Job
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Assessment
- Organization: RED NOSES Clowndoctors International
- Location: International
- Deadline: Sun Jul 26 2026
- Category: Monitoring and Evaluation
About this opportunity
## Background and purpose
[RED NOSES International (RNI)](https://rednoses.org/) is an international non-profit foundation using the art of healthcare clowning to promote emotional wellbeing, social inclusion and creative empowerment to people in need of joy. As part of its 2030 Strategy, RNI has committed to conducting its first-ever group-wide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Assessment. The assessment is intended to be practical, realistic and action-oriented: it will surface what is already working well across the network, identify risks and gaps, and propose a focused set of priority areas for the remainder of the strategy cycle.
RNI is commissioning an external evaluator or team to design and lead this assessment. Given the sensitivity and complexity of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion topics — and the importance of objectivity and cultural safety — external expertise is considered essential. At the same time, the RNI Research and Learning Department intends to remain actively involved as an operational partner throughout the process, retaining ownership of key decisions.
## Overview of RED NOSES International
RED NOSES International is a non-profit foundation with over 30 years of experience in healthcare clowning. It acts as the coordinating body for a network of 11 local RED NOSES organisations operating across Europe, Jordan and Palestine, with the [Emergency Smile programme](https://emergencysmile.rednoses.org/) extending to crisis-affected regions globally, coordinated by an International Office based in Vienna, Austria. Through the art of clowning, RED NOSES promotes emotional wellbeing, social inclusion and creative empowerment across four programme areas — Healthcare, Disability Inclusion, Older Citizens, and Humanitarian Response — delivered across different contexts: hospitals, care homes, schools and humanitarian settings.
RED NOSES brings together around 750 people — clown artists, programme and operational staff, and leadership teams at both national and international levels — across multiple countries and cultural contexts, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, with additional presence in Jordan, Palestine, and humanitarian settings worldwide. The network spans significant generational diversity, with long-standing staff and newer colleagues working side by side, sometimes under different contractual arrangements. The organisation's audiences are equally varied: children in hospitals, people with disabilities, older citizens living with dementia, individuals affected by crisis and displacement, and the professionals who support them. A further layer of complexity comes from the clown artistic work itself — the clown figure inherently plays with stereotypes, boundaries, and social norms, raising specific questions about how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion principles translate into practice on stage. This breadth of roles, contexts, cultures, generations, audiences, and clown artistic practice makes a DEI lens both essential and genuinely difficult to apply consistently across the whole organisation.
## About the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Assessment
RED NOSES has always been committed to the values of inclusion, respect and human dignity — these are embedded in our values and our programme work. However, the organisation has not yet conducted a systematic, group-wide review of how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is understood, practised and governed across its network.
This assessment is a genuine learning process — a first attempt to understand where RED NOSES stands on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: what is already working well, where there are risks and gaps, and what a realistic set of priorities for the 2030 strategy cycle could look like. Given that this is RNI's first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assessment, the scope and framing should be understood as exploratory. The evaluator will play an active role in helping RNI define and refine what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion means in its specific ecosystem, and in identifying which dimensions of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are most relevant and useful to examine.
### The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Panel
To strengthen the quality, relevance and inclusivity of the assessment, RNI intends to establish a **Diversity, Equity and Inclusion** **Advisory Panel** — a diverse group of office staff and clown artists drawn from across the RED NOSES network, representing different countries, functions, roles and lived experiences. The Panel will serve as a structured source of diverse internal perspectives throughout the evaluation: acting as informants, sounding boards and sense-making partners at key moments in the process.
The Advisory Panel will be established by RNI, with active guidance from the evaluator. Specifically, the evaluator will advise on how the Panel should be composed — recommending profiles and diversity criteria as well as the overall size of the Panel — and on how to minimise the risk of internal bias in the selection process. RNI will make the final decisions on Panel membership. Once the Panel is confirmed, the evaluator will be responsible for onboarding and engaging Panel members throughout the assessment, in coordination with the RNI team. The evaluator will also facilitate dedicated Panel sessions at key milestones — including an onboarding session at the start, a sense-making session during analysis, and a review session before the final report is produced.
