[Hiring] Director of Membership & Fundraising @Courier Newsroom

Role Description

COURIER is seeking a Director of Membership & Fundraising who will build a national membership program and grow it in tandem with our existing grassroots fundraising work. This is a builder's role: you will define what COURIER membership is, design the strategy and mechanics that bring it to life, and then run the day-to-day delivery, while continuing to scale email, SMS, and other grassroots fundraising channels that already exist.

This is a role for a true entrepreneur who wants their work to matter. You'll have full ownership to build something new, setting the strategy, standing up the infrastructure, and proving out a diversified revenue line rather than optimizing an established one. It's all in service of growing the audience and resources behind values-driven, local journalism that holds power accountable and serves communities the traditional media landscape too often overlooks.

This role will report to the Chief Revenue Officer, and will partner closely with senior leadership, including regular exposure to editorial and revenue leadership across the network.

• Build the membership program from the ground up.
• Define what COURIER membership means to a reader, design the value proposition, membership tiers, and benefits structure, and stand up the systems needed to launch and scale it as a new, diversified revenue stream.
• Own the strategy and the delivery.
• Grow and steward the grassroots fundraising program.
• Design the recurring giving and membership funnel.
• Work cross-functionally across local and national newsrooms.
• Identify new collaboration opportunities.
• Manage acquisition strategy.
• Own reporting and performance.
• Manage and grow the supporting team.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in membership, grassroots, or online fundraising — political, advocacy, nonprofit, or media.
• Has built or substantially grown a membership, recurring giving, or reader revenue program from an early stage.
• A true self-starter, comfortable defining strategy and then executing it directly without the support of a large team.
• Hands-on experience with fundraising or membership platforms and CRMs (e.g., ActBlue, ActionKit, Braze, Sailthru, or similar); comfort with both political fundraising and reader-revenue mechanics is a strong plus.
• Strong, persuasive writer who can produce fundraising and membership copy that converts.
• Data-driven and fluent in reporting tools and Excel/Sheets, with a track record of using data to inform strategy and drive decisions.
• Can operate cross-functionally in an ambiguous, fully remote, fast-changing environment, building relationships with newsroom and revenue leaders across a decentralized network.
• Energized by a mission-driven environment where fundraising and journalism work hand in hand.

Benefits

• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO), 11 paid holidays a year
• An Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Full suite of health benefits
• $500 home office reimbursement
• 401k
• Flexible working arrangements