Position Overview

Organization: Covenant House Toronto

Title: Manager, Digital Fundraising

Reports to: Associate Director, Direct Response

Team: Two

Location: 20 Gerrard Street East, Toronto (Hybrid: 3x a week in office)

Is This You?

Are you motivated by the opportunity to significantly change the landscape for youth experiencing or are at-risk of homelessness and sex trafficking? Are you passionate about helping young people deal with the challenges of growing up in today’s complex, ever-changing world?

You are an ambitious digital fundraiser who is looking for an opportunity to drive significant impact. The idea of joining an organization where significant investment is about to be made into digital – that you would be directly responsible for overseeing, strategizing, and ultimately ‘owning’, excites you.

Executive Summary

Covenant House helps youth ignite their potential and reclaim their lives. As Canada’s largest agency serving youth who are homeless, trafficked or at risk, they offer the widest range of services to hundreds of young people every day. More than a place to stay, they provide 24/7 crisis shelter and transitional housing on-site and in the community, along with comprehensive services including education, counselling, health care, employment assistance, job training and after-care.

As a national leader, they educate and advocate for long-term change to improve the lives of vulnerable youth. This includes influencing public policy, leading awareness and prevention programs and continually building and sharing knowledge. As a learning organization ,they strive for excellence and programs with impact.

Vision: To lead change to support and empower youth who are homeless, trafficked or at risk to pursue a life of wellness and opportunity.

Covenant House Toronto is part of a 34-city network across North and Central America and headquartered in New York City. With principles of Immediacy, Sanctuary, Values Communication, Structure, and Choice, it offers a covenant: it promises to care for and support every youth with respect and unconditional love; in return, each youth commits to working on a plan towards their goals.

Since 1982, Covenant House Toronto has served more than 100,000 young people and helped them move from a life on the street to a life with a future. Donors provide 75 to 80 per cent of Covenant House Toronto’s $44.2M (and growing) annual operating budget. The Toronto operation is one of the largest and successful sites in the federation.

Covenant House Toronto has a new five-year strategic plan that will focus on stemming the flow into homelessness, move young people out of crisis and into the community sooner and provide options for young people who do not need to be in a crisis shelter.  These efforts will focus on preventing and reducing homelessness amongst the youth population.

Recognizing the Scale of the problem

Across Canada, in communities big and small, vulnerable young people find themselves with no home – couch-surfing, staying in shelters, squats, on the street, or in alleys, doorways, or parks.

• On any given night in Canada, up to 6,000 youth are homeless – aged 13 to 24, representing 20 per cent of Canada’s homeless population
• 40 per cent of homeless youth first experience homelessness before the age of 16
• Many youth who are homeless also face discrimination in addition to other trauma
• 30 per cent of youth who are homeless identify as LGBTQS+
• 31 per cent identify as indigenous
• 28 per cent identify as members of racialized communities
• 85 per cent have experienced a high level of distress related to their mental health
• 42 per cent reported at least one suidice attempt
• 80 per cent had left home because of family conflict; 83 per cent had been bullied at school
• 60 per cent of homeless youth are victims of violent crime
• 38 per cent of female homeless youths are victims of sexual violence and are also the most likely victims of sex trafficking

Although female youth experiencing homelessness are at a high risk of being sex trafficked, sex trafficking can happen to anyone and it is a domestic crime.

Recognizing the Individual

When a youth first comes to Covenant House, they are usually hungry and exhausted. Youth are given a couch to relax on, food to eat, a hot shower, and clean clothes to wear. They can visit the onsite Health Clinic if they need treatment. They will then be assigned a room for their stay.

And then Covenant House gives them some space. Youth need time to recover from the exhaustion of homelessness or crisis before they can begin to think about anything else.

Covenant House understands homelessness is a macro-problem. The youth on the doorstep is an individual, with some pretty immediate needs: food, warmth, a safe place to stay and to keep their things, emergency beds and wrap-around support for young women who have experienced sex trafficking or exploitation, individualized counselling and training, spiritual support, health care, transitional housing, and community support and guidance.

The Role

The Manager, Digital Fundraising is a newly created role, reporting to the Associate Director, Direct Response. Our successful candidate will be a Digital Fundraising expert responsible for growing the digital fundraising portfolio and associated revenue for Covenant House Toronto. Often overlooked by sector peers, Covenant House Toronto’s fundraising results are significant. The organization raises roughly $34M annually, 65% of which is through Direct Response. Their biggest investment within Direct Response going forward will be in digital fundraising, and our candidate will lead this initiative.

Our successful candidate will be heavily involved in strategic planning and they will oversee the P&L for digital fundraising. They will have an annual revenue accountability and through campaign execution (either in house or in partnership with agencies) they will execute and optimize campaigns to help achieve their fundraising goal. Make no mistake – our candidate will be a fundraiser first, and a marketer second. We are looking for someone who understands conversion and optimization with the goal to raise funds. Our candidate will partner with the brand and communications team to ensure alignment and will own the digital presence across shared channels whenever revenue generation is the goal.

They will work in partnership with several of our digital vendors including our digital marketing agency, fundraising eMarketing platform, technical support agency and social media companies for fundraising and lead generation. Experience managing vendors and people in the past will be considered an asset.

