Director of Direct Response

The Director of Direct Response is responsible for developing strategies to cultivate, retain and upgrade Defenders’ supporters. The Director will take an active role in developing the short and long-term plans to retain and upgrade donors while meeting the revenue goals of our direct mail, canvassing and telemarketing channels. The Director will be a creative thinking individual who embraces continuous process improvement and innovation and is detail-oriented and data-driven. This position is expected to coordinate closely across all departments, internally and externally, to ensure campaign coordination, exceptional donor stewardship and fundraising best practices.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Partner with the Vice President of Integrated Marketing to establish membership performance goals and priorities including the development of an annual budget to reflect both revenue and expenses for Defenders’ fundraising programs; coordinate with other stakeholders withing Integrated Marketing to maximize ROI (Return on Investment), donor conversion and retention.
• Partner with peers across Marketing and Communications to optimize omnichannel messaging, testing and design strategies with an emphasis on the member journey to improve donor value and retention.
  • Influence and execute donor journeys to grow and diversify membership and provide input and results to understand impact against multiple departmental priorities.
• Lead Defenders of Wildlife’s fundraising campaigns via direct mail, email, mobile, telemarketing, paid digital advertising and canvassing, including:
  • Manage Defenders’ internal fundraising team members and external fundraising vendors to support campaigns and ensure fundraising best practices.
  • Set messaging priorities, determine campaign strategies, testing priorities and audience segmentation to meet fundraising goals.
  • Create and execute campaign and testing plans to meet annual budget.
  • Identify key audiences and ensure processes and resources are in place to steward them appropriately across channels.
  • Accept accountability for the quality and accuracy of all outbound content.
  • Evaluate campaign performance against the performance benchmarks.
• Lead Defenders’ mid-level giving program including developing strategies to achieve the budget goals and ensure a continuous pipeline in and out of the mid-level program to ensure effectiveness.
• Manage the strategy and execution of non-traditional and emerging channels, including:
  • Event Conversion: promote membership across the organization and provide the strategy and tools needed to support Member conversion at Defenders’ in-person and virtual events
  • Workplace Giving: oversee Defenders’ workplace giving efforts, including but not limited to EarthShare, to ensure Defenders is participating in workplace giving efforts and that our brand is represented appropriately.
• Lead member stewardship across all channels. Work with the Integrated Marketing team to proactively address membership needs and expectations, coordinate welcome and acknowledgement processes online and offline, ensure the fulfillment of back-end premiums and help craft talking points and responses when crises arise.

• Foster an organizational culture which models the tenets of Defenders’ Commitment Statement; support management cohort, providing insights and feedback on issues impacting the organization.
• Facilitate and promote the integration of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice strategies.
• Perform all other related duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Bachelor’s (B.A./B.S.) degree or equivalent

Experience: 10 years of relevant experience; 5 years supervisory experience

An equivalent combination of education and experience may be accepted as a satisfactory substitute for the specific education and experience listed above.