Research Director

About this role

Research Director

Prevail Fund is looking for a leader to build and lead our Research team as we scale. Research is core to what Prevail does - it drives how we assess new philanthropic opportunities, how we strengthen our existing Education Fund, and how we make decisions as we launch new funds over the coming years. We're looking for someone who can lead and develop this team to ensure we have world-class research capacity as Prevail scales.

If you're a research leader who enjoys building high-performing teams, loves diving into new sectors, and wants to use those skills to mobilize significant philanthropic capital towards some of the world's most important problems - we'd love to hear from you.

About Prevail Fund Prevail is a new foundation dedicated to catalyzing large-scale social change by supporting private philanthropists and field implementers to pursue more ambitious and impactful goals. We work with private philanthropists to fund specific initiatives for 10-12 years. Rather than diversifying across multiple causes, we prioritize goal-driven investments in proven solutions with the potential to reshape global norms. Our first fund aims to improve foundational education for over 27.5 million children across 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Prevail provides patient capital to implementers – primarily in the form of grants that grow over time as our partner organizations scale. In addition to funding, Prevail also offers a suite of systems and talent development services designed to address common growth barriers and prepare partner organizations for accelerated scale.

In our first three years, we've:

- Made significant progress against our ambitious fundraising targets

- Partnered with 30+ organizations across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

- Hired 35+ mission-driven team members globally

- Run dozens of execution projects to strengthen key functions for our partners

Research at Prevail

Research is central to how Prevail operates and grows. Our Research team provides the evidence and analysis that informs decisions across the organization - from strengthening work within our Education Fund, to assessing new philanthropic opportunities, to supporting the launch of new funds as Prevail expands into new areas. Importantly, our team seeks to look beyond "what works" on paper to understand the "why" and "how" - identifying implementation bottlenecks and leverage points where Prevail's support could multiply impact at scale.

About the Role

Working closely with David https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hylden-5a0772a/ and Andrew, https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-youn-360581/ you'll lead Prevail's Research function - setting the vision and direction for the team, while remaining hands-on in the work itself. You'll work with a team of researchers conducting high-quality, actionable research that spans our Education Fund, our New Initiatives pipeline, and future funds as Prevail grows. This is not an academic role, nor a pure people-management role; you will both develop a strong research team and drive analytical work yourself, producing practical recommendations that Prevail can launch as ambitious, well-funded programs. You will:

- Set the vision and strategy for Prevail's Research function: define priorities across research workstreams, refine our assessment frameworks, derive comparable metrics across sectors, and learn from peer organizations and global experts to keep raising the bar on how Prevail generates and applies evidence.

- Lead and develop the Research team: Owning how the research function is structured and operates across Prevail - including how researchers embedded in individual funds are supported and connected - directly managing some researchers, thinking ahead about the skillsets and profiles the team needs to scale, leading hiring as the function grows, and building the structures to help the team operate at speed and rigor as Prevail launches new funds.

- Drive Prevail's strategy for assessing new philanthropic opportunities – set priorities, refine our assessment frameworks, derive comparable metrics across sectors, and learn from peer organizations and global experts to keep raising the bar on how Prevail decides where to deploy capital next.

- Build and own complex quantitative and qualitative models – dive into complex opportunity analysis, building cost-effectiveness models, reach and fund-sizing estimates, durability syntheses, and other deep-dive work that anchors Prevail's investment decisions.

- Identify, diligence, and evaluate high-impact interventions through desk reviews, expert interviews, quantitative modeling, and likely some in-person visits to real-world programs.

- Synthesize and translate evidence into crisp, transparent outputs that can speak to diverse audiences – ranging from slide decks and investment memos to interactive models and visualizations.

- Answer operational and programmatic questions when evaluating new opportunities, proposing evidence-based, creative solutions that can move Prevail and its partners from ideas to large-scale action.

About you You're a research leader, skilled in managing complex, multi-workstream research agendas. You are excited to run a leading research team while remaining hands-on in the analysis. You love deep-diving into new sectors and topics to creatively synthesize punchy, data-driven recommendations, and you’re comfortable owning the conclusion in a room of senior decision-makers. You move easily between quantitative and qualitative insights, and between strategic framing and granular evidence review. You communicate complex ideas clearly to donors, implementers, and academics alike, and you thrive in a fast-paced environment. More specifically, you bring:

- Research experience: You have 9+ years experience in conducting research to drive decision-making. Experience with implementing organizations in global development is a strong asset,…