### Objectives of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assessment
1. Build shared awareness and understanding of what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion means within the RED NOSES ecosystem — across teams, roles and local contexts.
2. Map existing DEI-related policies, practices and initiatives across countries, programmes and functions — including informal and grassroots initiatives.
3. Identify key DEI risks and harms (e.g., harassment, exclusion, representation gaps) and assess the effectiveness of current prevention and response mechanisms.
4. Identify opportunities and readiness to strengthen equity and inclusion across the network (e.g., diversity of clown artists as well as office staff, inclusive processes, equitable access to opportunities).
5. Propose a focused and realistic set of priority areas for the 2030 strategy cycle and recommend how to resource and govern them — in the form of a practical DEI roadmap.
6. Document the current state of DEI at RNI and recommend one or more DEI indicators suited to RNI's existing monitoring and evaluation culture to track future progress.
#### Key learning questions
The assessment should address the following questions. The evaluator may propose refinements during inception.
**On the current state of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:**
- What does Diversity, Equity and Inclusion currently mean across the RED NOSES network — how is it understood by office staff, clown artists and leadership, and how consistent is that understanding across countries and functions?
- What DEI-related policies, practices and initiatives already exist across the network — formal and informal — and what has been their impact?
- How do office staff, clown artists and leaders experience inclusion, equity and diversity in their day-to-day work? Where do people feel respected, heard and able to contribute — and where do they face barriers?
- What are the key DEI risks and harms across the network, and how effectively are current mechanisms preventing and responding to them?
**On representation and participation:**
- Who is present across functions, levels and geographies — and whose perspectives shape decisions?
- How diverse are the clown artist, operational and leadership teams across different dimensions (ethnicity, disability, gender, age, cultural background), and how does this vary across national contexts?
- Are there systemic barriers to participation, progression or access to opportunities for certain groups?
**On organisatio
[RED NOSES International (RNI)](https://rednoses.org/) is an international non-profit foundation using the art of healthcare clowning to promote emotional wellbeing, social inclusion and creative empowerment to people in need of joy. As part of its 2030 Strategy, RNI has committed to conducting its first-ever group-wide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Assessment. The assessment is intended to be practical, realistic and action-oriented: it will surface what is already working well across the network, identify risks and gaps, and propose a focused set of priority areas for the remainder of the strategy cycle.
RNI is commissioning an external evaluator or team to design and lead this assessment. Given the sensitivity and complexity of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion topics — and the importance of objectivity and cultural safety — external expertise is considered essential. At the same time, the RNI Research and Learning Department intends to remain actively involved as an operational partner throughout the process, retaining ownership of key decisions.
## Overview of RED NOSES International
RED NOSES International is a non-profit foundation with over 30 years of experience in healthcare clowning. It acts as the coordinating body for a network of 11 local RED NOSES organisations operating across Europe, Jordan and Palestine, with the [Emergency Smile programme](https://emergencysmile.rednoses.org/) extending to crisis-affected regions globally, coordinated by an International Office based in Vienna, Austria. Through the art of clowning, RED NOSES promotes emotional wellbeing, social inclusion and creative empowerment across four programme areas — Healthcare, Disability Inclusion, Older Citizens, and Humanitarian Response — delivered across different contexts: hospitals, care homes, schools and humanitarian settings.
RED NOSES brings together around 750 people — clown artists, programme and operational staff, and leadership teams at both national and international levels — across multiple countries and cultural contexts, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, with additional presence in Jordan, Palestine, and humanitarian settings worldwide. The network spans significant generational diversity, with long-standing staff and newer colleagues working side by side, sometimes under different contractual arrangements. The organisation's audiences are equally varied: children in hospitals, people with disabilities, older citizens living with dementia, individuals affected by crisis and displacement, and the professionals who support them. A further layer of complexity comes from the clown artistic work itself — the clown figure inherently plays with stereotypes, boundaries, and social norms, raising specific questions about how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion principles translate into practice on stage. This breadth of roles, contexts, cultures, generations, audiences, and clown artistic practice makes a DEI lens both essential and genuinely difficult to apply consistently across the whole organisation.
