Vice President, Direct Marketing

Job Title: Vice President, Direct Marketing

Department: Development

Location: Hybrid within Washington D.C. Metro area

Reports to: Chief Revenue Officer

Direct Reports: Yes

Classification: Exempt

Position type: Full-Time Employee

Anticipated Pay Range at Commencement of Employment: $128,000 - $177,000 per year

Blue Star Families

Blue Star Families is the largest nonprofit dedicated to making military life better for families. Each year, we support over 1.5 million military- and veteran-connected family members through a national network of 450,000+ members and local chapters in communities across the country.

Our mission is simple and bold: We make military life awesome for families.

We listen, share, partner, and act to deliver evidence-based, data-driven solutions that work for real people. We’re a lifestyle organization, a friend and neighbor, and a trusted partner. Our approach is collaborative, human-centered, and designed with the whole family in mind.

A Blue Star Family is one with an immediate family member — a spouse, parent, or child — actively serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, including the Guard and Reserves. These families face unique challenges: frequent relocations, deployments, career disruption, and isolation. We respond with research-informed programs that create connection, build resilience, and foster a true sense of belonging.

We serve with urgency but build trust over time — because change happens at the speed of trust. Whether we’re driving spouse employment, supporting caregivers, or helping communities welcome military families, we strive for upstream solutions.

Who We’re Looking For:

Bold thinkers. Fast movers. Smart collaborators. People who want to build, lead, and drive measurable change — and who care deeply about making an impact that matters.

What You’ll Do Here:

Solve complex challenges with data, heart, and humility

Build cross-sector partnerships that get things done

Help military families feel at home wherever they live

If you're ready to work in a high-performance, mission-driven environment — and to make life better for those who serve — Blue Star Families is where you belong.

General Description

The Vice President, Direct Marketing leads the strategy and performance of Blue Star Families' direct response fundraising programs. This role grows BSF's broad base of individual donors through multi-channel direct marketing.

Blue Star Families already runs a multi-channel direct response program with its agency partner, MissionWired. This role exists to scale both into a multimillion-dollar revenue line, and to lead the multimillion-dollar agency investment that growth requires.

Reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer, this leader partners closely with Marketing, Development Operations, the Technology team and Chapters/Programs staff Development Operations and Chapters/Programs staff to integrate direct marketing fundraising into the organization's broader revenue strategy.

As a fully remote organization, we rely on regular in-person gatherings to fulfill core business functions, including strategic planning, cross-functional collaboration and culture-building. This role requires the ability to travel overnight several times per year to attend team offsites, leadership sessions, fundraising events and company-wide events. Attendance and participation in these gatherings is a non-negotiable component of the position.

Key Job Functions

Direct Marketing & Mass-Market Fundraising

Oversee multi-channel direct response strategy, including donor acquisition, retention, reactivation, and upgrade pathways across direct mail, email, digital advertising, SMS (360SMS), and other mass-market channels.

Set annual revenue goals, budgets and performance benchmarks for direct marketing programs.

Ensure rigorous segmentation, A/B testing,Ensure rigorous segmentation, list strategy (including cooperative databases, rentals and exchanges), statistically valid A/B testing, and performance-based ROI analysis to inform channel investment, with a bias toward rapid experimentation and scaling winning plays.

Own the governance of a multimillion-dollar agency contract: scope of work, fee structure, transparent production pass-throughs, performance guarantees, audit rights, service levels and BSF's full ownership of its donor file and data.

Manage relationships with external direct marketing vendors and agencies (e.g., MissionWired), ensuring quality, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness; hold partners to the same high-performance standard as internal team members.

Monitor campaign performance, donor acquisition costs, retention,lifetime value, payback period and break-even metrics, adjusting strategy as needed

Translate program economics for the CEO, CFO and Board, including why acquisition is an investment, what the donor file is worth and when the program is projected to break even.

Build a clear pathway that moves donors from first-time gifts to recurring, mid-level and major gift potential.

Launch and grow a monthly sustainer program across mail, digital, SMS and telemarketing conversion, including payment updating and recapture of lapsed sustainers.

Team Leadership & Performance Management

Supervise staff and provide leadership and coaching to expand the chapter fundraising support function.

Develop, coach, and appraise staff to ensure high performance and professional growth, providing regular, candid feedback and addressing performance gaps promptly.

Build a high-talent-density team in which every member understands the strategy, owns their results, and makes decisions quickly.

Foster a collaborative, solutions-oriented culture aligned with BSF values across the chapter network, grounded in freedom, responsibility, and accountability.

Program Integration & Cross-Functional Coordination

Partner with Marketing & Communications on donor messaging, campaign creative, branding and channel strategy.

Partner closely with the Technology team on Salesforce Marketing Cloud, 360SMS, Fundraise Up and the data integrations the direct marketing program depends on.

Ensure alignment between direct marketing, peer-to-peer, major gifts, corporate and events strategies to build strong donor pipelines.

Systems, Data & Reporting

Oversee accurate tracking of direct marketing fundraising activity within the CRM, ensuring data integrity and consistent reporting.

Define and enforce attribution rules so direct marketing revenue, including gifts made through general online donation pages, is credited accurately in Salesforce.

Establish performance dashboards and revenue pacing for direct marketing channels, using them as a real-time scoreboard for the team.

Provide regular reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer, and to the Board as needed, on channel performance, donor retention and revenue forecasts.

Ensure compliance with USPS nonprofit mailing rules, state charitable solicitation registration, commercial fundraiser requirements, PCI standards and donor privacy and opt-out practices.

Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Experience, Skills, Background

8+ years of progressive nonprofit development experience, including experience with chapter-based or affiliate fundraising models.

At least 5 years of that experience leading multi-channel direct response fundraising (mail, digital, SMS), with responsibility for donor acquisition and retention and results you can quantify.

Experience managing a full-service direct response agency and a seven-figure budget, including contract negotiation and holding the agency accountable to performance terms.

Fluency in direct response economics: donor lifetime value, payback, break-even analysis and cost to raise a dollar, and the ability to explain them to non-specialists

3+ years of experience managing staff or leading a team.

A proven track record of meeting or exceeding ambitious rev