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Ascension is seeking an accomplished Senior Monitoring, Evaluation & Data Analytics Lead to support the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Community Services in strengthening the performance, accountability, and effectiveness of its discretionary and demonstration grant programs.

This is not simply a dashboard-development or reporting position. Ascension is looking for a senior analytical professional who can transform complex program, performance, compliance, and grant-portfolio data into information that federal program leaders can use to identify risk, understand performance, allocate attention and resources, improve program delivery, and communicate results to executive leadership, stakeholders, and Congress.

The successful candidate should bring a combination of advanced data analytics, monitoring and evaluation, program evaluation, performance measurement, portfolio analysis, risk modeling, business intelligence, and executive-level data storytelling capabilities.

The ideal candidate understands that federal program analytics must answer more than “what happened.” The person must be able to determine why it happened, where risks or performance gaps are emerging, what the data indicate about program effectiveness, and what decision or corrective action should follow.

Ascension is particularly interested in candidates who have worked with federal grant programs, human services programs, economic or community development initiatives, program evaluation offices, Inspector General or oversight organizations, or other complex government portfolios requiring defensible performance measurement and executive reporting.

Position Summary

The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation & Data Analytics Lead will provide analytical leadership across DCDDP’s portfolio of discretionary and demonstration programs.

The position will design and maintain monitoring tools, dashboards, performance measures, data-quality processes, portfolio risk frameworks, analytical models, and decision-support products that allow OCS leadership to evaluate grant performance and identify recipients requiring increased monitoring, technical assistance, or other programmatic intervention.

The Lead will compile, validate, clean, integrate, and analyze performance and compliance information from multiple program sources and use those data to support annual grant portfolio reviews, risk prioritization, recipient monitoring, program evaluation, trend analysis, and continuous improvement.

This individual will also translate complex findings into concise, decision-oriented reports, visualizations, executive briefings, program summaries, congressional reporting materials, and other internal and external communications.

The ideal candidate is an analytical problem solver who is highly organized, intellectually curious, comfortable working with imperfect or incomplete data, and capable of operating independently in an environment where requirements, program priorities, and analytical questions may evolve rapidly.

The person must be able to anticipate analytical needs rather than simply respond to data requests. They should be comfortable questioning data quality, identifying inconsistencies, developing defensible analytical methodologies, documenting assumptions, and explaining complex quantitative findings to non-technical audiences.

Success in the role requires strong judgment, attention to detail, discretion in handling sensitive information, and the ability to simultaneously manage recurring reporting requirements, emerging leadership requests, portfolio analyses, and time-sensitive grant-program activities.

What This Position Will Help the Customer Accomplish

The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation & Data Analytics Lead will help OCS and DCDDP establish a more proactive, data-informed approach to managing discretionary and demonstration grant programs.

The position will help the Government:

• Identify emerging performance and compliance risks earlier.
• Prioritize monitoring and technical-assistance resources based on evidence.
• Understand trends across individual grants, programs, and the broader DCDDP portfolio.
• Improve the reliability, consistency, and usefulness of grant-performance data.
• Develop repeatable monitoring and risk-assessment methodologies.
• Translate large amounts of program information into actionable management intelligence.
• Assess whether programs and interventions are achieving expected outcomes.
• Strengthen semi-annual, annual, executive, and congressional reporting.
• Improve the quality of data used for leadership and policy decisions.
• Demonstrate program results through compelling data visualizations and narratives.
• Support continuous improvement across DCDDP programs.

Expected Tools and Analytical Processes

The successful candidate should be highly proficient with analytical and business-intelligence tools used to transform program data into decision-ready information.

Core tools and processes are expected to include:

• Microsoft Power BI
• Tableau
• Advanced Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Power Query
• Microsoft 365
• SharePoint or comparable collaborative data repositories
• Dashboard and scorecard development
• Data cleansing and validation
• Data reconciliation
• Data transformation and integration
• KPI and performance-measure development
• Risk scoring and risk-model development
• Portfolio analysis
• Trend and longitudinal analysis
• Quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Data visualization and storytelling
• Program evaluation methodologies
• Data-quality assurance and quality control
• Data dictionaries and metric-definition documentation
• Executive and congressional reporting

Experience with SQL, Python, R, statistical packages, GIS/story-mapping tools, or comparable advanced analytical technologies is desirable where appropriate and permitted within the Government environment.

