Role Description The Strategic Marketing Director 1 serves as the primary intake and strategic marketing partner for assigned account managers across Programs and Foundation Partnerships Directors. This role brings together campaign intake, strategic planning, and cross-functional coordination to ensure marketing work is aligned to customer needs, fundraising objectives, and organizational priorities. This position partners closely with account owners and internal teams to develop thoughtful, insight-driven marketing plans that support the full marketing funnel, from awareness to engagement to donation and retention. The Marketing Strategist brings fresh ideas and strategic perspective to each partnership, collaborates on action plans to increase customer engagement and fundraising performance, and works with Creative Services and other internal partners to deliver high-quality marketing that advances defined objectives. Core Duties - Strategic Intake and Account Partnership: Serve as the primary marketing intake partner for assigned account managers across Corporate Partnerships, Programs, Foundation Partners, and Business Development. Build strong relationships with internal stakeholders to understand business goals, customer needs, timing, and success measures. - Strategic Marketing Planning: Collaboratively develop marketing strategies and action plans that engage partner employees, customers, and participants, and increase donations. Bring fresh thinking, market perspective, and strong judgment to identify opportunities and recommend approaches that align with fundraising and brand objectives. - Full-Funnel Campaign Development: Develop and guide marketing plans that support the full customer journey, including awareness, consideration, engagement, conversion, and donation. Ensure strategies are tailored to audience needs and channel opportunities. - Creative Briefing and Execution Partnership: Partner with Creative Services and other internal teams to translate strategy into clear briefs, priorities, and deliverables. Support the development of high-quality creative work that delivers against defined strategic objectives and reflects CMN brand standards. - Cross-Functional Campaign Coordination: Coordinate with account owners, creative services, marketing, and enterprise partners to keep work aligned, moving forward, and responsive to changing business needs. Help manage multiple workstreams while maintaining clarity, consistency, and focus on results. - Secure Donated Media: Collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to ideate, pitch, and secure donated media opportunities that elevate brand visibility. Additional Duties - Campaign Performance and Optimization: Review results, partner feedback, and available data, in real-time when available, to assess campaign effectiveness and recommend improvements that strengthen customer engagement and fundraising outcomes. - Customer-Centered Planning: Apply knowledge of customer goals, market trends, and nonprofit fundraising strategies to shape practical and effective recommendations. - Marketing Writing: Leverage brand messaging architecture to develop compelling, audience-specific messaging that supports strategic marketing initiatives. - Brand Stewardship: Ensure marketing strategies and campaign recommendations align with CMN brand standards, messaging priorities, and audience expectations. - Project and Workflow Support: Help clarify priorities, scope, timelines, and next steps so projects move efficiently from intake through delivery. - Internal Consultation: Provide strategic marketing guidance to internal stakeholders and help teams make informed decisions about channels, messaging, and campaign direction. - Innovation and Continuous Improvement: Identify new ideas, tools, and approaches that improve campaign effectiveness, simplify work, and create better partner experiences. - Training and Enablement Support: Contribute to tools, templates, and resources that help account managers and internal teams engage effectively in the marketing planning process. - Vendor and Partner Coordination: Support work with outside vendors or agency partners when needed to advance campaign planning or execution. - Horizon Scanning: Stay up to date on latest market, partner, and industry trends that may impact marketing and fundraising opportunities. - Travel: Attend and support key partner and program events & partner planning/pitching meetings. - Customer Experience Mapping: Leverage techniques such as journey mapping, pilot testing, and customer feedback to understand pain points and improve the effectiveness of programs. Ensure that programs deliver a seamless, meaningful experience to external partners and internal teams. - Data-Driven Performance Strategy: Lead regular campaign retrospectives to analyze performance, capture key learnings, and continuously refine strategies to improve engagement and fundraising outcomes. Qualifications - Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Business Administration, or a related field. Requirements - 5+ years of relevant experience in marketing strategy, account management, campaign strategy, brand marketing, fundraising marketing, or related work. - Experience partnering with internal or external clients to develop strategic marketing plans tied to business objectives. - Experience working across cross-functional teams and managing multiple priorities at once. - Experience translating business needs into marketing recommendations, campaign direction, and creative execution. Preferred Qualifications - Experience in an agency account role or in a strategic marketing role supporting a product line, customer portfolio, or fundraising program. - Experience in nonprofit marketing, fundraising strategy, campaign development, or partner marketing. - Experience working with creative teams to develop briefs, shape deliverables, and execute integrated campaigns. - Experience supporting marketing strategy across multiple audiences or stakeholder groups. Benefits - Health Insurance: Medical, dental, and vision coverage. - Retirement Plans: 403(b) with generous organizational contributions. - Paid Time Off (PTO): Tiered by tenure. - Family and Medical Leave: In compliance with FMLA and applicable state laws. - Disability and Life Insurance: Short- and long-term disability coverage, and employer-paid life insurance. - Additional Benefits: Employee assistance programs, wellness initiatives, and professional development opportunities. Values We are deeply committed to upholding our core values of Integrity, Courage, Collaboration, Accountability, and Excellence. These values guide everything we do, from how we support our employees and partners to how we interact with our communities. Joining our team means embracing these values and contributing to a brighter future for children everywhere. Competencies - Business insight: Applying knowledge of business and the marketplace to advance the organization’s goals. - Customer focus: Building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions. - Strategic mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies. - Communicates effectively: Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences. - Plans and aligns: Planning and prioritizing work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals. - Manages complexity: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems. - Drives results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances. - Ensures accountability: Holding self and others accountable to meet commitments. - Situational Adaptability: Adapts approach and demeanor in real time to match the shifting demands of different situations. - Interpersonal Savvy: Relates comfortably with people across levels, functions, culture, and geography, acts with diplomacy and tact; builds rapport in an open, friendly, and accepting way; builds constructive relationships with people both similar and different to self; picks up on interpersonal and group dynamics. Job Location This role is eligible to be a remote position but employment is only available to individuals living in the following states: AL, AZ, AR, CO, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NM, NC, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY. Currently, we limit eligible states for new remote positions to those where we already have established operations. This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications associated with the job. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.