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Project Manager: Evaluator for Carbon Ranch Initiative’s Waste to Plate Project

Quivira Coalition is a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that builds resilience on working lands. We foster ecological, economic, and social health through education, innovation, and collaboration. We envision a world where agriculture provides for the health of rural economies and communities, heals social injustice, and regenerates climate, land, water, and ecosystems. We work to support the community and implementation of regenerative agriculture until it is embraced as a crucial piece of our food systems, our land stewardship, and our solutions to climate change. Quivira’s work, at its foundation, advances the current shift from extractive to regenerative culture and economy. Knowing that it is critical to the success of our work, Quivira is committed to diversity and inclusion, and we aspire to build a diverse staff team and community, including groups that are traditionally under-represented among stewardship and agricultural support services.

Quivira’s Carbon Ranch Initiative (CRI) is dedicated to research, engagement, and technical support that helps producers build soil health on working lands. We focus on engaging with land stewards around the Healthy Soil Principles, circular economies (making waste productive), and using monitoring and evaluation to inform planning as ways to both combat and build resilience to climate change. 

Quivira was recently awarded a USDA Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities grant to strengthen regional livestock value chains and reduce overall carbon emissions involved in producing high quality meat and other animal-based products in the Southwest. 

In this project, we will:

1.  implement on-the-ground projects to support the transformation of agricultural waste into compost, biochar, and other organic amendments 
2. use organic amendments to build soil health 
3. train producers and other stakeholders in how to monitor and evaluate use of amendments both for carbon and dollar accounting 
4. support production and use of a marketing toolkit for producers making and/or using organic amendments as a climate-smart practice.
   

Project Manager: Evaluator position

We seek an evaluator for a four-year grant funded technical position at the program manager level. This person will work with the CRI team and partner organizations to collect data and quantify and evaluate the greenhouse gas benefits associated with the activities of the grant, per participating ranch and commodity produced. The evaluator will conduct interviews to compile both the greenhouse gas benefits due to diversion from alternative waste streams as well as increased productivity and soil carbon sequestration. This analysis will: incorporate transportation, equipment, and energy costs both for production and getting meat or other animal-based products to consumers; estimate fluxes in organic amendment production from the literature; and direct carbon stocks measured in the soil. 

This person will also compile the costs and time for adoption of organic amendment production and use to estimate the carbon flux per dollar expended. The evaluator will use information from the literature to estimate longevity of soil carbon stocks. The evaluator will produce a final report summarizing all of the findings from in-field tests, soil tests, COMET estimates, and diversion/transportation costs and carbon fluxes. The evaluator will share results through conferences, writing, and other relevant communications to stakeholders. .

The evaluator will maintain necessary records to meet the USDA reporting requirements for the grant, including tracking incentives per producer, tracking commodities through the value chain, and ranch/farm level identification data, all while scrupulously managing and protecting data according to grant agreement and internal guidelines.. 

The evaluator will bring professionalism and organization to working with diverse groups of people on their land, the other programs in Quivira, and the partner organizations associated with CRI. The manager is expected to build and develop content, methods, protocols, and strategies, as well as operationalize their own and others’ activities. They then will evaluate and revise those activities to best meet the goals and objectives for the relevant stakeholders.

In addition to the specific work of evaluation of the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities project, the manager will generally be expected to: 

• develop relationships and work with farmers, ranchers, and natural resource management professionals from diverse communities 
• write reports and educational materials that are useful for working ranchers, farmers, and technical service providers 
• contribute to applications and reports to funding agencies to support ongoing work
• navigate the challenges, opportunities, and social dynamics in agricultural and natural resource management and collaboration 
• communicate complex land management issues in clear, constructive, and non-polarizing ways 

Program activities

o Includes multi-day site visits, facilitation of trainings/workshops and in-field monitoring, and remote work using remote sensing or model-based data collection and analysis.
o Work remotely and independently to organize logistics and resources.
o Delegate tasks and responsibilities to complete deliverables
o Track deliverables, stay on-budget and on-time for each project/deliverable or provide sufficient advanced notice of issues, write reports for funding or collaboration
o May include supervising coordinator, interns, volunteers as well as helping to track their time and expenses (both paid and in-kind/match).
o May include coordinating with outside contractors including assembling documentation for payment.
o Work with the entire Carbon Ranch team to contribute to projects in other aspects of the program.
o Contribute to and use evaluation tools to adaptively manage projects to achieve program objectives and mission.

