Planning Learning and Impact Coordinator

Interested in a role where your coordination skills help drive mission-focused work forward? As the Project Coordinator on our Planning, Learning, and Impact (PLI) team, you'll support a wide range of initiatives - from managing project and knowledge systems to coordinating cross-team efforts and helping administer a $1.6 million scholarship program for Wisconsin apprentices. If you're energized by collaboration, organization, and work that drives real impact, this opportunity could be a great fit.

The Project Coordinator serves as an integral member of the PLI team within Ascendium's Education Philanthropy. In this role, the coordinator will carry out a mix of functions ranging from logistical support for project and knowledge management to day-to-day operations of a scholarship program, which administers $1.6 million in grants to individual Wisconsin apprentices each year. The Project Coordinator will benefit from exposure to and engagement with a broad set of efforts to support systematic learning, including learning from structured, well-designed research and evaluation. Reporting to the Vice President of Planning, Learning, and Impact, this role will work closely in partnership with the deputy directors for the PLI team, as well as with other team members within PLI and beyond. Travel is expected three to five times per year to conferences, grant partner events, site visits, home weeks, and other mission-aligned convenings.

This role is a Madison-based position, with the expectation of hybrid work at the Madison, Wisconsin, headquarters and additional work from home days. Priority consideration will be given to Madison-based candidates who apply within the first three weeks of the posting.

On a day-to-day basis, you may do the following.

• Conduct the day-to-day operations of Ascendium's Tools of the Trade Scholarship Program. This includes but is not limited to launching the scholarship application and working with the Wisconsin Technical College System to raise awareness about the scholarship opportunity each fall, verifying eligibility of applicants each winter, and working with Accounts Payable to distribute scholarship checks to the recipients each spring. Standardize and manualize operations to support future administration. Organize, streamline, and maintain other knowledge management critical to the scholarship program's administration.
• Field and substantively craft conference sponsorship requests related to the PLI's team.
• Support the design and preparation of strategic convenings at key conferences and standalone events focused on research community, and partner, as needed, with colleagues in education grantmaking to advance strategic convenings that bring together all strategy-area grant partners, including PLI-funded researchers.
• Support and oversee team use of technology and tools to ensure effective knowledge management and project management; provide or organize trainings as needed.
• Leverage project management tools, specifically Basecamp, and provide full team visibility into PLI's various projects. Proactively identify times when project timelines overlap and may need renegotiated to help maintain sensible work-life balance.
• Support the coordination demands of the new strategy planning and review processes that involve team members across the division.
• Support the aggregation of common grant partner metrics in support of assessing progress towards grantmaking goals.
• Inventory, propose, and manage a new knowledge management structure for the PLI team.
• Propose, execute, and manage an internal knowledge management structure for resources created by PLI team for the entire division, potentially in collaboration with the Senior Strategy Officer responsible for GrantED.
• As needed, coordinate team meetings and projects to include scheduling, drafting agendas, providing status updates, and queuing up future activities and timelines.

A highly qualified candidate will possess the following.

• Knowledge or experience equivalent to a Bachelor's degree, including one to three years working in postsecondary education, philanthropy, or other nonprofit organizations.
• Strong project management skills with demonstrated ability to execute and follow through to achieve intended results by honoring commitments, prioritizing work, and managing time and resources well.
• Ability to work cooperatively and inclusively with others to achieve shared goals.
• Effective interpersonal skills exemplified by initiative, courtesy, diplomacy, positive attitude, and professionalism.
• Ability to develop and maintain strong working relationships with and among a diverse group of stakeholders.
• Willingness to learn and adapt to a fast-paced, continually evolving work environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Ascendium is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has helped millions of learners pursue postsecondary education since 1967, when we were formed to help fulfill the promise of the landmark Higher Education Act of 1965. Over the years, we've grown to become the nation's largest federal student loan guarantor, providing information, tools, and counseling to help millions of borrowers nationwide avoid default and keep the door to reenrollment open. Using our years of experience in the student loan industry, we've developed a suite of products and services that support academic achievement, financial wellness, and student loan repayment success.

We use the net proceeds from our business operations to fund our education philanthropy. Our strategic grantmaking provides funding to organizations that increase the number of low-income learners who succeed in postsecondary education and workforce training as critical pathway to upward mobility, regardless of economic background, race, rurality, or history of incarceration, or other factors. Through grantmaking and related investments in evidence-building and strategic field engagement, we seek to identify emerging innovations and reforms, validate their effectiveness, and expand proven strategies to promote large-scale, systemic change.

Our philanthropy is focused on addressing systemic barriers to upward mobility, which derive from class disparities in opportunity, as well as from policies and practices of exclusion and discrimination. As we strive to continually strengthen our potential for impact, we take responsibility as a funder for learning and evolving our practice to ensure that our grantmaking reflects the root causes of barriers to opportunity for all low-income learners. To that end, we are committed to ongoing learning to build our internal capacity and strengthen the ability of our grantmaking to advance equitable opportunity.

Ascendium offers an outstanding benefits package designed to provide employees and their families with a high degree of security. These benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Student loan repayment assistance and tuition reimbursement.
• Paid volunteer time off.
• Ongoing training and professional development opportunities.

Ascendium provides equal employment opportunity to all individuals regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, creed, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law.

H-1B sponsorship (initiation or transfer) is not available for this position.

If you would like assistance with the application process, please email Ascendium Human Resources. We invite all applicants to complete the Voluntary Affirmative Action questions when submitting application materials. The questions are found at the end of the online application process. To learn more about our commitment to Equal Employment Opportunity, please visit the Ascendium Careers webpage.

Ascendium requires criminal, employment, and education background investigations before hiring.