Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer

Hours: 15 hours / week (2 day / week)
Contract: Part-time, fixed-term until 31st March 2030
Target Start Date: 23rd November (or subject to candidate's notice period)
Responsible to: Executive Director
Location: Newtown, Powys / Hybrid / Remote with travel across Powys, Shropshire, Monmouthshire and Herefordshire.
Work Pattern: A flexible work pattern, to be discussed with your line manager.

About Cultivate and Bwyd Powys Food

As part of the Marches Food Partnership - a cross-border collaboration spanning Powys, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire: Cultivate is delivering a transformative regional project: Marches Food Systems for the Future is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund's Climate Action Fund.

Our shared vision is of diverse communities connected through food, where people understand climate risks, collaborate to take action, and confidently transition to regenerative farming and localised food systems that reduce carbon impacts.

About the role

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer will design, lead, and execute the participatory monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework for this ambitious multi-county project. The role ensures that community cluster leaders, farmers, and regional partners can track their carbon reduction achievements, share qualitative successes, and continuously adapt project approaches through structured reflection loops.

Job Description

• Framework Design & Strategy: Collaboratively create a participatory MEL framework for the 12 community clusters and the wider Marches Bioregion, using simple, creative, and inclusive methods that allow participants to identify what is important to them.
• Carbon Tracking: Develop and manage a "carbon totaliser" tool to track estimated carbon savings directly linked to project activities (e.g. kg of food waste prevented, food miles reduced).
• Data Collection & Analysis: Support local project coordinators and community facilitators in collecting data, ensuring it represents the diversity of participants (including under-represented groups, youth, and farmers).
• Action & Learning Loops: Collate feedback and track progress against project outputs and outcomes to form the basis of a quarterly team review and reflection cycle.
• Advisory & Governance Support: Present evaluative data and insights to the six-monthly Advisory Board to help increase project impact, reach, and inclusivity.
• Storytelling & Dissemination: Support the Communications Officer in translating evaluation findings into accessible, creative assets - such as data for quarterly newsletters, social media metrics, blogs, and videos - ensuring participants can see how their views are used.
• Evidence Case Formulation: In the final year of the project, work closely with an external consultant and multi-stakeholder assemblies to develop a comprehensive evidence case pinpointing the economic and political levers for scaling up systemic change across councils, health boards, and farms.
• Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI): Embed EDI tracking mechanisms (such as part-postcode data collection) to monitor engagement with marginalised groups, refugees, people experiencing food poverty, and harder-to-reach agricultural sectors.

Person Description (E = Essential, P = Preferred)

• Proven experience in designing or implementing monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) frameworks, ideally within the third sector, community development, or environmental projects. E
• Demonstrated understanding of participatory evaluation techniques, story circles, or creative feedback methods that minimise stigma and maximise community ownership. E
• Highly proficient in data collation, analysis, spreadsheet management, and translating complex figures (such as carbon metrics or survey percentages) into clear, scannable reports. E
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with a compassionate approach to engaging diverse stakeholders, from council decision-makers to farmers and individuals experiencing hardship. E
• Commitment to putting equal opportunities, inclusion, and diversity policies into practice, with an understanding of structural barriers to participation. E
• Ability to work independently, self-organise across a distributed four-county partnership, and collaborate effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team. E
• Passionate about sustainable food systems, climate action, regenerative farming, and community resilience. P
• Experience working directly with external evaluation consultants or academic research partners. P
• Able to drive and have use of your own vehicle for occasional business use across Powys, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire andShropshire. E
• Ability to speak, read, and write in Welsh. P