VP, Direct Response

What to know

Help progressive causes achieve lasting change through high-performing programs and sustainable growth. We’re looking for a seasoned leader and fundraising expert with a record of success in leading cross-disciplinary teams to design and implement direct response programs that drive results. You will manage a nonprofit client portfolio with a focus on setting sustainable growth plans, ensuring smart execution across all channels, and strengthening and expanding our partnerships, and evolving our Account Management craft. 

We’re looking for a collaborative individual who can organize, inspire, and mentor people across disciplines. You’ll work closely with some of the best in the industry – creative directors, communications strategists, analysts, tech directors, account directors, and other experts.

This is also an opportunity to be a part of the Blue State leadership team, including shared responsibility for the operational, cultural, strategic, technical, and creative progress of the agency.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From Google and UNICEF to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is a part of WPP Digital and has 150+ employees in the US and London.

A day in the life

• Manage a significant portion of our nonprofit business, helping to set the direction for all aspects of direct response campaigns, spanning direct mail, email/SMS, and paid media. 
• Serve as a senior point of contact for a portfolio of clients, ensure that expectations are set and met, and leverage client satisfaction into future opportunities.
• Lead a cross-discipline team of writers and designers, as well as, analysts, production managers and strategists to develop best-in-class direct mail and digital campaigns.
• Ensure overall campaign quality, campaign timelines and accuracy of deliverables including multi-channel testing plans and campaign reports, as well as, production planning and scheduling, cost estimating, and delivery oversight.
• Lead client and internal brainstorms, meetings and presentations, and program development workshops.
• Provide technical, creative, and/or strategic oversight across all of our offerings and disciplines teams to ensure the highest quality work product. Ensure execution maps back to the strategy and recommend pivots and enhancements as needed.
• Develop multi-channel strategies that address client objectives; develop tactics that further those strategies; and develop action-oriented planning and working documents and other communications that express those strategic and tactical ideas clearly and convincingly. Write and produce client-facing proposals and memoranda, presentations, strategic plans, and other materials, both independently and in collaboration with other Blue State employees and representatives.
• Forge understanding and strong relationships with vendors and tools in the direct response space, recommending promising partners and innovations both to Blue State’s practices and our clients’ programs.
• Craft and pitch new business as well as represent Blue State via event participation and other thought leadership. 
• Focus on the continued development of the Account Management craft at Blue State, with direct management of a portion of the Accounts Team; mentor staff across teams and levels.

The team

Our Accounts and Project Management Team is at the heart of everything we do. Our charge is to take complex problems and break them down into solvable pieces. We are close partners with our clients, understanding their needs, worries and hopes and translating that into inspirational charges for our creative teams. We are intensely curious and love new digital platforms, tools and social networks. Our energy and our passion is contagious.

What we offer

• Unlimited time-off (inclusive of sick, personal, and vacation days)
• $1,000 annually in professional development funds
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible and health savings accounts
• 401K & employer match
• Generous paid holiday schedule
• 12-week fully-paid parental leave for all parents-to-be
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Remote work flexibility

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is welcome for US staff who are within commuting distance of the NY or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person. To enter our US offices or attend Blue State events, staff and visitors must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including with a booster shot when eligible. Exceptions for protected grounds will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The salary range for this position is $120,000–$180,000; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Some things we're looking for 

• 10+ years experience in client services, digital marketing, direct mail, fundraising or a related area
• Deep knowledge of direct response fundraising is essential with experience leading online and offline programs and a proven track record of driving revenue 
• Experience in selling and leading business development proposal and pitch processes
• Some technical experience or the necessary facility and willingness to learn, in order to be able to communicate clearly and accurately about Blue State’s products and capabilities
• Ability to adapt to new situations, think on your feet, and communicate with those around you. Teamwork and scrappiness required.
• A people leader, experienced and dedicated to growing and mentoring teams, while being open to feedback and what you can learn from others
• A shared passion and curiosity for making change and redefining how business is done. This includes comfort with ambiguity, a restlessness that resists the status quo, and a commitment to quality that ensures we’re always making progress.
• Empathy, communication, respect, and the ability to act as a role model and set the standard at Blue State
• Confidence to guide clients at a senior, C-suite level

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box below, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, including the use of AI tools throughout the hiring process, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.