Strategic vision will be imperative for our candidate’s success – though our candidate cannot be removed from ‘doing the work’. We are looking for someone who can also execute campaigns. They need to be able to set up Facebook campaigns, work within the platforms directly (not as a coder, but rather a campaign optimization specialist) when needed. Most of our person’s time will be spent on strategy, optimization, agency, and people management, but there will be occasions where their technical wherewithal will be required. If you are reading this profile and haven’t been close to execution in the last couple of years – and rather passed strategy/direction to an agency or junior staff member to execute, this probably is not the role for you.

This is a significant opportunity to take on a role where our candidate can make their mark. Post COVID, Covenant House Toronto’s mandate is more important than ever. More youth are experiencing homelessness and/or sex-trafficking in our city. It is an epidemic that requires attention and Covenant House Toronto is poised to be loud in the fundraising space in the near term to attract support on behalf of their mission. The organization is undergoing significant investment with several key hires to ensure they are well resourced and ready to take on this challenge. We are looking for a builder, an ambitious and compassionate fundraiser who could look back on this chapter of their career knowing they made a significant impact within their home community.

Primary Accountabilities

People Leadership (25%)

• Strengthen and develop the digital teams’ capabilities; ensure best in class digital fundraising presence for the organization.
• Develop annual performance and development plans, provide ongoing coaching and feedback.
• Hire, train, and performance manage staff as required.
• Inherit and oversee a team of two directly.
• Delegate and monitor team’s production against assigned projects and goals.

Planning and Strategy Development (30%)

• Develop and ensure A/B testing strategy across digital channels to ensure continuous optimization of CHT’s digital properties.
• Develop and manage overall digital annual plan and fundraising budget.
• Lead integrated digital campaign planning based on analytics for the organization in support of fundraising strategy (direct response & events).
• Optimize and improve existing email list segmentation and ask strategies.
• Develop new fundraising strategies to drive online revenue, event participants, and increase conversion rate year over year.
• Develop a digital lead generation and conversion strategy to build the pipeline of potential donors/participants.
• Create donor/participant profiles and develop strategies to segment and target communications.
• Develop strategies to maximize usage of Google Grants.

Execution (30%)

• Manage the development a media strategy, content, and creative assets.
• Coordinate with communications for story content and social media opportunities to enhance campaigns.
• Ensure alignment across online and offline direct response campaigns.
• Work with Communications to optimize the homepage, website and email assets and coordinate proper online implementation.
• Manage the optimization of online landing pages/donation pages, ensuring testing where required; ensure donation call to actions are coded to track donor/prospect journey and conversion.
• Coordinate with Communications team to ensure website is regularly updated to align with all in-market fundraising campaigns (offline and online); testing campaign placement of campaign assets to improve conversion.

Reports & Analysis (10%)

• Monitor donor/participant behavior and conversions within digital channels.
• Monitor Google Ads and other sponsored listing campaigns and report on results.
• Analyze revenue results for symbolic and tribute giving and create strategies for further expansion.
• Provide oversight of Google Tag Manager including coordination and maintenance of tracking pixels, triggers, etc. and work with the media buying company to ensure that tags on ads work to ensure back-end reporting of results.
• Work with media vendor for supplementary reporting of digital advertising campaign.
• Create online revenue reports and identify patterns, trends, and opportunities.
• Ensure consistent and accurate email reporting including open rates, click through- analyse results and make recommendations to optimize.

Compliance and Best Practices (5%)

• Implement policies for regular list hygiene.
• Best practice and risk management as it relates to mass marketing, adhering to CASL/privacy legislation.
• Ensure ecommerce business of the organization is best practice as it relates to payment gateways, UX, and device usage.
• Ensure web properties are following online fundraising best practices and are consistently optimized based on available data.

The Ideal Candidate

• 5 years experience in marketing and fundraising.
• Bachelor’s degree, MBA preferred or comparable experience.
• Strong knowledge of Canada’s Anti-spam Law (CASL) and privacy legislation.
• Experience developing strategy and implementing digital campaigns that use best practices for email fundraising and online advertising for eCampaigns such as SEM, social media advertising, mobile giving techniques and vendor management.
• Experience with Raiser’s Edge and Engaging Networks an asset.
• Experience in working with multiple stakeholders, clients, vendors, and colleagues.
• Experience in Agile Methodology.

Competencies & Attributes

The ideal candidate will possess/be:

• Analytical and Strategic
• Strategic thinking and organization skills
• Project management skills
• Superlative attention to detail
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Teamwork
• Motivated
• Quick Learner
• Flexible
• Diplomatic and tactful
• Detail oriented
• Resourceful
• Team player
• Thorough

Application Instructions

The compensation range for this opportunity will be up to $90,000 plus excellent benefits including an RSP. Compensation will be commensurate with experience. As an employer, Covenant House is committed to building an organization that reflects the diversity of our clients and the communities we serve. We encourage applications from qualified individuals who represent diverse communities. In accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and Covenant House Policies on Accommodation, a request for accommodation will be accepted as part of Covenant House recruitment process.

To ensure the safety of staff, youth and volunteers, Covenant House Toronto has implemented a mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy in compliance with the City of Toronto. In accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code, exemptions will only be granted to individuals based on applicable medical/religious grounds.

Send your application to lindsay@phcap.ca. Please include your cover letter and CV. NOTE: the application deadline April 12, 2023 at 5pm ET.

We thank you for your interest in this opportunity. Please note that only qualified respondents will be contacted.