Donor Lifecycle Marketing Manager (Remote)

charity: water is hiring a Donor Lifecycle Marketing Manager to grow the lifetime value of its consumer donor base. The role owns donor retention, upgrades, and additional-gift programs, designing and optimizing multichannel lifecycle campaigns and journeys.

Responsibilities:

• Owning retention, upgrade, and additional-gift strategy for charity: water's recurring (The Spring) and one-time donors, with clear accountability for retention rate, average gift, upgrade rate, and donor lifetime value
• Building and managing automated lifecycle journeys, including welcome and onboarding series, anniversary and milestone moments, impact updates, lapse prevention, and win-back programs
• Planning and executing multichannel campaigns across email, SMS, paid social and search retargeting, and direct mail, making sure each channel plays a distinct and coordinated role
• Developing upgrade programs that invite recurring donors to increase their monthly gift at the right moments, and additional-gift appeals timed around key moments like year-end and World Water Day
• Reducing involuntary churn by partnering with RevOps on failed-payment recovery, card updater tools, and payment-method outreach
• Partnering with the paid media team and agency partners on retention and reactivation campaigns, contributing to audience strategy, creative testing, and performance insights
• Collaborating with the direct mail team and vendors on programs for recurring and multi-year donors, providing input on audience selection, messaging, and timelines, and helping analyze results
• Designing and running a disciplined testing roadmap across subject lines, ask amounts, timing, creative, and channel mix, and turning results into lasting improvements
• Partnering with RevOps to build segmentation and reporting that tracks cohort retention, channel performance, and revenue attribution
• Collaborating with Creative to develop compelling donor-facing storytelling that connects supporters to the impact of their giving
• Identifying high-potential donors from recurring and mid-level segments and handing them off to Key Relationships Managers for personal cultivation
• Managing agency and vendor relationships, as well as program budgets and timelines
• Staying current on trends in lifecycle marketing, recurring giving, and nonprofit fundraising, and bringing new ideas to the team

Requirements:

• At this time, we are only considering candidates who are eligible to work in the United States without the need of company sponsorship now or in the future
• 4–6 years of experience in lifecycle, retention, CRM, or digital fundraising marketing, with a track record of measurably improving retention or donor value
• Hands-on experience running programs across at least three of these channels: email, SMS, paid media, direct mail
• Experience building automated journeys in an email or marketing automation platform (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Iterable, Marketo, Klaviyo, HubSpot)
• Strong analytical skills and comfort working with data to segment audiences, read test results, and make decisions
• Excellent writing skills and a sharp instinct for what makes a message land
• Strong project management skills and the ability to juggle multiple campaigns and deadlines
• A passion for charity: water's mission and a genuine interest in the people who support it
• Nashville preferred
• Experience with recurring or subscription programs, whether in the nonprofit sector or at a subscription business
• Channel-specific experience in direct mail fundraising (including lettershops and list vendors) or SMS platforms and compliance requirements
• Familiarity with Salesforce NPSP, Iterable, JIRA, SQL, or data visualization tools like Looker or Tableau
• You're obsessed with the donor experience
• You think about the whole journey, not just the next send. You want every supporter to feel appreciated, informed, and connected to the impact they're making
• You're data-driven but story-led
• You let the numbers guide your decisions, but you know that retention is ultimately about emotion and connection. You balance rigorous testing with great storytelling
• You think in systems
• You build programs that scale and improve over time, not one-off campaigns. You spot gaps in the journey and fix them
• You're a strong collaborator
• You work well across teams and can rally creative, data, and fundraising partners around shared goals
• You're a self-starter
• You're organized and proactive, and you take ownership of results without needing to be told what to do next