Director of Lifecycle & Retention

Chicago Public Media•Chicago, IL

1d•$118,000 - $147,000

About The Position

Chicago Public Media is one of the nation’s largest local nonprofit news organizations, home to WBEZ 91.5FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo. They reach over 3.3 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, they aim to be the most trusted news source for Chicagoans. Chicago Public Media is community-funded by nearly 97,000 members, and their journalism has received numerous awards. They believe independent journalism is essential for a healthy democracy and strive to provide objective, fact-based news. The organization is supported by approximately 250 professionals. The Director of Lifecycle & Retention will lead Chicago Public Media’s enterprise lifecycle strategy across brands, platforms, and audience touchpoints. This role is responsible for designing systems, frameworks, and strategies to enhance retention, loyalty, participation, and long-term supporter value post-acquisition. The Director will establish the lifecycle architecture, audience segmentation, performance goals, and optimization priorities for onboarding, engagement, renewal, sustainer conversion, upgrades, reactivation, advocacy, and long-term relationship development. This role involves close collaboration with Product, Marketing, Insights, Development, Editorial, and the Membership team to translate audience behavior and supporter data into coordinated lifecycle strategies across WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, Vocalo, and future platforms.

Requirements

Experience leading lifecycle, retention, subscription, membership, CRM, loyalty, or audience relationship strategy.
Demonstrated ability to design lifecycle frameworks across multiple audience segments, products, channels, or brands.
Strong understanding of retention strategy, cohort analysis, churn reduction, segmentation, and lifetime value optimization.
Experience translating behavioral, transactional, and engagement data into audience strategies and organizational decisions.
Experience establishing KPIs, performance frameworks, experimentation programs, and optimization roadmaps.
Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives across Product, Marketing, Insights, Development, Editorial, technology, or comparable functions.
Ability to move between enterprise strategy, analytical insight, and implementation through specialized teams.
Experience building personalization, loyalty, engagement, or member experience strategies.
Strong people leadership, strategic communication, and organizational planning skills.
Demonstrated ability to build new capabilities, systems, or operating models rather than solely manage established programs.

Responsibilities

Own the strategic framework governing the post-acquisition relationship, including defining supporter cohort progression through lifecycle stages, identifying retention risks and opportunities, and coordinating programs and channels to strengthen long-term audience value.
Establish the lifecycle framework, which includes onboarding & early member experience, sustainer conversion, renewal & retention, upgrade & philanthropic development, reactivation, and advocacy & community participation.
Define the strategy, segmentation, performance goals, and optimization roadmap for lifecycle stages, with specialized team members owning individual membership programs, channels, and experiences within that framework.
Design and continually improve a scalable lifecycle system that strengthens long-term supporter loyalty and retention, identifies and reduces preventable churn, increases sustainer conversion and long-term giving stability, expands lifetime value across supporter segments, uses behavioral, transactional, and engagement signals for decision-making, creates pathways for deeper participation and philanthropic progression, and connects membership programs, communications, and experiences within a unified relationship strategy.
Design and optimize lifecycle frameworks across brands, platforms, and audience segments.
Establish lifecycle stages, audience strategies, and performance expectations.
Develop retention, churn, and lifetime value models aligned with long-term growth goals.
Identify retention risks, lifecycle drop-off points, and opportunities for deeper engagement.
Establish lifecycle KPIs, dashboards, and performance reporting frameworks.
Lead lifecycle performance analysis and strategic recalibration.
Develop lifecycle segmentation frameworks using transactional, behavioral, and engagement data.
Identify behavioral signals associated with retention, churn, conversion, upgrade potential, and long-term loyalty.
Define priority lifecycle cohorts and differentiated relationship strategies.
Establish testing standards and a lifecycle experimentation roadmap.
Translate performance insights into strategic recommendations for programs, communications, and audience experiences.
Define engagement strategies that strengthen retention, participation, and long-term supporter value.
Identify the experiences and behaviors most strongly associated with loyalty and retention.
Establish audience priorities that inform member programs, benefits, communications, and experiences.
Partner with Product and audience teams to connect personalization, digital behavior, participation, and membership strategy.
Develop frameworks for measuring relationship health beyond financial transactions.
Establish retention strategy and performance goals across supporter segments.
Define strategic frameworks for sustainer conversion, renewal, upgrade, philanthropic progression, and reactivation.
Identify cohorts requiring differentiated retention strategies.
Evaluate retention economics and lifetime value across supporter segments.
Partner with membership program owners to translate lifecycle strategy into effective renewal, stewardship, upgrade, benefit, and engagement programs.
Lead recurring lifecycle and cohort performance reviews.
Establish messaging frameworks for onboarding, stewardship, retention, upgrade, and reactivation.
Define audience objectives, segmentation priorities, behavioral triggers, and measurement expectations for lifecycle communications.
Ensure continuity between acquisition messaging and the long-term supporter experience.
Partner with channel and program owners to translate lifecycle strategy into effective email, direct mail, digital, event, and other audience experiences.
Lead lifecycle strategy across Product, Marketing, Insights, Editorial, Development, Revenue Operations, and technology teams.
Translate Membership priorities into cross-functional requirements for audience data, personalization, product experiences, measurement, and engagement.
Establish shared lifecycle goals and decision frameworks across teams whose work influences retention and supporter value.
Represent lifecycle and retention priorities in organizational planning and product development.
Manage and develop team members responsible for specialized functions within Lifecycle & Retention.
Establish clear strategic priorities, decision rights, performance expectations, and accountability across lifecycle functions.
Ensure membership programs, communications, and engagement efforts operate within a unified lifecycle strategy while maintaining clear functional ownership.
Build team capabilities in lifecycle strategy, audience intelligence, experimentation, measurement, and optimization.
Identify capability, resource, technology, and process gaps that limit lifecycle performance.