Donor Growth & Engagement Strategist

The Donor Growth & Engagement Strategist is responsible for building the foundation for e3’s mass communications to attract and engage new operational donors. Initially, this role will place significant emphasis on developing and executing donor communications, campaign content, donor journeys, and the infrastructure needed to support scalable donor growth. As the Development team expands, the role will increasingly focus on building, leading, and optimizing e3’s donor acquisition program through measurable, multi-channel efforts. Working closely with Development, Advancement, Marketing, and Communications, this position will create and execute campaigns that attract new donors, improve conversion, and strengthen engagement while maintaining alignment with e3’s brand, messaging, and ministry objectives.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Initially prioritize the development and execution of donor communications, campaign content, donor journeys, and supporting infrastructure needed to establish a strong foundation for donor acquisition and engagement.
• Create and manage donor acquisition messaging and communications, including email campaigns, donor newsletters, direct mail, website copy, campaign landing pages, digital content, and other donor-facing materials.
• Build and lead e3’s donor acquisition program, including the processes, campaigns, channels, and measurement needed to consistently grow the number of new operational donors.
• Establish annual goals and benchmarks for new donor count, operational donor growth, conversion, recurring giving, campaign performance, and other key acquisition measures in partnership with Development leadership.
• Identify target donor audiences, acquisition opportunities, and scalable channels for reaching prospective donors.\
• Build and execute multi-channel donor acquisition campaigns across email, direct mail, digital, web, social media, events, and other appropriate channels.
• Build and maintain donor engagement journeys that support acquisition, conversion, recurring giving, retention, reengagement, and ongoing ministry engagement.
• Develop segmentation, personalization, testing, and optimization approaches based on donor characteristics, giving patterns, communication preferences, engagement behavior, and campaign objectives.
• Track and analyze new donor count, conversion rates, recurring donor growth, campaign response, cost per acquisition when applicable, campaign return on investment, and other relevant performance indicators.
• Use donor and campaign data to continuously improve messaging, channels, targeting, and the overall donor acquisition program.
• Partner with the Advancement team to incorporate ministry stories, field impact, reporting information, and other organizational content into donor acquisition and engagement efforts.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to ensure donor-facing campaigns are consistent with e3’s brand standards, organizational messaging, and broader communications strategy.
• Partner with Development leadership and Major Gifts Officers to align donor growth efforts with organizational fundraising priorities and establish clear handoffs when donors are appropriate for relationship-based cultivation.

Ministry Responsibilities

• Has the duty to interact with others as an ambassador of faith.
• Tasked with performing duties according to the Word of God and Biblical standards as drawn from the Holy Scripture.
• Serves as a messenger or teacher of faith according to e3 Doctrinal statements and beliefs.
• Has a duty to assist others to cultivate intimacy with God and growth in Christ-like character through personal and corporate spiritual disciplines.
• Must be willing to be trained and to train others in initiating gospel conversations.

Skills/Requirements

• Demonstrated success building and executing donor acquisition, fundraising marketing, or donor communications initiatives across multiple channels.
• Strong understanding of donor acquisition, conversion, recurring giving, donor engagement, and fundraising campaign principles.
• Exceptional writing, editing, storytelling, and audience-targeting skills with the ability to translate ministry impact into
  compelling donor communications.
• Ability to build programs and processes from the ground up and move effectively between strategic planning and hands-on execution.
• Experience with audience segmentation, personalization, testing, campaign optimization, and donor lifecycle communications.
• Ability to establish meaningful performance measures and use donor and campaign data to improve acquisition and engagement results.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Development, Advancement, Marketing, Communications, and organizational leadership.
• Familiarity with email platforms, CRMs, content management systems, analytics platforms, and project management tools.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple projects, stakeholders, timelines, and priorities concurrently.
• Self-directed and able to work effectively with a high degree of independence, initiative, and accountability for results.

Spiritual Requirements:

• Being completely surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
• Bearing witness of Christian character in daily life by biblical definition.
• Being a member in good standing of a local church.
• Agreement with the e3 Partners Doctrinal Statement.
• Is called to represent Christ and the beliefs of e3 to the larger community.

REQUIRED EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Marketing, Journalism, Public Relations, Fundraising, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Minimum of five years of experience in donor acquisition, fundraising marketing, donor communications, nonprofit marketing, advancement communications, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience developing donor-facing campaigns and communications and using performance data to improve results is strongly preferred.