Research Director, LLS, District Transformation & Cash + Coaching

About this role

GiveDirectly has delivered more than $1B in cash directly to 2+ million people living in poverty across 15 countries since 2011. We believe cash transfers are one of the most scalable, cost-effective, and dignified forms of aid, with the research to back it up. Our work has been covered by The Economist , NPR , TED , and The Washington Post . We are one of Time100’s Most Influential Companies of 2026.

Our culture is candid, analytical, and non-hierarchical. We support high ownership and real professional growth. Curious about what it's really like to work here? Read our values and hear from the people who do . If they resonate, this could be a great fit!

About This Role

This Research Director will own GiveDirectly’s strategic learning and measurement agenda across our largest and fastest-growing product line: Large Lump Sum (LLS) transfers. This will include both core LLS programs, but also research on the market-level effects of cash transfers, and coaching add-ons which can enhance the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of transfers. Working closely with Product Leads, Partnerships, and M&E staff across the organization, they will set direction for how GiveDirectly measures, evaluates, and communicates the impact of this programming — with particular emphasis on building the large-scale, strategic M&E infrastructure needed to characterize the aggregate effects of our programs as they scale.

They will:

• Set organization-wide priorities for learning and large-scale M&E across LLS, District Transformation, and Cash + Coaching, establishing a shared theory of change and adapting GiveDirectly’s measurement architecture to make it fit for learning at scale.

• Own the strategy and standards for large-scale, strategic M&E — defining how GiveDirectly monitors and evaluates reach, exclusion, and downstream impact across national-scale rollouts, and building the systems, indicators, and models that let leadership track performance in near-real time.

• Provide senior technical leadership on formal research, ensuring GD’s research portfolio and academic partnerships remain rigorously prioritized, delegating day-to-day ownership of some specific studies to their team.

• Support product design decisions (transfer size, tranching, cadence, targeting, “plus” components) with evidence and analysis, and represent the evidence base underlying product design to internal and external audiences.

• Build and lead a small, highly leveraged team, mentoring and supporting others to drive specific workstreams.

• Represent GiveDirectly’s research and M&E agenda for this program area externally, with donors, academic partners, and the media, at a senior level, ensuring that GiveDirectly’s research and programmatic data is fit for the needs of our external representation.

Core Responsibilities

Strategic ownership of the impact learning and M&E agenda for LLS, District Transformation, and Cash + Coaching

• Own and evolve the “canonical” Theory of Change across our core large lump sum, district transformation, and “cash plus coaching” products, maintaining deep understanding of the current evidence and emergent hypotheses about different impact pathways.

• Define and drive org-wide prioritization of impact learning questions, building buy-in across Product, Partnerships, Country Programs, and Comms;

• Develop, gain internal buy-in for, and articulate a compelling measurement and learning strategy that may, in turn, influence GD’s approach in other verticals.

• Proactively identify where new M&E infrastructure or research capacity is needed, and de-prioritize or wind down efforts that do not address credible, priority questions in a fast-moving environment.

Direction of large-scale, strategic M&E

• Serve as the accountable owner for how GiveDirectly monitors and evaluates its highest-volume, highest-stakes programming, building out the systems needed to track performance and outcomes in partnership with the cross-cutting Senior Manager for M&E

• Define standard outcome-focused indicators and measurement best practices across expenditure, consumption, asset accumulation, labor supply, and psychosocial wellbeing, incorporating sector-leading practice.

• Provide intellectual leadership for new measurement approaches that advance key aspects of the LLS, district transformation, and cash plus coaching learning agenda. Own measurement practices for A/B testing of “plus components,” helping GiveDirectly to rapidly and iteratively identify components with the greatest potential boost to cost-effectiveness.

• Direct the development of models to predict and communicate GiveDirectly’s impact at scale, including cost-effectiveness and ROI models used for internal decision-making and external influence.

• Set standards ensuring that M&E data are embedded appropriately across GD systems (e.g. in our Program Quality framework, standard forms, country or product dashboards), partnering closely with the M&E team as the frontline of data quality assurance and analysis.

• Make resourcing decisions and tradeoffs to enable this M&E agenda, advocating for the people, tools, and budget required, and helping define the organization’s risk appetite on measurement questions with high stakes for GD’s credibility.

Strategize and oversee formal research on high priority learning questions

• Provide oversight and strategic direction for GiveDirectly’s research portfolio around the market-level effects of cash, as well as our cash plus coaching products, ensuring alignment with the theory of change and priority learning questions, without necessarily owning every study directly.

• Strategically identify and cultivate research partnerships with individuals and institutions that advance GD’s understanding of key impact questions, and represent GD in high-stakes external research relationships.

• Provide quality assurance and coordination on research led by direct reports or in-country staff.

Supporting product design

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