About Fourth Economy

Fourth Economy is a consulting firm that specializes in equitable community development at different scales, from neighborhood to regional economies. Our work spans a variety of topics including economic resilience, inclusive and equitable development, job transformations, talent attraction, housing access, and placemaking. We are a fully remote organization with 20 staff located across the United States.

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The Opportunity 

Fourth Economy is seeking candidates for a Consultant position who are excited about making a difference in communities through work that is analytical, collaborative and challenging. We are especially looking for individuals interested in advancing non-traditional community and economic development models and the systems they interact with.
 
Consultants at Fourth Economy provide critical support to client projects, including conducting stakeholder interviews and surveys, facilitating community meetings, researching promising practices, and working with the project team to develop client strategies and recommendations, ensuring the excellence of client deliverables.

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We are specifically looking for a motivated, organized professional to support the analytics team, with a focus on economic/demographic data collection, analysis and visualization. 

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Our work often supports the economic growth and development for the LGBTQ+ community, first generation Americans, low income areas and communities of color, and we are looking for candidates who have experience working with and in those communities. 

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How you’ll spend your time

Externally, for clients of Fourth Economy (75% of your time):

• Engage clients directly through meetings, emails, and in-person meetings

• Analyze and interpret demographic and economic data (see Research and Data Synthesis below)

• Research best practices and community-level data

• Develop and administer surveys to community stakeholders and residents

• Write sections of client deliverables pertinent to your role on specific projects

• Contribute to frequent team and client meetings that help drive consulting projects forward

• Prepare materials and actions for client projects that help drive impacts

Internally, for Fourth Economy (25% of your time):

• Build meaningful connections within the Fourth Economy team

• Participate in weekly staff meetings and lead ~2 staff meetings

• Participate in bi-weekly Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging learning sessions and lead 1-2 sessions/year

• Dedicate time and allocated resources to your own professional growth and development

• Support business development activities through conducting background research and editing for proposals

• Author blog posts or other forms of thought leadership on behalf of the company

• Engage with an international array of colleagues from Fourth Economy’s parent company, Steer

• Attend 1-2 multi-day team retreats/year in various cities across the United States.

 

Who Should Apply?

We expect that individuals with 2 – 4  years of experience will thrive in this role. Those from underrepresented groups often only apply to jobs if they meet all of the qualifications. However, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn’t match 100% of the qualifications.

 

The ideal person for this role is someone who values or possesses the following competencies:

 

• Passion for Social Change and Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging: You are driven by the desire to make a change in our society, making the economy work for all people. You are committed to implementing principles of diversity, equity and inclusion into your relationships, project work and processes.

• Strategic Thinking: You’re a strong conceptual thinker, critical thinker, and problem-solver. You can quickly grasp and navigate a range of abstract concepts, relate them to one another, and translate those concepts into strategic and practical actions.

• Ability to Implement Multiple, Complex Projects: You’re confident in managing your workload and time and executing a portfolio of interconnected projects with close attention to detail across multiple stakeholders.

• Research and Data Synthesis: You have a strong ability to recognize learning opportunities independently, design and conduct research, gather data, structure quantitative and qualitative analyses, and draw and apply actionable recommendations.

  • Proficiency with spreadsheet software and other analytical tools, like GIS or Tableau. Basic programming ability, preferably in R or Python required.

  • Familiarity with public data sets from sources such as the Census, BLS, and BEA; and an understanding of the key social and economic variables that inform policy issues such as poverty, education, housing, and unemployment. Experience using APIs to access data is a plus.

  • Understanding of basic Census and administrative geographies.

  • Understanding of common concepts and definitions in public policy, statistics, and economics (e.g. how unemployment is counted, how the labor force is defined, when a household experiences a housing cost burden).

  • Ability to find new data sources and digest their suitability (i.e., understanding how the data is collected, what the data dictionary and definitions reveal about the uses, and what the limitations of the data are).

  • Data visualization skills — specifically the ability to cleanly and cohesively present analyses in a visual way (charts, graphs, infographics, etc.). If candidates are interested, there is potential to work on more advanced, in-depth data visualizations.

• Listening, Speaking and Writing: Your written and verbal communication skills are excellent, with an ability to independently create original public content and deliver verbal presentations in multiple settings and with diverse audiences.

• Self-Motivation: You thrive in an environment where you have the autonomy to drive your work. You proactively take the initiative, identify problems and opportunities across your portfolio, develop recommendations, and take action.

• Learning Mindset: You desire continuous improvement, have an innate sense of curiosity, and are grounded by a foundation of self-awareness that provides space for learning and growth. You are willing to ask hard questions, look at information from new perspectives, and explore how you can make something better.

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Salary and Benefits

This is a full-time position with a starting salary of $62,000 plus benefits, which include:

• Health, dental, vision & life insurance

• Short-term & long-term disability

• 3% of salary automatically matched and contributed to employee 401K retirement plan

• Monthly phone stipend 

• 20 Days PTO, 9 holidays, 3 floating holidays and 10 sick days annually

• Paid parental leave

• Workplace ergonomic assessment and resulting accommodations

• Continuous performance review cycle

 

Be advised that this is an estimated benchmark salary of good faith. All compensation, regardless of location, may be subject to change as skills, abilities, internal equity and geographic location are taken into account.

 

In addition to base salary, all employees will be eligible for an annual discretionary performance bonus.

 

Fourth Economy reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional compensation.

 

Location

We are location agnostic for this hire. We work East Coast hours but have employees in various locations and time zones across the US. We are especially interested in candidates residing in or interested in working from the New England States, Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, and the Midwest.

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