Experience working with Performance Progress Reports (PPRs), GrantSolutions, OLDC, or comparable federal grants-management and reporting systems is highly desirable.

Position Day-to-Day Activities

• DEVELOP and maintain monitoring dashboards, scorecards, analytical tools, and performance-management products supporting DCDDP grant programs.
• DESIGN quantitative and qualitative risk-assessment methodologies to identify grant recipients exhibiting potential performance, compliance, implementation, or reporting risks.
• COMPILE performance, compliance, financial, operational, and programmatic data from multiple sources to support portfolio-level analysis.
• CLEANSE and validate datasets by identifying incomplete, inconsistent, duplicate, anomalous, or potentially inaccurate information before analysis.
• RECONCILE conflicting information across program reports, data systems, spreadsheets, and other Government-approved sources.
• ANALYZE grant-recipient and program performance to identify trends, patterns, outliers, emerging risks, root causes, and opportunities for improvement.
• SUPPORT annual grant portfolio reviews by synthesizing recipient performance and compliance information and developing data-driven risk prioritization recommendations.
• REVIEW Performance Progress Reports and other recipient submissions to identify significant accomplishments, performance concerns, data gaps, inconsistencies, and matters requiring follow-up.
• PREPARE performance summaries, analytical highlights, follow-up questions, and decision-support information for OCS program personnel.
• PRODUCE semi-annual and annual performance analyses identifying portfolio trends, emerging issues, and actionable management insights.
• ESTABLISH meaningful KPIs, measures, thresholds, and analytical definitions that allow OCS leadership to consistently evaluate program performance.
• BUILD executive-level dashboards and visualizations that allow users to move efficiently from portfolio-level performance to individual program or recipient-level information.
• TRANSFORM complex analytical findings into clear tables, charts, graphics, scorecards, briefing materials, and narrative explanations suitable for non-technical audiences.
• PREPARE data summaries, tables, visualizations, and analytical narratives supporting Reports to Congress, the OCS Annual Report, leadership briefings, white papers, and other internal and external communications.
• SUPPORT data and analytical requirements associated with annual grant competitions, including application, portfolio, risk, technical-assistance, or other Government-directed analyses.
• CONTRIBUTE analytical content to public-facing dashboards, story maps, program highlights, awardee profiles, and other communications designed to demonstrate DCDDP program outcomes.
• ASSESS data availability and quality before beginning analytical work and communicate limitations, assumptions, and risks that could affect interpretation of findings.
• DOCUMENT analytical methodologies, data sources, calculations, metric definitions, assumptions, business rules, and quality-control procedures to support transparency and repeatability.
• ESTABLISH repeatable data-validation and QA/QC procedures for recurring performance reports and analytical deliverables.
• COLLABORATE with Federal program managers, grants-management specialists, program specialists, technical-assistance professionals, communications personnel, and other contractor staff to connect analytical findings with program operations.
• IDENTIFY recipients, programs, indicators, or performance areas requiring deeper analysis, monitoring, or technical assistance.
• TRANSLATE leadership questions into structured analytical questions, data requirements, methodologies, and decision-support products.
• PRESENT analytical findings and recommendations to program managers, senior leadership, and other stakeholders through concise executive briefings.
• RESPOND to emerging and time-sensitive analytical requests while maintaining accuracy, traceability, and appropriate quality-control standards.
• PROTECT personally identifiable, sensitive, confidential, and Government information in accordance with applicable HHS/ACF security, privacy, records-management, and information-handling requirements.
• ENSURE dashboards, reports, visualizations, and electronic analytical products comply with applicable Section 508 accessibility requirements.
• PARTICIPATE in project, portfolio-review, monitoring, evaluation, grant-competition, and other meetings as required.
• TRAVEL to grant-recipient locations when required to support Government-directed monitoring, evaluation, technical-assistance, or program-review activities.