Director, National Campaigns

Human Rights Campaign; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 129,000 - 155,000; Full time

Job summary

Human Rights Campaign is seeking a Director of National Campaigns to lead strategy, planning, and execution of nationwide campaigns from our DC headquarters. This hybrid/in-person role requires guiding a deployment-ready team, coordinating cross-functional partners, and driving measurable outcomes across campaigns and rapid-response moments.

The Director will nurture partnerships, mentor staff, and ensure campaigns align with HRC’s priorities while maintaining bold, innovative approaches to

Qualifications

• 8+ years of electoral or advocacy campaign experience.
• Proven track record leading legislative and/or electoral campaigns with grassroots mobilization.
• Experience managing multi-state or region-wide campaigns focused on grassroots engagement.
• Exceptional leadership and management skills; experience mentoring diverse teams.
• Deep understanding of political organizing, candidate campaigns, and legislative advocacy.
• Strong analytical skills and data-driven decision-making.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to engage diverse groups.

Responsibilities

• Lead planning, implementation, and evaluation of national campaigns advancing strategic priorities.
• Translate strategy into implementation plans, timelines, staffing, and measurable outcomes.
• Coordinate execution across teams and partners ensuring alignment of priorities and messaging.
• Monitor performance, identify barriers, and drive towards measurable results.
• Lead deployments and provide on-the-ground leadership during campaigns and rapid responses.
• Foster a culture of initiative, risk management, and collaborative problem-solving.
• Maintain a deployment-ready team for rapid opportunities and moments.

Skills

Leadership

Campaign strategy

Cross-functional collaboration

Public speaking

Data-driven decision making

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Communications, Public Administration preferred, or equivalent working experience

Job description

• Location 1640 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20036, United States
• Base Pay $129,000.00 - $154,800.00 / Year
• Employee Type Exempt
• Manage Others Yes
• Minimum Experience 8 Years

Position Summary:

Reporting to the Senior Director, National Campaigns, the Director, National Campaigns is responsible for leading the planning, execution, and continuous improvement of HRC’s national campaigns. The Director transforms campaign strategy into coordinated organizational action, aligning the Campaigns team and partners across HRC to ensure campaigns are positioned to succeed. This role leads both planned campaign delivery and rapid-response execution, maintains a deployment-ready team, and ensures HRC can move quickly when emerging moments create opportunities for action. The Director is expected to lead from the field when HRC’s presence will strengthen campaign outcomes and to foster a solutions-oriented “yes, and” culture that combines creativity, initiative, sound judgment, and thoughtful risk management.

This position is based at the HRC headquarters located in Washington, DC, and is a hybrid/in-person position.

Key Responsibilities:

Delivers National Campaigns

• Lead the planning, implementation, and evaluation of national campaigns that advance HRC’s strategic priorities and grow the number of people taking action with HRC.
• Translate campaign strategy into clear implementation plans, timelines, staffing approaches, deployment plans, workstreams, and measurable outcomes.
• Coordinate campaign execution across the Campaigns team and organizational partners, ensuring priorities, roles, messaging, resources, and deliverables remain aligned.
• Monitor campaign performance, identify barriers, adjust tactics, and drive work toward measurable results.
• Lead planned deployments and provide visible, on-the-ground campaign leadership when HRC’s presence can strengthen execution, partnerships, volunteer activation, or campaign impact.
• Evaluate campaign effectiveness and incorporate lessons learned into future campaign planning and delivery.

Leads Campaign Readiness & Rapid Response

• Maintain a deployment-ready National Campaigns team capable of responding quickly to emerging opportunities, priority moments, and planned campaign needs.
• Serve as the operational leader for national campaign execution during rapid-response moments, translating strategic direction into coordinated action across HRC.
• Bring together Campaigns, Communications, Government Affairs, Membership, Development, Legal, Digital, Data, and other organizational partners to establish shared objectives, roles, timelines, and immediate next steps.
• Rapidly assess what is needed to capitalize on an emerging moment, including campaign tactics, staffing, deployment, partner coordination, volunteer activation, communications, logistics, and operational support.
• Lead or deploy to priority locations, often with limited notice, when on-the-ground leadership will advance campaign goals, strengthen partnerships, or improve HRC’s ability to respond.
• Exercise sound judgment in fast-moving situations, identifying and managing political, legal, reputational, operational, and organizational risks without allowing risk aversion to substitute for problem-solving.
• Conduct after-action reviews following major campaigns and rapid-response activations and use lessons learned to strengthen future readiness.
• Coordinates Campaign Implementation
• Lead day-to-day coordination of national campaign implementation across the Campaigns team and partner departments.
• Create clarity around ownership, timelines, decisions, and dependencies so complex initiatives continue moving forward.
• Build collaborative relationships across HRC that enable fast, coordinated execution and shared accountability for campaign outcomes.
• Foster a “yes, and” approach to campaign execution, encouraging colleagues to identify workable paths forward, surface risks early, and solve problems together.
• Identify implementation barriers, make or elevate decisions at the appropriate level, and coordinate practical solutions that maintain momentum.

