Title: Senior Manager, Donor Stewardship

Employee Working Location: Remote/Virtual (Canada)

Employment status: Permanent full time

Salary band: $72,186-105,272/year
The Canadian Red Cross (CRC) – one of the most inspirational not-for-profit organizations on this planet and an awardee on the Forbes list of Canada’s Best Employers 2022 – is seeking a Senior Manager-Donor Stewardship to join its team.

We are guided by our Fundamental Principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. We help people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need and support them in strengthening their resilience.

Starting with the hiring process, we are committed to having an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free work environment where everyone can reach their full potential. We encourage all qualified persons who share our values and want to contribute to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace to apply.

The incumbent will lead the multi-channel stewardship engagement strategy for all donor relationship channels. The Senior Manager is expected to work closely with the Senior Manager, Customer Experience Donor Stewardship for mass marketing donors to ensure CRC delivers a meaningful and synergistic engagement experience for donors. Additionally, this role will collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to provide strategic leadership that results in donor satisfaction and increased retention.
In this role, you will: 

Operational Planning and Execution

• In collaboration with the Director CE and Stewardship and other key stakeholders, contribute into the CRC’s relationship channels stewardship strategy, develop stewardship best practices to drive retention across segments and channels with an emphasis on emergency appeal donors
• Develop and execute the stewardship operational plan aligned to the strategy.
• Ensure all relationship channel stewardship is planned as part of the integrated marketing strategy
• Develop and maintain stewardship grid and benefits matrix for donors
• Collaborate with the Donor Communications on print and electronic communications to and about the impact of donor giving
• Lead the development of key initiatives with a focus on the cultivation and stewardship framework
• Build and manage a plan and system that ensures the timely stewardship of all donors – initially with a specific and priority focus on appeal donors within the relationship channels.
• Work with team members to embed stewardship as part of key donor journeys, ensure tracking is in place for cohorts of appeal donors to optimize retention and conversion
• Work in partnership with colleagues to implement donor satisfaction surveys regularly and ensure the results inform strategy
• Design strategies to pilot and scale stewardship opportunities using best practices
• Monitor external markets and continually assesses cross-industry best practices and new stewardship innovation strategies
• Feed into the Operational Plan, budget and forecasts according to the annual planning and monitoring cadence

Monitoring

• Audit and evaluate current stewardship processes across the relationship channels
• Develop the stewardship action tracking system in the CRM and train the RM Teams on the implementation
• Use vital metrics to achieve higher retention rates and donor satisfaction. Tracking metrics to assess donors’ current engagement and activity to determine which efforts have the most significant business impact.
• Lead the development and management of the Gift Agreement process and perform an audit for a comprehensive view of all deliverables, determine gaps and assess risk
• Develop and maintain a monitoring and reporting framework for stewardship activity and associated KPIs that show the performance of the strategy
• Report back on success of the stewardship and implement plans to optimize efforts
• Provide quarterly analysis and commentary on donor stewardship including reporting on satisfaction scores
• Balance stewardship expense with life-time value as appropriate to ensure all activity is driven by maximizing longer-term income
• Participate as part of a data-driven culture with a view to fully take advantage of our full tech stack to deliver best-in-class stewardship experiences
• Provide donor stewardship leadership and implementation support to internal stakeholders as required to ensure cross-team donor satisfaction and retention

Creative Development

• Ensure that stewardship activity is accurately represented in a Relationship Channel marketing, fundraising and stewardship calendar that is aligned with the mass channels and identify new opportunities to expand the reach
• Work with a variety of media to support the donor life cycle for all emergency appeals, and marketing campaigns
• Lead the development of stewardship collateral based on the established strategy and plan
• Work with the internal creative services team on stewardship collateral development – from brief development to execution
• Partner with communications, and other teams to ensure integration and inclusion of stewardship communications across properties, i.e. social media, print media
• Advise on the adaptation of mass stewardship strategies for application to other non-mass donor segments
• Collaborate with relationship channel stewardship staff on the production and deployment of non-mass stewardship marketing materials, based on strategy and briefs provided

Gift Agreement Management

• Oversee the preparation and approval of gift agreements
• Ensure gift acknowledgement and donor recognition policies and guidelines are consistently reviewed and updated for best practices
• Monitor and ensure all obligations outlined in donor gift agreements are fulfilled in a timely manner and tracked by RM in CRM (not exclusively appeal gifts)

Leadership

• Oversee and manage one direct report workflow and performance management through coaching, mentoring, and training.
• Facilitate and enhances a high-functioning professional team
• Play an active role in preparing the Society for fundraising during emergencies in Canada and around the world.
• As a leader of the Philanthropy team, contributes to a One Red Cross approach to fundraising.

 

What we are looking for: 

• Post-secondary education or equivalent combination of education and experience in relevant field
• Demonstrated previous experience developing comprehensive strategic stewardship programs in not-for-profit setting for a minimum of 5 years
• Fluency in English is required, French is an asset.
• Management experience with the ability to coach, mentor and develop a team, and provide timely feedback
• Experience with ethnocultural donors
• Working knowledge of CRM (Blackbaud) is an asset
• Understanding of the moves management process and cycle
• Exceptional track record in developing, managing and implementing successful multi-channel donor communications programs for relationship channels
• Experience working across a variety of channels, both online and offline
• A team player who values an environment of open communication and collaboration
• Good understanding of donor metrics, data and KPIs
• Exceptional track record of success in conceptualizing and implementing innovative fundraising and stewardship strategies and campaigns, with focus on digitally driven programs
• Driven and proactive with a solutions-based attitude
• Innovative thinker with ability to identify what will engage and motivate supporters
• Ability to maintain trusted, effective working relationships with fellow marketing leads within a national organization with a matrix-management culture
• Proven ability to lead by influence and collaborate effectively to drive performance and results
• Exceptional organizational, project management, presentation and analytical skills
• Superior organizational, project management and resource management skills
• Ability to work in a multi-layered, complex, results-oriented institution with multiple internal and external stakeholders
• Exceptional interpersonal skills; able to work well with all levels of staff
• Ability to work with technology and software required for virtual stewardship purposes/experiences
• Self-motivated with sound judgement and ethical decision-making skills
• Exceptional organizational and communication skills; capable of effectively and calmly managing many projects simultaneously

Working conditions:  

• Occasionally required to work non-traditional hours to meet travel and other commitments and during times of a disaster response and/or appeal.
• Eligibility to work in Canada: At this time, we welcome applications from candidates eligible to work in Canada. If you are not a citizen or permanent resident of Canada, we encourage you to carefully review your visa to find out whether you are eligible to work in the job you are considering applying for. Refer to our FAQ for more information.
• If you are selected for this role, you will be required to complete a successful pre-employment screening process which includes a satisfactory Enhanced Police Information Check (E-PIC).
• At this time, the CRC has temporarily suspended our Covid-19 vaccination policy and does not require but continues to strongly encourage full vaccination of all our personnel.

 

Qualified applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible – those who apply after the selection process has started may be held for a second review if needed OR reviewed for alternative roles. We appreciate the time and effort it takes to apply and thank you in advance.

If you require accommodation measures during any phase of the hiring process, please notify us as soon as possible. All information received in relation to accommodation requests will be kept confidential.