The Opportunity
OPB is hiring a Senior Director, Membership to succeed our long serving leader who is retiring after a long and transformational tenure. The person in this role will lead one of the most effective Sustainer-based fundraising programs and teams in public media as we boldly write the next chapter of our public service for communities across Oregon and southwest Washington.
OPB is a national leader in public media; our growing, multi-channel membership program of more than 164,000 supporter households annually contributes nearly $28 million, aligning with and powering our public service journalism mission. We seek a driven innovator with sharp marketing instincts and an eye for emerging opportunities at scale. Our Senior Director will be a highly effective strategist, people leader and collaborator, relentlessly focused on building member relationships and revenue from highly engaged audiences across every audience channel and touchpoint.
This team, along with colleagues in Philanthropy and Sponsorship will drive the long-term growth, excellence and sustainability of OPB’s public service journalism and KMHD Jazz Without Boundaries.
Position Summary
The Senior Director, Membership leads the strategic development, implementation and analysis of a comprehensive, multi-channel, data-informed Membership program. The Senior Director leads and coaches a team of professionals overseeing membership giving programs, digital fundraising and a retention-focused member/audience service team.
The Senior Director is a collaboration leader and champion for membership fundraising best practices across the organization and a strategic voice in enterprise conversations about audience engagement and conversion.
Areas of Responsibility
35% – Fundraising strategy and leadership: Provide vision and high-level strategy to focus and drive a comprehensive, Sustainer-based, multichannel membership program aligned with organizational strategy. Create and support development of compelling messaging, enticing incentives and effective calls to action across program features and communications. Identify opportunities to test and innovate to maximize revenue and member acquisition and retention at scale. Informed by actionable data, the program includes fundraising from all audience platforms including an emerging digital focus, direct mail, telemarketing, canvassing, vehicle donations, workplace/matching gift programs. Provide high-level direction for donor retention strategies and practices, building a strong-affinity member experience through service, engagement and communications. Integrate effectively with other Development teams (Operations, Philanthropy, Campaign and Sponsorship) to maximize effectiveness and shared success in fundraising efforts and to build optimal lifetime giving relationships with our members.
Contribute to the organization’s culture of philanthropy by building an understanding of our program (test-and-learn outcomes, awareness of how we fundraise, performance, opportunities and challenges), strategy and outcomes with staff and volunteers.
Explore and develop opportunities for innovation and new membership revenue streams; prioritize and identify activities to de-prioritize or stop in favor of critical growth potential.
20% – Collaborative leadership: Provide internal enterprise teams with leadership and expertise to build revenue effectiveness across audience platforms. Contribute expertise, insights and partnership to the Development Leadership Team.
20% – People leadership and development: Lead, coach and motivate a highly effective and skilled Membership team. Provide staff with regular, specific feedback and motivation. Identify opportunities for staff to build skills that maximize membership fundraising and professional growth. Provide leadership, collaboration and support to enable direct reports and teams to do their best work on digital fundraising, membership giving programs (acquisition, upgrade and retention), and member/audience services. Lead or advise recruitment and training, assess and evolve roles to support individual and team growth, revenue effectiveness and alignment with organizational strategy and priorities. Foster connection within and beyond the Membership team.
15% – Program metrics and analysis: Working with program leads, develop revenue projections and fundraising budgets that maximize effectiveness, and align with strategy and priorities. Define success of multi-channel campaigns and initiatives and lead comprehensive data analysis to evaluate overall program performance and prioritize resources for future growth. Collaborate with peers in public media and other non-profit sectors to continually improve best practices through benchmarking and shared learning.
5% – Compliance: Ensure compliance requirements are met for member accountability and regulatory requirements; provide relevant internal and external reporting. Select and evaluate vendors and consultants for ROI and service. Work with internal partners (Legal, Finance teams and others) on contracts, data security, state registration and other compliance requirements.
5% – Other duties: Participation in staff committees and other assignments.
This position directly supervises three positions: Director, Membership Fundraising and Retention; Director, Digital Membership; and Member Experience Manager.
Minimum Position Requirements
- 7 years (full-time) of demonstrated success and increasing responsibilities leading large scale and complex multi-channel direct-response fundraising including digital engagement and conversion. Expertise in strategic campaign development, effective message development, copy writing for call to action and stewardship communications, data management, testing and integration of leading technologies.
- Demonstrated success in consistent growth of member acquisition, retention and revenue.
- At least 5 years of effective supervision and team leadership experience.
- ROI-driven project and budget management and complex revenue analysis and projection experience, able to identify and make the case for new opportunities for revenue growth and articulate a business case for prioritization and investment.
- Ability to lead, inspire and build constructive partnerships with colleagues in a creative, collaborative, cross-functional, dynamic and fast-paced environment.
- Effective prioritization, organization, time management, and teamwork skills.
- Skill in leading people effectively through change—adopting new data-informed approaches, creating efficiencies and implementing new and emerging technologies, creating conditions that support innovation and nimbleness (including decisive de-prioritization).
- Demonstrated marketing acumen and understanding of what motivates people to support a non-profit mission; a talent for business and creative marketing communications; a passion for mission-focused marketing and fundraising.
- Effective solutions focus, skilled in team building around a common purpose, systems thinking, and pursuit of constant improvement.
- A clear and empathetic communicator with exceptional listening skills, internal/external service skills.
- Demonstrated understanding of fundraising business tools including strategic CRM ecosystems, high proficiency in Microsoft Office products and project management software.
- Demonstrated ability to work well with diverse personalities and varying levels of knowledge/experience.
- Demonstrated ability to successfully manage and support multiple projects (that this position and direct reports lead); and balance and prioritize concurrent priorities.
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced working environment and an industry experiencing significant change, and take initiative, balancing multiple priorities with speed and accuracy.
- Enthusiasm for the mission and organizational values of OPB and desire to engage in work with positive impact every day through public service to our region.
Preferred Position Requirements
- Experience in fundraising for media organizations.
- Experience with Salesforce-based CRM environments.
- Knowledge and practical experience in ethical, impactful incorporation of AI in fundraising and donor engagement and AI governance frameworks.
- ROI and data-informed experience with effective event strategies for member engagement and conversion.
Additional Information
This position reports to the Senior VP and Chief Development Officer and is benefits eligible.
The probable hiring range for this exempt position is between $120,000 – $140,000 annually, depending on qualifications.
This position has access to highly sensitive data and therefore must pass a background check.