Communications & Development Manager

Key to Change; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 72,000 - 78,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage (ICHRA)

Dental & Vision Insurance

Retirement plan

Job summary

Key to Change is seeking a Communications & Development Manager to shape the organization’s storytelling, build relationships, and raise funds. The role blends strategy, digital engagement, donor outreach, and development support to move audiences from awareness to action.

The successful candidate will oversee external communications, donor stewardship, and audience segmentation, using data to improve results and reporting, with independent, polished output.

Qualifications

• Five+ years in nonprofit development, communications, digital marketing, donor relations, or a related field.
• Exceptional writing, editing, and verbal communication skills.
• Understanding audience behavior and what motivates action.
• Experience creating communications with clear calls to action and using data to measure engagement.
• Understanding audience segmentation, conversion, urgency, cultivation, stewardship, testing, and lead nurturing.
• CRM experience managing donors, customers, prospects, leads, interactions, and follow-up; Salesforce preferred.
• Experience with email marketing platforms (e.g., Mailchimp) and interpreting engagement metrics.
• Experience writing and maintaining website content via a CMS; WordPress preferred.
• Ability to manage multiple campaigns and deadlines independently.

Responsibilities

• Produce external communications for website, newsletters, fundraising appeals, donor communications, annual reports, and program announcements.
• Translate mission and priorities into audience-specific messages that inspire action.
• Develop email and digital campaigns with objectives, segmentation, testing, and measurement.
• Manage e-newsletter strategy and performance analysis.
• Maintain current, accessible website content aligned with fundraising and engagement goals.
• Develop communications calendars and proactive outreach workflows.
• Analyze engagement and conversion metrics to improve messaging and calls to action.
• Maintain a consistent organizational voice and high editorial standards.
• Interview staff, students, families, donors, and community members to identify stories with impact.
• Collaborate with Social Media to align channels and fundraising efforts.

Skills

Nonprofit development

Professional writing

Audience segmentation

Campaign management

Lead nurturing

Data-driven decisions

Collaboration

Customer service

Editorial judgment

Tools

Salesforce

Mailchimp

WordPress

CMS

Canva

Job description

The Communications & Development Manager plays a central role in how Key to Change tells its story, builds relationships, raises funds, and turns audience interest into meaningful action.

This position combines strategic communications, digital engagement, fundraising communications, lead management, donor engagement, and development support. The Manager will help move individuals from initial awareness and interest toward deeper engagement—whether that means making a donation, attending an event, enrolling in a program, responding to outreach, or building a long-term relationship with Key to Change.

The Manager will also help manage the organization's engagement and development pipeline by identifying and following up with prospective donors and warm leads, executing annual giving and small-dollar fundraising activities, maintaining accurate Salesforce records, supporting donor stewardship, and tracking whether communications and outreach result in meaningful engagement.

The successful candidate understands the difference between distributing information and inspiring action. They understand how audience, storytelling, emotion, urgency, relevance, trust, segmentation, timing, repetition, and clear calls to action influence whether someone simply reads a communication or decides to act.

This is not an entry-level position. We are seeking someone who can independently produce polished professional communications, manage day-to-day execution, and use data to improve results with limited editorial oversight.

What This Role Owns

• External written communications
• Email and e-newsletter execution
• Website content
• Fundraising and engagement campaigns
• Audience segmentation and communication workflows
• Lead and prospect follow-up systems
• Salesforce data quality and activity tracking
• Annual giving and small-dollar development activities
• Donor stewardship communications
• Campaign reporting and performance analysis
• Coordination between communications and development

Key Responsibilities

Communications, Digital Engagement & Conversion | 35%

• Write compelling copy for the website, e-newsletters, fundraising appeals, donor communications, annual reports, program announcements, impact stories, campaign materials, and print communications.
• Translate Key to Change's mission, student experiences, outcomes, and priorities into communications tailored to specific audiences and designed to inspire action.
• Develop email and digital campaigns with clear objectives, calls to action, segmentation, testing, and performance measurement.
• Manage e-newsletter strategy, including writing, scheduling, segmentation, testing, and analysis.
• Maintain accurate, compelling, current, and accessible website content aligned with fundraising, enrollment, and engagement goals.
• Develop communications calendars and workflows that support proactive outreach.
• Analyze engagement and conversion metrics—including opens, clicks, website activity, giving, registrations, and other actions—to improve messaging, timing, segmentation, and calls to action.
• Maintain a consistent organizational voice and high editorial standards.
• Interview staff, students, families, donors, and community members and identify stories that demonstrate student impact and organizational value.
• Collaborate with the Social Media Associate to align social media, email, website, and fundraising efforts.

