Manager / Senior Manager – Donor Lifecycle & Marketing Automation

Manager / Senior Manager – Donor Lifecycle & Marketing Automation

Location: Remote – India

Working Hours: US EST Time Zone / Minimum 4–5 hours of overlap with EST

Experience: 10–12 years preferred

Sector: Non-Profit / Social Impact / Fundraising

Employment Type: Full-time

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Donor Lifecycle & Marketing Automation professional to lead and strengthen the organisation's donor engagement, lifecycle management, database operations, and marketing automation capabilities.

This role will sit at the intersection of fundraising, donor experience, data, CRM, and marketing operations. The individual will be responsible for ensuring that donors receive the right communication and engagement at the right stage of their journey, while using data and technology to improve donor retention, engagement, conversion, and long-term growth.

The ideal candidate will bring strong hands-on experience with CRM and marketing automation platforms, excellent understanding of donor lifecycle journeys, and experience working with data in a non-profit or fundraising environment.

This is a highly hands-on role for someone who enjoys working with data, technology, campaigns and cross-functional teams, and can translate donor insights into actionable engagement strategies.

Key Responsibilities

1. Donor Lifecycle & Engagement

• Own and continuously improve the end-to-end donor lifecycle journey, from acquisition and onboarding through engagement, retention, reactivation and long-term stewardship.
• Develop and execute lifecycle strategies to improve donor retention, repeat giving, engagement and lifetime value.
• Build audience segments and personalised donor journeys based on donor behaviour, giving history, interests, engagement and other relevant data points.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen donor experiences across different stages of the donor journey.
• Partner closely with fundraising and communications teams to develop targeted donor engagement campaigns.

2. Marketing Automation & CRM

• Manage and optimise marketing automation and donor engagement platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Bloomerang, or similar CRM/marketing automation systems.
• Build and manage automated workflows, campaigns, segmentation, journeys and communication triggers.
• Ensure CRM and marketing automation platforms are effectively configured to support fundraising and donor engagement objectives.
• Work closely with internal stakeholders and technology partners to identify opportunities for automation and process improvement.
• Experience with platform certifications such as Salesforce, HubSpot or equivalent will be a strong advantage.

3. Donor Database & Data Management

• Act as the data custodian for the donor database, ensuring data quality, accuracy, completeness and consistency.
• Establish and maintain processes for database hygiene, deduplication, enrichment, validation and ongoing maintenance.
• Develop meaningful donor segments and audiences to enable increasingly sophisticated lifecycle campaigns.
• Ensure appropriate data governance, documentation and processes are followed.
• Identify gaps in donor data and develop strategies to improve the depth and quality of donor information.
• Leverage data and analytics to identify trends, opportunities and risks across the donor base.

4. Fundraising & Campaign Operations

• Partner with fundraising teams to support fundraising campaigns, events and donor experiences through effective database and marketing operations.
• Build and manage campaign audiences, communications, workflows and reporting.
• Support event-related donor journeys, including invitations, registration, engagement, follow-up and stewardship.
• Ensure donor data and campaign information is accurately captured and integrated into the CRM.
• Provide operational and analytical support to fundraising teams to improve campaign effectiveness.

5. Analytics, Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and monitor key donor lifecycle metrics including retention, reactivation, engagement, conversion, repeat giving and campaign performance.
• Translate donor and campaign data into actionable insights for fundraising and leadership teams.
• Develop dashboards and reports to track donor engagement and lifecycle performance.
• Continuously test, analyse and optimise donor journeys and campaigns.
• Identify opportunities to use technology, automation and data to improve efficiency and fundraising outcomes.

What We're Looking For

• 10–12 years of relevant professional experience, preferably within non-profit fundraising, donor engagement, CRM, marketing operations or database management.
• Strong hands-on experience managing donor/customer lifecycle journeys and engagement programmes.
• Proven experience working with CRM and marketing automation platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Bloomerang or similar systems.
• Strong understanding of database management, segmentation, data hygiene and enrichment.
• Experience designing and executing automated campaigns, workflows and lifecycle journeys.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate data into actionable insights.
• Experience partnering with fundraising, communications, marketing or development teams.
• Excellent understanding of donor behaviour and the principles of donor retention and stewardship.
• Strong attention to detail and a high level of ownership over data accuracy and operational quality.
• Ability to work independently in a remote, distributed environment and manage priorities effectively.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working specifically within the non-profit / social impact / fundraising ecosystem.
• Salesforce, HubSpot, Bloomerang or other relevant platform certification.
• Experience managing complex donor databases and large-scale donor audiences.
• Experience supporting fundraising events and donor experiences.
• Experience with data analytics, reporting and campaign performance measurement.
• Familiarity with integrations between CRM, marketing automation, fundraising and other digital platforms.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, success will be reflected in:

• Stronger and more personalised donor lifecycle journeys.
• Improved donor retention, engagement and reactivation.
• A clean, reliable and well-maintained donor database.
• Increased use of automation and segmentation across donor communications.
• Better data-driven decision-making within fundraising.
• Seamless database and marketing support for fundraising campaigns and events.
• Improved efficiency and scalability of donor engagement operations.

Working Model

This is a fully remote role open to candidates anywhere in India.

Given the global nature of the role and the teams/stakeholders involved, the candidate must be comfortable working in the US Eastern Time (EST/ET) zone, or be able to provide meaningful daily overlap with US working hours.

We are looking for someone who is comfortable operating independently, collaborating across geographies, and taking end-to-end ownership of donor lifecycle and marketing operations.