The Houston Local News Initiative (“HLNI”) is growing our team of passionate people on a mission to advance democracy in our communities and strengthen the lives of all Houstonians one story at a time. HLNI is launching soon as an independent, non-profit digital news operation that will cover a broad range of topics serving the Greater Houston community. HLNI is initially supported by a coalition of three of Houston’s leading philanthropies including Arnold Ventures, The Houston Endowment, and the Kinder Foundation. 

At HLNI, we are expanding our Operations team to include a Director of Memberships. The Director of Memberships will report directly to the Chief Development Officer and will coordinate digital fundraising activities, and develop and implement strategies to support fundraising goals across the organization. You will grow online fundraising and donor engagement programs by executing effective strategies and techniques via email, website promotions, social media, text, podcasts, newsletters, and other digital channels. You will play a key role in optimizing the digital audience experience in order to convert audiences to members. You will collaborate with concurrent marketing and engagement campaigns to continue to grow the audience from which to attract future members

We will consider applications on an ongoing basis, but we encourage those who are interested to apply ASAP.

What You'll Do

• Drive and augment larger strategic initiatives focused on audience development and membership acquisition, engagement, and renewal campaigns. 
• Create, deploy and optimize compelling online communications to donors and potential donors — utilizing pop-ups, landing pages, newsletters, and other tools for online fundraising activities. 
• Test new and emerging methods for digital member acquisition and track results in order to share learnings with the broader organization and with others in public media.
• Ensure the timely creation, production, and delivery of strategic digital membership communications, including identifying and responding to relevant content, events, trends, potential partners and ambassadors and other opportunities that arise. 
• Coordinate across departments on the management of fundraising tools on our websites, newsletters, events, and social media. 
• Participate in membership drives, leading the digital efforts and assisting other membership team members as needed.

Who you are

You have a strong ability to organize and synthesize information to drive alignment and decisions that lead to membership growth. You are a passionate believer in independent media as a tool for positive change and you thread that belief through all of your work with members and potential members. 

• Experience - You have five + years of experience in membership growth in technology start-ups and / or media. 
• Mission-oriented - You’re committed to our mission to advance democracy and improve the lives of all Houstonians. 
• Self-starter - You’re ready to experience the chaos of an early stage startup, and have a proven ability to roll up your sleeves to get things done. 
• Communicator - You have excellent communication skills and the ability to communicate with executives, cross departmental teams, members, and potential members. 
• Multi-tasker - You’re able to set priorities while remaining flexible in an ever-changing environment. 
• Technical skills – Expert in using tools like Hubspot, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, social media, newsletters, etc. to drive member engagement and convert audiences into new members.

EXCELLENCE: We wake up every day with the intent to be the best at what we do. We hustle. We have grit. When we make mistakes, we’ll learn from them.

INCLUSION: We aren’t all the same, and those differences are what make us better. We’ll respect each person’s uniqueness. Perspective, context and life experiences help us to tell the story.

AMBITION: We will be bold and creative, open to all ideas big or small. We really mean it.

FUN: We are not making widgets, although there is nothing wrong with widgets. We tell stories - and stories are often fun, so we believe in having lots of fun.

‍COLLABORATION: We are all in this together. We may not always agree, but we will listen to each other and communicate candidly and respectfully.

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• Compensation commensurate with experience.
• 401(k)
• Healthcare 100% premium paid for employee and 50% for dependents
• 20 vacation days
• Ten sick days
• Generous paid maternity leave 
• Hybrid work policy (initially we all work together to build culture)
• Stipend for development / learning

We’re committed to building an inclusive organization that represents the people and communities we serve. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.