Reporting to the Senior Director, Annual Giving, the Senior Manager, Annual Giving will lead and manage campaign strategy and program execution from campaign concepting through to implementation, offline new donor acquisition, lapsed reinstatement, and donor retention. Manage Annual Giving program agency of record to plan and implement fundraising campaigns, manage internal stakeholders through campaign review and approval, track and analyze campaign results, file trends, and recommend tests and improvements to increase campaign and program performance. Lead and participate in regular meetings with internal and external stakeholders and direct and manage with external fundraising strategic partners.
Four Principal Responsibilities
Lead New Donor Acquisition Campaigns: 45%
- Create donor acquisition strategy and plan to achieve fundraising program growth and performance goals, identifying best ways to find and convert new donors using traditional direct mail techniques in addition to unique organizational assets
- Lead strategy creation and execution of all aspects of ongoing new donor offline acquisition campaigns
- Play key role in creating nontraditional new donor pathways in the department’s collaboration with National Geographic Society and Partners departments (such as Museums, Store, and Travel), finding new ways of identifying, attracting, converting, and retaining supporters.
- Work with Event Managers and Senior Director of Annual Giving to create and implement follow-up strategies to capture prospective donors attending events.
New and Continuing Donor Resolicitation and Stewardship: 40%
- Create and implement new donor campaign strategies to integrate new donors into the overall annual giving cycle and increase their giving and retention over time
- Lead execution of direct response retention and upgrade strategy and implementation of core offline donor retention campaigns, including Appeals, Rolling Renewal series, Lapsed Reactivation, Telemarketing, Sustainer program, and digital integration
- Collaborate within the Annual Giving team, and more broadly across the Partnerships department to create and implement stewardship and cultivation plans including, but not limited to, quarterly stewardship mailings (annual reports, stewardship reports), donation acknowledgments in compliance with legal and donor experience standards, fulfillment, etc.
Program Analysis: 10%
- Track and analyze effectiveness of all new donor acquisition and retention campaigns strategy. Interpret giving statistics, donor behavior, trends, success, testing, and outcomes, working with Senior Director of Annual Giving and program partners to create strategies and tactics to optimize short and long term donor value and achieve program performance goals
- Recommend thoughtful testing, incorporation of industry best practices, program and campaign improvements and re-design strategies based on analysis to ensure campaign strategy and performance goals are met
Miscellaneous Program Tasks as Needed: 5%
Minimum Education Required
Bachelor's degree, with study in fundraising, nonprofit management, business, economics, or communications preferred.
Minimum Years and Type of Experience
7+ years of experience in direct response fundraising, including acquisition, renewal, appeal, and monthly giving sub-programs within mail and telemarketing channels, .
Knowledge and Skills Required
Candidates should have a proven track record of progressively increasing responsibility in most or all of the following areas: strategic campaign planning, managing all aspects of multichannel direct response campaigns: understanding of strategy and how to ensure campaign tactics meet program goals, fundamental knowledge of effective fundraising and stewardship copy and creative, mail production including package speccing and USPS nonprofit mail types and processes, campaign data selects and data quality control, fundraising best practices, ability to read, troubleshoot, and act upon campaign performance reporting. Ability to effectively manage external vendors and consultants to create, review, and implement all of the above aspects of direct response campaigns. Successful candidates should be professional, self-motivated, deadline-oriented, and capable of working proactively and managing multiple priorities. Successful experience working collaboratively with colleagues across multiple diverse teams, and committed to driving activity that achieves or exceeds individual and team goals. Must be energetic, self-directed and able to work confidently and successfully in a fast-paced development operation. Candidates should be politically astute, dynamic people driven by a sense of urgency towards inspiring donors and meeting program budgets and goals. Solid working knowledge of Raiser's Edge (or similar) database preferred.