Donor Lifecycle Marketing Manager

Main areas of focus: Donor Retention, Recurring Giving, Upgrades & Additional Gifts, Multichannel Marketing

Location: Remote - U.S. only; Nashville preferred

Eligibility: 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.

JOB SUMMARY

As Donor Lifecycle Marketing Manager, you'll own the donor journey after the first gift and be responsible for growing the lifetime value of charity: water's consumer donor base. You'll spend most of your time designing, launching, and optimizing multichannel lifecycle programs across email, SMS, paid media, and direct mail, including onboarding and welcome journeys, stewardship and impact touchpoints, failed-payment recovery, upgrade asks, and additional-gift campaigns. You'll treat retention as both a science and a craft: segmenting donors thoughtfully, testing relentlessly, and making sure every message feels personal and meaningful.

This role sits on the Marketing & Growth team and reports to the Director of Consumer. You'll work closely with the Creative, Partnerships, Social, and RevOps teams to hit retention and revenue goals.

YOU'LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR…

• 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

YOU MUST HAVE…

• 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

IT'S AN ADDED PLUS IF YOU HAVE…

• 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'LL BE SUCCESSFUL IF…

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.

TEAM OVERVIEW

The Marketing & Partnerships team is a deeply passionate and highly skilled group of storytellers, marketers, and makers. We create innovative campaigns, craft powerful stories, and deliver world-class experiences to help the world, along with our amazing community of supporters, become more aware of the global water crisis and inspire them to join us in our mission to end it.