Digital Fundraising Strategist

Application Deadline: Friday, Nov 11, 2022

Description

About Chicago Public Media

Chicago Public Media is home to WBEZ Chicago’s NPR (National Public Radio) news source and one of the largest and most respected public media stations in the country, as well as urban alternative music station, Vocalo . The organization serves the community with fact-based, objective news and information. WBEZ’s award-winning journalists ask tough questions, dig deep for answers, and expose truths that spark change and foster understanding. In addition to its local and national news programming, WBEZ Chicago is home to a growing portfolio of popular podcasts, including the “Making” series of Making Beyoncé, Making Obama, and Making Oprah; an investigative podcast series, Motive; 16 Shots: A podcast about the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald; Nerdette; and Curious City. WBEZ Chicago has a legacy of innovation as the birthplace of nationally acclaimed programs such as This American Life andWait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! and the ground-breaking podcast, Serial.

Chicago Public Media has recently acquired the Chicago Sun-Times, one of Chicago’s two major daily newspapers and among the most storied dailies in the nation.  With the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, Chicago Public Media is now home to one of the largest teams of journalists of any local news organization in the nation. Under the banner of Chicago Public Media, WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times will reach more than 2 million people a week in the Chicago area across broadcast, print, and digital channels. Backed by a significant philanthropic commitment, Chicago Public Media plans to substantially increase its investment in local journalism by hiring additional reporters, producers and newsroom personnel in the months and years ahead.

The Opportunity

WBEZ’s membership program is in search of a leader for its digital transformation – an innovative and experienced digital fundraising professional who can join our high-performing team and move a highly successful legacy public radio fundraising institution into a dynamic and experimental digital future. The Digital Fundraising Strategist will develop and implement a digital fundraising strategy for WBEZ and partner with our membership and digital engagement teams to adapt and customize legacy campaigns for our growing digital audience. They are responsible for planning, budgeting and reporting in the areas mentioned above – and will have accountability for goals related to revenue growth, new member acquisition and prospect conversion.

This role is varied in its responsibilities and will work alongside many CPM colleagues. Must be able to work with a diverse group of teams, have great interpersonal skills and should exemplify CPM’s values.

General Responsibilities

• Develop long term strategies to exponentially grow membership revenue on digital, email, social and podcast channels to meet or exceed WBEZ revenue goals while jumpstarting the membership program.
• Create strategies, experiments, and tests to convert WBEZ readers and podcast listeners into contributing donors.
• Work closely with content and marketing leaders to regularly identify giving opportunities around upcoming stories. Create timelines for fundraising implementations across WBEZ using unique and innovative A/B testing opportunities.
• Regularly review and evaluate tests to improve upon fundraising activities across digital, social, email and podcast to find both incremental and breakthrough improvements.
• Work closely with the digital product team to identify new fundraising tools
• Research and implement innovations in digital fundraising techniques and strategies
• Manage digital vendor relationships to ensure campaigns meet revenue goals and come in on budget.
• Support WBEZ’s digital fundraising activities across all campaigns, including creating and sending emails, managing and scheduling digital ads, paid and organic social
• Oversee the planning and execution of digital fundraising and stewardship efforts including
  • Enhanced digital campaigns/remarketing via in-house ads, search, social, SMS, etc.
  • Donation form testing and optimization, including custom ask strings
  • Digital Member Benefits
  • Innovation & Experimentation (Venmo, Tune-in, Alexa, FB Non-profit tools, etc)
• Using insight and analytics, monitor digital fundraising success, setting KPIs, providing benchmarks and progress against goals
• Maintain working knowledge of industry and technology trends and innovations. Incorporate new developments, as appropriate.
• Assist with other membership initiatives as needed
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant experience progressive responsibility
• Ability to handle multiple responsibilities, establish priorities and consistently meet required deadlines
• Demonstrated analytical skills.
• Experience building and executing complex multi-channel digital fundraising strategies
• Experience with end-to-end digital campaign planning
• Experience project managing complex initiatives with high-level stakeholders
• Ability to establish priorities and manage workload autonomously
• Strong communication skills, both written and oral
• Excellent attention to detail, problem solving and resource management skills
• Excellent interpersonal, planning, and organizational skills.
• Fluency with customer relationship management systems (Salesforce), marketing automation tools (Salesforce Marketing Cloud) and building emails in an email marketing system

Working at Chicago Public Media

At Chicago Public Media, we care deeply about our employees as we know attracting, developing, and growing talent is key to our success and enhancing our impact.  Our culture is one where collaboration, ideas, and innovation are encouraged.  We value colleagues who will enhance our culture by bringing new ideas, diverse experiences, and talents to our dynamic workplace.

Chicago Public Media’s dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion is reflective across our brands, WBEZ 91.5 FM and Vocalo 91.1 FM, in our staff and in our work.  We are fully focused on equality of opportunity and believe deeply in diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, experience, and all other fascinating characteristics that make us different.

At Chicago Public Media we believe dedication to a great workplace includes supporting our employees and their families. As a result, we provide a broad and generous benefits package for you at hire and in the years to come.

Our benefits include:

6 weeks fully paid family leave

High quality Medical, Dental, and Vision plans at an affordable cost

A 403(b)retirement plan with a company match

Generous paid time off, including starting with 3 weeks’ vacation and 4 personal days.

The essential functions described above are not all-inclusive and may change periodically to meet the needs of Chicago Public Media (CPM). The information contained in this job description is not intended to create any contractual or other legal commitment. Chicago Public Media may change the content or format of this job at any time in its sole and exclusive discretion without notice.
 
Chicago Public Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we actively seek and welcome people from all backgrounds, orientations, and life experiences to join our team.

For additional information about this position, please contact: