Manager, Mid-Level Giving & Travel (Annual Giving)

How You’ll Contribute

The Advancement team identifies, cultivates, solicits, and stewards individuals, as well as foundation, government, and corporate partners who invest in the Society to drive impact through science, technology, education, exploration, and storytelling. The team collaborates across the Society – and often works closely with NGP/Disney – to build transformative and impact-driven strategic partnerships. The team also produces global events that deepen connections and leverage the Society’s power to convene, and directs robust annual, major, and planned giving programs empowering the Society with a broad base of public support.

The Annual Giving and Membership (AGM) team manages a high impact annual giving and membership program through integrated and data-driven marketing and communications campaigns across all channels, a high-touch mid-level program, and a best-in-class donor relations and stewardship program to directly support the work of the Society.

Reporting to and working closely with the Senior Manager, Annual Giving the Manager will help implement our strategic plan to grow our robust, evolving “Grosvenor Council” mid-level donor program. The Manager will help meet revenue goals for the National Geographic Society across direct mail, email, telemarketing and other channels. In addition, this position will have a strong focus on collaborating with the NGS travel partners to execute the strategic plans of those partnerships, including optimizing donor stewardship, implementing specialized benefits, and growing engagement programs and tactics.

Your Impact

Responsibilities Include:

Management and Execution - Direct Response (40%)

• Manage the midlevel direct response program for current and past donors who have participated in partner travel programs by implementing a blend of cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship tactics.
• Create and distribute print and digital donor communications including newsletters, a welcome series, and personal outreach to deepen relationships and highlight conservation impact and programs.
• Drive program evolution and build the pipeline for Major Gifts and Planned Giving by using analytics to identify opportunities for optimization and deeper donor engagement. Contribute to annual planning, budgeting, and forecasting and help develop key donor and program milestones.
• Ensure collaboration and connection with other Member and Grosvenor Council plans to acquire, cultivate, renew, and increase donor support through personal engagements and solicitations, direct marketing, sustainers, online gifts, planned giving and estate gifts, signature events and other solicitation strategies.
• Build compelling milestones in collaboration with internal teams and travel partners, including participation benefits, stewardship tactics, affinity messaging, and an engaging community for donor travelers to connect with.

Travel Program Management (40%)

• Serve as internal lead for all Travel related fundraising outreach, programs, and objectives, working closely with Senior Manager to define, optimize, and build this function.
• Manage new program campaigns and collaborate on key messaging and outreach with travel partners that inspire and feed into donor acquisition and retention.
• Ensure internal NGS teams are connected to the overall travel partner strategy and aligned on key goals and objectives in areas including revenue, retention, data sharing, privacy, communications, fulfillment, as well as key NGS successes and programmatic impacts.
• Handle day-to-day partner relationships and coordination with key contacts, taking projects from creative development, strategy refinement, and goal-setting to completion on-time and ensuring appropriate threads across omnichannel campaigns.
• Champion the travel partners and programs with diverse NGS internal departments and external vendors as needed, creating and achieving key goals and objectives, recurring and ad-hoc touch points, all while elevating the benefits and messaging related to these partnerships.

Program Analysis (15%)

• Track performance of each channel to identify trends and insights that will impact ability to meet/exceed goals. This includes requesting, reviewing, and maintaining performance reports as well as interpreting donor behavior, results, trends, testing outcomes, etc. and infusing results into future tactics and plans.
• Monitor and continually improve the movement of donors into higher touch fundraising programs.
• Recommend thoughtful packages and testing, incorporation of industry best practices, program and campaign improvements.
• Manage budget and resources for specific channels accordingly.

Perform Other Duties as Assigned (5%)

What You’ll Bring

Educational Background

Bachelor’s degree preferred.

Minimum Years and Type of Experience

5+ years of fundraising experience with donor and donor program management and gift solicitation, including a proven track record of project management and working with internal and external partners.

Necessary Knowledge and Skills

• Demonstrated ability to successfully manage a blended donor treatment strategy and elevate donors to increase giving, and to identify and upgrade donors.
• Strong project management and relationship management skills.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a goal- and deadline-oriented team environment. Must be self-directed and able to work confidently and successfully in a fast-paced, rapidly expanding operation within a dynamic, multi-faceted organization.
• Must be service- and solutions-oriented.
• Excellent communicator driven by a sense of urgency towards inspiring donors
• Proactive, self-motivated and capable of working in a fast-paced development operation to drive activity that achieves or exceeds individual and team goals
• Collaborative approach to working with colleagues across multiple diverse teams
• Ability to maintain high standards of confidentiality.
• Ability to relate to people of diverse backgrounds, training, and experience.
• Strong personal and professional integrity.
• Solid working knowledge of Raiser's Edge (or similar) database
• Flexible thinker who can shift as needed to address new priorities within a growing division and organization, understanding that other duties will be required to ensure the fundraising program continues to grow.

Supervision

No Direct Reports

Salary Information

The National Geographic Society offers a competitive and holistic total rewards package. Our compensation structure and transparent pay philosophy are based on industry-specific market data for similar-sized nonprofit organizations.

The salary range for this position accounts for a wide range of factors including but not limited to organizational need; specific skill sets; experience and training; certifications; and more. At the National Geographic Society, individuals are typically hired at or near the starting point of the salary range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.

The salary range for this position is $96,900 - $102,000.

Job Designation

Hybrid - At the Society, we believe in the advantages of coming together to build community, mentor and learn from colleagues, and connect more deeply with our mission. As a result, the majority of our staff are Hybrid. Our Hybrid category requires that staff work at Base Camp two days each week: every Tuesday and Wednesday. Hybrid staff are also always welcome to come in additional days each week if preferred.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match with the position. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.

In addition, the National Geographic Society offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits package that includes, but is not limited to, medical, dental, and vision insurance; engaging and comprehensive wellness program; 401(k) retirement savings plan with matching contributions after 6 months of employment; flexible paid time off benefits with up to 22 days of paid annual leave per calendar year (15 days for new hires in their first year, prorated based on the number of pay periods remaining in the year) and 10 days of sick leave; 12 paid holidays and a paid winter break between December 25 and 31; paid parental leave, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility benefits; learning and development opportunities; Lifestyle Spending Account; pet adoption assistance and insurance; pre-tax transportation benefits with a generous employer subsidy; employer-paid life insurance and disability benefit; and a variety of National Geographic discounts and perks.