Development & Donor Engagement | 35%

• Manage and cultivate a portfolio of individual donors and prospective donors.
• Support the Director of Strategic Relationships & Partnerships with donor cultivation, stewardship, prospect research, meetings, and solicitation activities.
• Build donor relationships through thoughtful, personalized, and consistent communication.
• Develop and execute annual giving and targeted fundraising campaigns across email, website, print, direct outreach, and other channels.
• Identify opportunities to renew, upgrade, reactivate, and deepen donor relationships.
• Follow up consistently with prospective donors and warm leads generated through events, referrals, social media, email, website activity, and community engagement.
• Maintain organized follow-up plans based on donor interests, giving history, engagement, behavior, and relationship stage.
• Support donor meetings, events, tours, cultivation, and stewardship activities.
• Track campaign performance, donor retention, response rates, conversion, upgrades, and average gift size.
• Collaborate with the Director and Executive Director on prospect identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
• Maintain accurate donor, prospect, and engagement records in Salesforce, including interactions, gifts, communications, interests, solicitations, and follow-up activity.
• Develop and improve lead-management systems so individuals who demonstrate interest receive timely and appropriate follow-up.
• Manage mailing lists, segmentation, data hygiene, and connections between communications and development platforms.
• Support gift processing, acknowledgments, donor records, and reporting.
• Monitor campaign respondents, event attendees, highly engaged subscribers, prospective donors, lapsed donors, and other audiences for follow-up opportunities.
• Analyze campaign and engagement data and recommend changes that improve conversion, retention, donor acquisition, and communications effectiveness.
• Provide regular updates to the Director on lead activity, follow-up, and conversion opportunities.

Engagement & Customer Experience | 10%

• Apply strong customer service principles to donor and community engagement.
• Strengthen communication and follow-up practices across organizational touchpoints.
• Develop surveys and feedback systems to understand donor, student, family, and community experiences.
• Help manage online reviews and other community feedback.
• Identify communication gaps, missed follow-up opportunities, and recurring service challenges and recommend solutions.
• Represent Key to Change professionally at concerts, donor events, open houses, community activities, and other external events.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressively responsible experience in nonprofit development, communications, digital marketing, e-commerce, sales and marketing, donor relations, or a related field.
• Exceptional professional writing, editing, proofreading, and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated understanding of audience or consumer behavior and what motivates people to take action.
• Experience creating communications with clear calls to action and using data to measure engagement and conversion.
• Understanding of audience segmentation, conversion, urgency, motivation, cultivation, stewardship, testing, and lead nurturing.
• Professional CRM experience managing donors, customers, prospects, leads, interactions, and follow-up; Salesforce strongly preferred.
• Experience with an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp and interpreting engagement metrics.
• Experience writing and maintaining website content through a CMS; WordPress preferred.
• Ability to manage multiple campaigns, deadlines, audiences, and projects independently.
• Strong interpersonal, customer service, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Sound judgment and integrity when handling confidential donor and organizational information.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues, donors, families, volunteers, and community partners.
• Uses emerging technology to improve research, editing, analysis, organization, and workflow efficiency without replacing original thinking, professional judgment, or authentic communication.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with a nonprofit, educational institution, arts organization, youth development program, or other mission-driven organization.
• Experience with Salesforce, Mailchimp, donor prospecting, moves management, or donor portfolio management.
• Experience with digital fundraising, direct-response marketing, e-commerce, sales, membership, subscription, or other measurable audience-conversion environments.
• Experience with A/B testing, audience segmentation, conversion optimization, or lead nurturing.
• Experience with Canva or similar tools.
• Experience collaborating with social media, design, photography, or video professionals.
• Familiarity with communities in South King County.
• Appreciation of classical music or music education.

The salary range for this position is $72,000–$78,000 annually, commensurate with experience.

Key to Change offers a benefits package including

• medical coverage through an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA)
• dental and vision insurance
• a retirement plan

Key to Change is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to workforce diversity. LGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, people of color, people with disabilities, and candidates from other historically underrepresented communities are strongly encouraged to apply.