## About the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Assessment
RED NOSES has always been committed to the values of inclusion, respect and human dignity — these are embedded in our values and our programme work. However, the organisation has not yet conducted a systematic, group-wide review of how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is understood, practised and governed across its network.
This assessment is a genuine learning process — a first attempt to understand where RED NOSES stands on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: what is already working well, where there are risks and gaps, and what a realistic set of priorities for the 2030 strategy cycle could look like. Given that this is RNI's first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assessment, the scope and framing should be understood as exploratory. The evaluator will play an active role in helping RNI define and refine what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion means in its specific ecosystem, and in identifying which dimensions of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are most relevant and useful to examine.
### The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Panel
To strengthen the quality, relevance and inclusivity of the assessment, RNI intends to establish a **Diversity, Equity and Inclusion** **Advisory Panel** — a diverse group of office staff and clown artists drawn from across the RED NOSES network, representing different countries, functions, roles and lived experiences. The Panel will serve as a structured source of diverse internal perspectives throughout the evaluation: acting as informants, sounding boards and sense-making partners at key moments in the process.
The Advisory Panel will be established by RNI, with active guidance from the evaluator. Specifically, the evaluator will advise on how the Panel should be composed — recommending profiles and diversity criteria as well as the overall size of the Panel — and on how to minimise the risk of internal bias in the selection process. RNI will make the final decisions on Panel membership. Once the Panel is confirmed, the evaluator will be responsible for onboarding and engaging Panel members throughout the assessment, in coordination with the RNI team. The evaluator will also facilitate dedicated Panel sessions at key milestones — including an onboarding session at the start, a sense-making session during analysis, and a review session before the final report is produced.
### Objectives of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assessment
1. Build shared awareness and understanding of what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion means within the RED NOSES ecosystem — across teams, roles and local contexts.
2. Map existing DEI-related policies, practices and initiatives across countries, programmes and functions — including informal and grassroots initiatives.
3. Identify key DEI risks and harms (e.g., harassment, exclusion, representation gaps) and assess the effectiveness of current prevention and response mechanisms.
4. Identify opportunities and readiness to strengthen equity and inclusion across the network (e.g., diversity of clown artists as well as office staff, inclusive processes, equitable access to opportunities).
5. Propose a focused and realistic set of priority areas for the 2030 strategy cycle and recommend how to resource and govern them — in the form of a practical DEI roadmap.
6. Document the current state of DEI at RNI and recommend one or more DEI indicators suited to RNI's existing monitoring and evaluation culture to track future progress.
#### Key learning questions
The assessment should address the following questions. The evaluator may propose refinements during inception.
**On the current state of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:**
- What does Diversity, Equity and Inclusion currently mean across the RED NOSES network — how is it understood by office staff, clown artists and leadership, and how consistent is that understanding across countries and functions?
- What DEI-related policies, practices and initiatives already exist across the network — formal and informal — and what has been their impact?
- How do office staff, clown artists and leaders experience inclusion, equity and diversity in their day-to-day work? Where do people feel respected, heard and able to contribute — and where do they face barriers?
- What are the key DEI risks and harms across the network, and how effectively are current mechanisms preventing and responding to them?
**On representation and participation:**
- Who is present across functions, levels and geographies — and whose perspectives shape decisions?
- How diverse are the clown artist, operational and leadership teams across different dimensions (ethnicity, disability, gender, age, cultural background), and how does this vary across national contexts?
- Are there systemic barriers to participation, progression or access to opportunities for certain groups?
**On organisatio
Monitoring and Evaluation
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