Description

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation is seeking applications for the position of
Learning Associate to support the Foundation’s learning journey and the impact strategy of
its grantmaking in the next 9 years of its spenddown. Since 2008, the Foundation has made
more than $200 million in grants to improve the quality of life for residents in Southeast
Michigan and the Great Lakes region since launching its grantmaking in 2008.
In 2022, the Erb Family Foundation announced its plans to shift from a perpetual
foundation to a spenddown model and conclude its grantmaking by 2034-2035.
The grantmaking priorities for the Foundation’s spenddown center on six areas of focus:
Alzheimer’s Research, Arts and Culture, Democracy, Great Lakes, Sustainable Business,
and Legacy Giving.
In addition to its grantmaking, the Foundation works closely with grant partners to learn
how to better invest in their organizational health and long-term durability. Across all its
activities, the Foundation’s goal is to inspire a new generation of leaders and philanthropic
partners to carry on Fred and Barbara’s passions long after the Foundation is gone.
This work is guided by the Foundation’s mission and vision:
The Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation envisions a flourishing, healthy, and resilient
Great Lakes ecosystem and a culturally vibrant, sustainable southeast Michigan. Toward
this end, we strengthen the cultural and environmental organizations that share our vision
to make this a reality for generations to come.
And, by its values:
to make a lasting transformative difference; embrace possibility; work and learn in
partnership; and pursue fairness and respect.

THE OPPORTUNITY
We are seeking a Learning Associate to work across the Foundation’s grantmaking areas
and operations to support staff and the Learning Director in using data to drive decision-
making. This position will also help the Foundation communicate what it learns with its
partners, support staff, and partners in growing their organizational capacity efforts.
The Learning Associate will report to the Foundation’s Learning Director who oversees
learning, communications, and non-grantmaking capacity building efforts. The person in
this position will collaborate cross-functionally with staff throughout the Foundation to
advance learning and development efforts.

CORE DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The duties of the role will be to support the Learning Director in learning, communications,
and capacity building efforts. These efforts include:
Embracing and elevating a culture of learning within the Foundation, supporting the
models of evaluation & reporting, and their uses to lead impactful grantmaking and
organizational practices.
Supporting the development and refinement of organizational and grantmaking
programmatic learning questions and developing plans to answer and report on
those questions to various audiences.
Collecting, cleaning, synthesizing, and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data to
develop actionable findings and next steps.
Supporting the development of communications about learning and organizational
strengthening efforts.
Offering recommendations for strategic learning decisions across the Foundation
(e.g., data visualizations, grant application questions, final report questions,
systematic data collection, etc.).
Recommending capacity building support for internal staff and external partners.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS
Demonstrated commitment to the Foundation’s mission, values, and the issues we
support.
Experience implementing and analyzing qualitative, quantitative, multimethod, and
mixed method approaches to support learning in the nonprofit sector.
Ability to weigh available evidence against the limitations of different
methodological approaches, and guide others in determining a pragmatic approach
that leads to informed organizational decision-making.
Support the development of learning strategies while leading data analysis.
Experience getting up to speed quickly on multiple subject areas to support staff in
connecting their work to learning and vice versa.
Experience supporting or facilitating learning activities such as trainings,
workshops, reflection sessions, or coaching for adult learners.
Evidence of translating evaluation and learning concepts to non-evaluators,
including monitoring, data collection, analysis, and results.
Strong organizational, writing, and communication skills with attention to detail.
The ability to build collaborative relationships, navigate challenges strategically,
manage conflict, and maintain a growth mindset.
Ability to maintain the highest levels of integrity, ethics, discernment, diplomacy,
and strict confidentiality.
Proficient with Microsoft 365 including Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook,
etc. and ability to work in an online grants management system.
Ability to work professionally and effectively with staff, grantees, service providers,
vendors, and other partners.
Solutions and results-oriented with a high level of emotional intelligence, cultural
competence, discretion, and professionalism.
Self-motivated and proactive across all job functions.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
The Learning Associate will have a bachelor's degree in social science or a related field and
at least two years of experience using evaluation and learning in nonprofit organizations,
including foundations. Candidates with an alternative but comparable level of expertise are
encouraged to apply