Senior Manager, Donor Direct Marketing

United States Soccer Federation 1•Atlanta, GA

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Donor Direct Marketing reports to the Director, Annual Fund and leads the strategy, development, and execution of U.S. Soccer’s mass donor marketing and communications function. The role owns the mass audience segment of the donor file—single-gift constituents outside membership, from first gift through the mid-level entry point—and is accountable for its revenue and donor targets. The Senior Manager grows this audience through an agency of record that supplies direct mail, email, and paid digital, while U.S. Soccer retains ownership of strategy and core program decisions. The role integrates channels, develops the donor entry ladder, builds second-gift and recurring-giving programs, and establishes the operating model, campaign calendar, attribution standards, and measurement discipline. It manages the agency relationship and media investment, drives testing and channel development, and owns donor communications, storytelling, stewardship, and impact reporting for the mass audience. The Senior Manager also serves as Advancement’s liaison to centralized Marketing & Communications and collaborates with teams across the Federation on audience, channel, lifecycle, and campaign coordination.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required.
At least 5 years of progressive experience in nonprofit direct-response fundraising, integrated marketing, donor engagement, digital marketing, communications, advancement, or related fields.
Demonstrated success developing and executing multichannel direct-response programs across direct mail, email, and paid digital to drive donor acquisition, retention, and revenue growth.
Experience managing an agency or vendor relationship, including briefing creative, holding a partner to a campaign calendar, and evaluating performance against committed projections.
Experience building or significantly expanding donor marketing, fundraising communications, or audience engagement programs.
Experience designing and evaluating a testing program, including its hypothesis, sample, and result, and carrying a proven test into the standing program.
Experience evaluating and launching acquisition channels, platforms, or audience partnerships against a target cost per donor.
Working knowledge of fundraising analytics, including cost per donor acquired, donor value by acquisition source, response rate, and matchback methodology.
Strong understanding of donor lifecycle marketing, audience segmentation, source coding and attribution, and CRM-driven communications.
Proven ability to think strategically while leading complex campaigns from concept through execution.
Experience collaborating across fundraising, marketing, technology, digital, and communications teams within a complex organization.
Exceptional communication, storytelling, project management, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders across organizational levels.
Proficient experience with Microsoft Suite, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
Ability to work in fast-paced and demanding environments and connect micro-level details to the broader vision and mission.
Ability to work evenings and weekends and travel as needed.

Nice To Haves

General knowledge of soccer.
Experience supervising staff, agency teams, or cross-functional project teams.
Experience using Salesforce, marketing automation platforms, email marketing systems, or comparable CRM and digital marketing technologies.

Responsibilities

Own the mass audience segment of the donor file and its revenue and donor targets, covering acquisition, second gift, retention, reactivation, upgrades, and transition into mid-level giving.
Design and execute the second-gift program, integrate monthly recurring giving throughout donor communications, and lead retention and reactivation efforts, including shifting reactivation from direct mail to email and paid digital.
Build and run a rolling test plan across creative, offer, ask string, segment, and timing; define hypotheses and read dates; and incorporate proven results into the standing program.
Expand digital reach and revenue through paid social, search, display, connected TV, donor-file-based lookalike and retargeting audiences, and owned channels such as the U.S. Soccer app, match day, and email.
Evaluate and launch new channels, platforms, and partners—including list and audience partnerships, digital fundraising platforms, and SMS—using defined budgets, target cost per donor, and decision points.
Lead the first-year digital build, including a low-dollar acquisition pilot against the post-World Cup file and a triggered welcome and second-gift series.
Manage the agency of record day to day, including briefs, creative review, calendar commitments, and accountability for committed revenue projections.
Keep strategy, audience, offer architecture, segmentation, source coding, and copy approval in-house while the agency handles modeling, production, deployment, media buying, and matchback.
Manage media investment within the approved budget, including target acquisition cost per donor, channel reallocations, and decisions to discontinue underperforming lines.
Lead the transition to the go-forward agency partner and recommend the ongoing mix of internal staff, agency scope, and shared Federation services.
Own the fiscal-year campaign calendar and coordinate timing across the Federation to avoid conflicts among appeals, the Fan Experience communications queue, and membership renewal.
Own mass-audience attribution; enforce source coding on every internal and agency touch; reproduce agency matchback internally; and report acquisition cost, twelve-month value by source, response rate, average gift, and second-gift rate.
Own donor-journey message architecture, advance appeal messaging from benefits framing to impact framing tied to U.S. Soccer’s philanthropic pillars, and build an impact-story intake process with rights and release status.
Own stewardship, acknowledgment, and impact reporting for the mass audience.
Serve as Advancement’s liaison to centralized Marketing & Communications on channel access, calendar position, brand approval, audience data, and message alignment.
Partner with Stewardship & Engagement, Advancement Services, Memberships, Major Gifts, and Principal Gifts on segmentation, gift attribution, and lifecycle transitions; partner with Corporate Partnerships on matches or challenges supporting pillar campaigns.
Collaborate with Product, Digital, and Fan Experience on recurring-giving capability, donation-form performance, and gift-attribution tracking.
Support overall Advancement department goals and perform other duties as assigned.