Develops Ongoing Campaign Opportunities

• Lead the National Campaigns team in maintaining a continuous portfolio of meaningful national campaign and public-action opportunities aligned with HRC’s strategic priorities.
• Ensure HRC consistently has timely, relevant opportunities for supporters to take action through its digital resources, campaign properties, partnerships, and organizational initiatives—including between major national moments.
• Set expectations for creativity, experimentation, and initiative in campaign development so the team continually generates new ways for people to participate and advance HRC’s goals.
• Identify opportunities to extend, adapt, or deepen successful campaigns through new tactics, audiences, partnerships, and activation opportunities.
• Maintain an appropriate balance of planned campaigns, ongoing action opportunities, and rapid-response activations.

Leads as a Campaigns Generalist

• Maintain strong campaign-generalist skills and actively contribute to the broader work of the Campaigns team beyond the National Campaigns portfolio.
• Remain capable of stepping into campaign leadership roles outside the National Campaigns portfolio when organizational priorities require it.
• Deploy, including with limited notice, to support state campaigns, rapid-response activations, major organizational moments, or other campaign priorities where leadership is needed.
• Lead people, campaigns, and organizational work effectively in unfamiliar or rapidly changing environments.
• Collaborate across the Campaigns team to solve problems, fill gaps, and contribute wherever leadership is required for campaign success.
• Exercise sound judgment by identifying opportunities, evaluating political, legal, reputational, operational, and organizational risk and tradeoffs, and developing practical approaches that allow HRC to move forward responsibly.
• Model initiative, adaptability, creativity, shared ownership, and a solutions-oriented “yes, and” approach to the work.

Builds High-Performing Campaign Teams

• Supervise, coach, and develop members of the Campaigns team with an emphasis on strong campaign-generalist skills and flexibility in execution.
• Establish clear priorities, performance expectations, and accountability while creating room for initiative and creative problem-solving.
• Coach staff to plan and deliver campaigns, lead people, collaborate across teams, deploy effectively, and adapt as campaign conditions change.
• Develop staff judgment by encouraging open discussion of opportunity, risk, tradeoffs, and practical paths forward.
• Model a culture of shared ownership in which team members step beyond narrow lanes when needed to help campaigns succeed.

Manages Campaign Resources

• Develop campaign budgets, staffing recommendations, implementation plans, and resource needs.
• Work across the Campaigns team to ensure campaigns are supported by effective planning, systems, reporting, project management, logistics, and operational support.
• Use data, campaign results, and after-action learning to improve execution and inform resource decisions.
• Manage resources responsibly while maintaining the flexibility required for rapid response, deployment, and changing campaign conditions.

Position Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Communications, Public Administration preferred, or equivalent working experience.
• At least 8 years of electoral or advocacy campaign experience.
• Proven track record leading legislative and/or electoral campaigns, with significant experience in grassroots mobilization and electoral or legislative strategy.
• Experience managing multi-state or region-wide campaigns focused on grassroots engagement and people power strongly preferred.
• Exceptional leadership and management skills, with at least five years management experience, or equivalent experience managing significant volunteer teams, with demonstrated ability to mentor and supervise diverse teams. Experience managing remote staff is strongly preferred.
• Deep understanding of political organizing, candidate campaigns, and legislative advocacy.
• Strong analytical skills and experience using data-driven strategies to inform decision-making.
• Excellent communication, public speaking, and interpersonal skills, including an ability to communicate with diverse groups of people with sensitivity and appreciation to cultural differences.
• Passion for LGBTQ+ equality, racial justice and equity, with an understanding of how intersecting identities impact LGBTQ+ individuals and communities.
• Background of working with digital organizing tools, social media platforms, and campaign analytics software.
• Decisive in strategic planning but aware of a changing environment and maintains a needed level of flexibility.
• Ability to navigate complex political environments and adapt strategies in response to evolving challenges.
• Demonstrated success in candidate campaigns and mobilizing community-based advocacy.
• Distinct attention to detail, superior multitasking and prioritization skills, and ability to identify and communicate items needing further attention.
• Ability to keep organizational strategy front and center and also understand what is needed for day-to-day execution of the work
• Natural, eager, and creative problem solver
• Team-player attitude and a drive to find solutions and effectuate change rapidly.
• Ability to work with colleagues in related fields of digital, communications, marketing and coalitions.
• Ability to work in both a team atmosphere and independently; and to meet internal and external demands in a fast-paced environment.
• A consistent approach to new ideas with a sense of possibility and a problem-solving mentality.
• Flexibility with work schedule including evenings and weekends. This position requires significant nationwide, overnight, multi-day and/or weekend travel, often with minimal notice. Travel averages 6 - 10 days/month.

All positions at the Human Rights Campaign may require travel on a regular basis or periodically. Where the need arises for business travel, appropriate compensation as outlined by the Fair Labor Standards Act will apply.

Employer is the Human Rights Campaign, Inc., an I.R.C. 501(c)(4) non-profit entity.

No phone calls or emails, please. Due to the volume of applications we receive, we are unable to respond to queries about application status.