Research Fellowship

OMNI Institute is excited to announce that applications are open for our two-year Research Fellowship program, starting June 1, 2025, and concluding June 30, 2027. This program is an exciting opportunity for recent undergraduates (BA/BS degree), ideally graduating in the 2024-2025 academic year, to gain hands-on experience in research and evaluation within a dynamic consulting environment.

We strongly encourage applications from individuals who identify as people of color, LGBTQ+, or the first in their family to attend college. Our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion is central to OMNI's mission, and we are dedicated to creating a supportive environment for all fellows to thrive.

Program Structure

OMNI Fellows work full-time as Research Assistants, contributing to diverse client engagements while participating in robust learning and professional development opportunities. This role offers exposure to a wide variety of projects and clients, including state and local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropies.

• Client Projects (70-80%): Fellows play an integral role on project teams by:
  • Supporting research tasks, such as data collection, analysis, and reporting.
  • Participating in team and client meetings.
  • Assisting project leads with project management responsibilities.
• Learning and Internal Contributions (20-30%): Fellows also engage in internal learning opportunities, including:
  • Attending external partner and client meetings.
  • Contributing to business development efforts, such as proposal writing.
  • Supporting internal best practice teams.
  • Participating in one-on-one and cohort-based mentorship sessions with senior leaders.

The fellowship is designed as a wholistic two-year experience, structured to support both professional growth and career exploration:

In year one, our fellows spend approximately 75% of their time on client projects and 25% on learning about OMNI’s business, research methodologies, and career pathways. Midway through the first year, fellows meet with the program team to review their experiences, interests, and performance. If mutually agreed upon, fellows transition to the second year.

During year two, fellows will dedicate 90-95% of their time to client projects, with an expanded focus on research responsibilities.

By the end of the fellowship, fellows will be well-prepared to pursue research roles or advanced academic training. While we aim to offer opportunities for fellows to continue at OMNI as Research Associates after the fellowship concludes, these decisions depend on organizational needs, business conditions, and other factors.

Key Qualifications

• A passion for solving pressing social challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to work within an evaluation consulting environment and to meet our foundational Core3 requirements:
  • Commitment to timeliness and meeting deadlines in your work.
  • Comfort communicating and working within fluid and collaborative project teams.
  • A strong sense of personal ownership, self-direction, and accountability for your work.
• Alignment with our Core Values:
  • Connection: to hear, understand, and support your colleagues and your clients.
  • Agility: in how you think about and approach new challenges and novel solutions.
  • Inquiry: to look at information from different perspectives and learn from other approaches.
  • Accountability: to meet deadlines, receive & give candid and respectful feedback, and deliver your best work.
• Experience working collaboratively on project teams with a commitment to meeting timelines and communicating clearly and effectively. Our interdependent project work demands that our staff be able to meet timelines and communicate honestly and openly about their work.
• Some experience in, or exposure to, academic research with a sincere desire to explore a career in research and evaluation.
• A recent (2024 or 2025) bachelors degree.
• Experience with R programming language is highly desired.
• Bilingual in English and Spanish is a plus.

What this role will look like

In 90-days you will:

• Complete our on-boarding process to learn about how our business operates, how consulting in research and evaluation works, and the tools and systems we use to manage and execute our projects.
• Receive your initial project assignments, learn about key project goals and deliverables, understand your specific role supporting the project, and begin actively contributing to your project teams.
• Participate in our 90-day fellowship retrteat, held each September in Denver, where you will have the opportunity to meet with senior OMNI staff, connect with your cohort of fellows, connect with OMNI’s second year fellows, and spend time learning and participating in career development opportunities.

Some of what you will do as a first-year fellow:

• Participate in career learning opportunities provided by OMNI’s internal learning and development team, other research staff, our executive team, and other external resources and advisors.
• Make tangible contributions to consulting projects, such as:
  • Taking team notes in meetings, documenting next steps, setting action items, and following up on tasks
  • Reviewing and processing survey results
  • Helping to clean and analyze data
  • Managing and updating project work plans and timelines with your project leads; drafting, as appropriate, summary communications, agendas, or other project progress documents.
  • Contributing to and editing deliverables
• Attend client meetings with project leads; shadow leadership team members in client or proposal meetings; support staff leading partner interview processes in focus groups, community meetings, or other direct interactions with community partners.
• Engage in internal projects that support OMNI’s business such as supporting new proposal processes, best practice teams, or other special initiatives.

Diversity Statement

We encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply, particularly people of color, those who identify as LGBTQ+, first generation immigrants, those who were first in their families to attend college, and people who are from marginalized income backgrounds. https://www.omni.org/edi

As a proud equal opportunity workplace, we believe that a diverse team is fundamental to living our core values. The inclusion of diverse perspectives provides new ways of asking questions (Inquiry), fresh approaches to tackling challenges (Agility), inspiration to produce our best work (Accountability), and contribute to a greater shared understanding of our community and sense of connection among our staff and to our clients (Connection).

Salary & Benefits:

This is a full-time position with a starting annual salary of $51,500 plus benefits, which include:

• 100% employer-paid health premiums (employee coverage).
• Vision, dental, supplemental insurance.
• 401k with company match and immediate vesting.
• Flexible working schedules.
• PTO that begins with 3 weeks of PTO, 11 floating holidays, and annual office closures from Dec 24-Jan 1 and the first Friday of each quarter.
• Headspace EAP with access to coaching, therapy, and crisis intervention support for employees and their families.
• Monthly Tech stipend.

Please note that we do not negotiate salary and benefits as research indicates that negotiations disproportionately negatively impact applicants identifying as people of color, women, or with other marginalized identities.

Location:

This is a remote, flexible position within the continental US states. OMNI Institute’s headquarters is in Denver, CO where we maintain an office for staff to work from. Employees who choose not to work from OMNI’s office will need to have a suitable home office environment. Travel for this position will be limited; however, occasional travel (5% or less of the time) may be required for client project work or meetings and to participate in our annual fellowship gathering during September of each year of your fellowship.

About OMNI

OMNI Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit consultancy that works with nonprofit organizations, philanthropies, government agencies, and social ventures to accelerate positive social change toward a more equitable society. We provide research, evaluation, and capacity-building services through a 100% fee-for-service project-based consulting model. We have 50+ staff in our Denver HQ and in 17 other US States. Our primary focus areas include Community Health, Behavioral Health, Justice, Economic Security, and Children & Families.

Salary & Benefits:

The annual salary for this full-time position is $51,500 plus full benefits. We do not negotiate salary and benefits as research indicates these negotiations negatively and disproportionately impact applicants identifying as people of color, women, and other marginalized identities.

Some of our benefits include:

• 100% employer-paid employee health premiums
• Vision, dental, & supplemental insurance
• 401k with company match and immediate vesting
• Flexible working schedules
• 3 weeks of PTO, 11 floating holidays, annual office closures on the first Friday of April, July, and October, and an annual office closure for a winter break from December 24 through January 1.

This is a remote, flexible position within the continental US states. OMNI Institute’s headquarters is in Denver, CO where we maintain an office for staff to work from. Employees who choose not to work from OMNI’s office will need to have a suitable home office environment. Travel for this position will be limited; however, occasional travel (5% or less of the time) may be required for client project work or meetings and to participate in our annual fellowship gathering in September of each year.