Job Description and Person Specification

Please note this statement is for information only and does not form part of a contract. This list is not exhaustive and you will be expected to undertake such duties as may be assigned to you by ActionAid from time to time. Employees are expected to be flexible in their work in order to deliver the objectives of the organisation.

Job title / Senior Data Analyst
Contract type / Permanent
Grade/starting salary / Band 5: £ 39,099 - £ 39,686
Reporting to / Head of Data & Insight
Direct reports / None
Last reviewed / August 2015
Context

Are you passionate about making a real difference?

ActionAid is a leading international charity working in over 45 countries. We work with the poorest women and children in the world, changing their lives for good. Our local staff provide immediate, hands-on support to women and children living on the margins of survival. Together we demand action at local, national and international level. We don’t walk away until we’ve achieved lasting change.

In the UK our role is to raise funds to reduce poverty in the communities and countries where we work, to take action for long term change and to act in solidarity with people fighting poverty and injustice in poor countries. We aim to make a stronger global difference by working closely with ActionAid International and our country programmes around the world. We want to achieve a way of communicating that creates a powerful emotional, intellectual and practical connection between people here and in developing countries so as to motivate and engage our supporters. We believe success will be driven by connecting people, demonstrating our impact, seizing opportunities and key moments, working with others, focussing on ethical and sustainable approaches and harnessing technology and digital. We are a value driven, forward thinking organisation, focused on achieving long-term and sustainable change in the lives of the poorest people in our world.

The Date & Insight Team

The Data & Insight team is responsible for maintaining and improving ActionAid’s supporter information. We provide reporting, analysis and insight to help the organisation better understand its supporters.

The team is part of the Strategy, Performance and Insight function within the Fundraising Department but we work with all the supporter facing teams – Fundraising, Campaigning, Schools and Youth – and also have strong links with our Supporter Administration team in Somerset.

ActionAid UK operates two CRMs – our primary supporter database “Infobase” (a proprietary system built in Oracle) and Raiser’s Edge, which acts as a secondary database. We also use FastStats for selections, and SQL and SPSS for more complex reporting and analysis.

There are five roles within the Data & Insight team. This as an established role that has recently become vacant for the first time in 4½ years.

Purpose of the Role

The main purpose of the Senior Data Analyst role is to work with teams across ActionAid UK to understand their information requirements and to use a range of skills and tools to deliver this as supporter insight. You will maintain and develop a suite of reports, analysis and models to build understanding of ActionAid’s supporters and use this to influence, improve and challenge supporter recruitment, retention and communications strategies.

By incorporating best practise and trends from the wider sector you’ll have the opportunity to continually develop your skills and knowledge as well as helping to support and develop technical expertise across the team.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities

Leads on reporting, analysis and insight to enrich AAUK’s understanding of its supporters (80%)

Analysis

·  Employs and continually develops a wide range of skills, tools and techniques to analyse data to identify trends and interpret and present findings

·  Proactively communicates and shares insights with stakeholders ensuring the key findings and recommendations are understood

·  Uses influence to promote a culture of informed decision making based on analytical insight so that evidence informs future strategy

·  Works collaboratively with stakeholders to specify and challenge their requirements and ensure analysis meets organisational needs

·  Develops analysis to support testing and identify opportunities for improving performance

·  Ability to communicate with and challenge non-technical (often senior) stakeholders in order to influence and negotiate and improve campaign strategies

Reporting

·  Proposes and develops new reporting that helps decision-makers access the supporter information that they require

·  Manages the suite of regular reports highlighting key findings for stakeholders and identifying requirements for more in-depth analysis

·  Continually reviews and interprets report outputs to inform the organisation of trends and anomalies

·  Manages the technical infrastructure for reporting and analysis ensuring analytical tools remain ‘fit for purpose’

·  Work with the Supporter Data Manager to identify data quality issues and work with them to create new processes to improve reporting

Responsible for the financial forecasting of committed individual giving, and communicating performance against the financial plan (10%)

·  Leads on the development of the model to reflect emerging needs of the organisation

·  Responsible for quality and consistency of committed giving income forecasting and evaluating performance against plan

·  Promotes understanding of the forecasting model across Finance and Fundraising

·  Supports and trains fundraisers to use and interpret outputs for planning

Provides leadership and support in reporting, analysis and insight skills (10%)

·  Leads the support and development of the D&I team’s technical and analytical skills

·  Provides expertise on ActionAid’s supporters’ information and data to internal and external stakeholders. Supports the development of the Supporter Data Officer in data and reporting skills and oversees the production of reporting

·  Leads capacity building in FastStats to deliver and advise on best practice segmentation, targeting and testing strategies

·  Supports the Supporter Data Analyst in carrying out mailing selections as required Answers ad hoc marketing and other information requests

·  Assists decision makers with predictive modelling and understanding why actual outcomes might vary from planned income performance

Person Specification
Knowledge and Experience
Essential / Desirable
·  Advanced knowledge of SPSS syntax and/or SQL for data manipulation, reporting and analysis / ·  Working knowledge of predictive modelling
·  Extensive experience of using relational databases - ideally gained in fundraising or marketing / ·  Understanding of direct marketing processes and the charity sector
·  Experience of working with large and complex data sets to provide data analysis and reporting
·  Experience of producing management information from complex analysis
Skills and Abilities
·  Degree (preferably in a subject with a significant element of mathematics / statistics) or equivalent experience / ·  VBA for Access and Excel
·  Advanced technical skills: Excel and Access, and proven ability to pick up new skills and technologies quickly. / ·  Modelling & planning expertise
·  Strong problem solving and analytical skills
·  Open, persuasive and able to communicate with technical and non-technical stakeholders
·  Excellent tenacity, attention to detail and reconciliation skills