human-centered with our clients and partners. We don’t limit ourselves as just being technical designers but are considered to be thought-partners for our clients. This means we would like candidates who can think strategically, are curious and adaptable to engage deeply with our clients’ subject matters, and can bring creativity and dynamism to the spaces we hold.
The Ideal Candidate
Currently based in Africa
Bonus points if the candidate has experience with MEL (monitoring, evaluation and learning) for international development projects
Can work independently and is entrepreneurial, with natural tendency to be adaptable, collaborative, approachable, as well as calm and collected under pressure
Is able (with skill and care) to support clients through complex strategy and learning transitions
Has familiarity with general project management tools such as Slack and Google Drive as well as facilitation-specific tools such as Session Lab
Has worked as a consultant, with teams across multiple time zones
Can hold the complexity of systems-level work while designing experiences for individuals
Has experience consulting and working on a project-basis; is able to fill their “other” time adequately as this work is not likely to be full-time
You have:
Experience managing and guiding clients through a human centered design process
Degree in Graphic Design, Communication Design, User Experience Design, Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Service Design, or related design discipline
8+ years of experience in a consultative design or innovation practice
Proven experience crafting innovative design solutions within complex service systems is a plus
An obsession with what design and innovation can do for people and systems
Ability to employ human-centered design methodologies with an open mind
Ability to collaborate effectively with designers and multi-disciplinary teams as well as mission-driven clients
Cultural sensitivity, creativity, and resourcefulness
Ability to handle and manage multiple projects running concurrently. We anticipate work on 3 projects at a time
High familiarity with Figma and Adobe Creative Suite is desired
Hiring and Contracting
We are a Collective of independent consultants who each manage our own portfolios of clients and come together for compelling social impact projects. For this particular set of opportunities, we would create a scope of work and you would join our Collective as a consultant!
We are hoping to identify and on-board the new team member as soon as possible so we have enough time to connect and prepare for some of the upcoming projects we have starting.
If you are interested in exploring this opportunity with us, please send an email to info@gridimpact.org with the subject line “2023 Regional Project Lead (Africa)” and the following information:
Your resume, CV, or personal website
A portfolio of your work. Please send whatever combination of materials you think would help us understand you and the skills you can bring to GRID Impact and can be reviewed in less than 10 minutes. We care mostly about recent research and design projects you have led (ideally naming the client, which we will of course keep confidential!) and what the objectives and outputs of the project were.
Your hourly or daily rate
We hope to be in touch with as many applicants as possible but if the number of submissions is high, we’ll only be able to contact those applicants with whom we would like to connect with. Please accept our apologies for not being able to interact with everyone! We are a small team managing a number of responsibilities at this time.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration!
There are currently no open roles – please check back later for openings!