Administrative activities

• Report regularly to the CRI director.
• Participate in internal meetings and subgroups in support of maintaining and evolving culture and internal work.
• Engage with other program and Quivira staff in routine program and cross-program activities.

Outreach

• Shape and facilitate other CRI activities, including contributing to communications that keep stakeholders informed.
• Outreach through conference tabling or presentations, writing for general public or specific audiences, field days, etc. that support CRI’s work, some originating from within CRI and other to support partners.
•  Support Quivira’s annual REGENERATE Conference in ways that fit capacity and align with program goals.

All of these activities will evolve with a commitment to identifying ways to more effectively include communities that have been historically underserved in agricultural support services.

This position is salaried (40 hours per week) and the pay scale is fixed between $47,267 – $63,949 per year in the first year. After three months, benefits include health care, dental, vision, simple IRA, paid-time-off, short and long term life insurance, and a disability policy. While we actively seek funding to support staff long term, we cannot guarantee employment beyond the duration of the grant.

Required Qualifications

• Experience with gathering and evaluating ecological, economic, and social data
• Experience with data management/stewardship and maintaining confidentiality
• Experience with data analysis, visualization, and compilation
• Professional written and verbal communication skills
• Strong skills related to working with diverse groups of people and cross-cultural communication
• Must be able to travel to remote locations where camping may be required for multiple days/nights at a time and drive long distances (up to 8 hours in a day)
• Flexible schedule to accommodate weekend, evening, and remote work
• Strong organizational skills and ability to coordinate with a diverse and busy group of stakeholders
• Must have a valid driver’s license
• Must be able to lift 25 lbs. and work long hours bending and walking outdoors
• An understanding of how conservation and agriculture have historically and currently impacted Hispanic, Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color

Desired Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent years of experience in a field where data collection, management, compilation, analysis, and reporting were integral to the position

• Experience working with ranchers/farmers

• Experience with evaluating greenhouse gas fluxes and equivalencies
• Experience generating and maintaining metadata for multiple interrelated datasets
• Existing relationships or involvement in agricultural community in the Southwest

• Experience working in and communicating about agriculture, natural resource management, or both
• Experience with G Suite (gmail, drive, calendar, etc.)
• Experience with project management software (e.g. Asana)
• Multi-lingual in Spanish or Native languages 
• Experience managing personnel and resources
• Experience writing grants and engaging in other types of fundraising

Application Instructions

Please apply using the form below. Please include a current two page resume with the application. The application will be in place of a cover letter; no cover letter is needed. Please provide the name, phone number, and email of three professional references. References will be checked as a part of the hiring process and we will let applicants know when we reach out to references. 

Anyone who meets our required characteristics will be invited for a short initial interview (15-20 min.) with the CRI director and at that time, we will request a professional writing sample that demonstrates data analysis and interpretation. Finalists who demonstrate substantial desired characteristics will then be invited to a full interview (1 hour) with the CRI director and one other staff member. 

Please send questions to Eva Stricker eva@quiviracoalition with the subject line “Carbon Ranch Initiative Manager Application.”

Position will remain open until filled, with the intention of a start date in early March 2024. 

Since its establishment in 1997, Quivira has prided itself on its history of working across differences at the radical center, though we have not always accomplished this and continue to strive for improvement. In the last year, we have become increasingly aware of the work that we must do to ensure that individuals and communities of all backgrounds are truly included and welcomed into our work, and the ongoing legacies of racism. Quivira is taking its steps toward becoming an antiracist organization, and reevaluating what diversity, equity and inclusion means for the organization. This is difficult, often messy, ongoing work, and we are committed to working through the challenges to join the movement for racially-just regenerative agriculture. We have made mistakes, committed harm, and are committed to growth. We hope new hires and the perspectives they bring will continue to help us navigate this path. We invite candidates to ask questions about where we are in this journey, and to join us in moving the organization and the regenerative agriculture movement toward becoming more just, equitable, and inclusive.