American Public Media & Minnesota Public Radio | Vice President, Friends & Membership
Overview
We are proud to partner with American Public Media & Minnesota Public Radio to identify their Vice President of Friends & Membership. MPR engages an audience of millions and is stewarded by hundreds of thousands of members and friends.
The Vice President of Friends & Membership will be a visionary and entrepreneurial leader, driving the development and implementation of the “Friends of MPR” initiative as a top priority, to build meaningful relationships, deeper affiliation and significantly expand the organization’s reach. This position provides strategic direction and leadership for the Membership team while fostering cross-functional collaboration to achieve shared objectives.
Rooted in the organization’s mission and core values, the Vice President will innovate to expand the organization’s reach and execute creative strategies to grow membership, expand loyalty revenue, and amplify impact. The successful candidate will be an agile leader with a deep understanding of engaging a diverse set of community stakeholders at scale. They will possess extensive experience in managing multi-channel marketing strategies and leveraging bold experimentation to scale quickly and widely.
Our Client has one of the strongest Membership programs in the country. They serve audiences on-air, online, and in person. If you are a dynamic leader passionate about driving innovation, building meaningful relationships, advancing mission-focused initiatives, and achieving measurable results, we invite you to join our team. This role reports to our General Counsel, an entrepreneur, and this effort will be run like a startup.
Success Characteristics
- Visionary Innovator: Entrepreneurial leader with a track record of driving bold, creative initiatives that align with and advance the organization’s mission and values.
- Data-Driven Strategist: Skilled in leveraging analytics to inform strategy, optimize decision-making, and measure impact.
- Collaborative Leader: Strong leadership experience, fostering cross-functional teamwork, empowering teams, and driving results that reflect the organization’s purpose and values
- Proactive Problem-Solver: Self-starter who challenges traditional norms and pioneers’ innovative paths to achieve goals while staying true to core values.
- Inspiring Communicator: Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, capable of rallying internal teams and external supporters around the mission.
Key Responsibilities
“Friends” Leadership
- Pioneer a comprehensive and innovative “Friends” strategy to attract, engage, and grow new audiences across Minnesota and nationally.
- Develop partnerships, events, and digital campaigns to enhance visibility, nurture prospects, and funnel them into the membership pipeline.
- Collaborate across departments to drive awareness across Minnesota and establish direct relationships with a wide swath of Minnesotans.
Membership Growth & Lifecycle Management
- Develop and execute a membership strategy to grow membership volume, focusing on acquisition, retention, and, ultimately, increased financial support.
- Partner with content teams, Community Engagement, Philanthropic Development, Audience Development & Marketing, Communication, and Digital Product teams to create compelling member experiences. Tailor member communications and engagement opportunities that foster long-term loyalty and satisfaction.
- Define and monitor key performance indicators, including growth, retention, and satisfaction, and combine data-driven insights with deep community listening to refine strategies.
Strategic Leadership
- Build multi-channel strategies that leverage the organization’s content, brand and multichannel audience development teams to attract new Friends.
- Strengthen a culture of audience-centricity and philanthropy across the enterprise.
- Collaborate with Major Gift officers and mid-level giving officers to advance members initiatives through the donor continuum to Leadership Giving levels.
- Cultivate future leaders through coaching, mentoring, and constructive feedback along with thoughtful professional development plans.
People Leadership
- Translate organizational goals into actionable and measurable performance objectives, set clear execution standards, and hold leaders and teams accountable for delivering results.
- Lead and cultivate a motivated, collaborative, and high-performing team committed to achieving ambitious shared goals.
- Enable organizational strategy through a personal commitment to equity, inclusion, diversity, and access (EIDA) in workplace relationships and audience engagement.
Key Skills, Knowledge, and Mindsets
- Familiar with modern tech stack including customer relationship management, data analytics, performance tracking, and digital outreach tools.
- Use of artificial intelligence tools with a pointed vision towards expanded use across all job tasks.
- Ability to lead teams using rapid cycle testing to take informed risks, refine strategies, and scale successful initiatives.
- Audience-centric, entrepreneurial mindset to develop and manage compelling user journeys and campaigns to drive acquisition, conversion and retention.
- Relentless emphasis on execution; resilient leadership that sees opportunity in every challenge.
- Knowledge of local media organizations and content-driven membership or “Friends” programs.
Key Experience
This role requires demonstrated success or high potential in the following areas:
- Driving fundraising and/or consumer-based revenue growth.
- Leveraging existing owned and third-party networks to scale user acquisition.
- Converting new audience and consumer segments, with a focus on expanding reach beyond core customers to drive growth and diversification.
- Deploying loyalty and lifecycle marketing strategies to enhance retention, engagement, and lifetime value.
- Achieving measurable results in digital revenue growth through strategic planning and execution.
- Guiding multi-channel marketing strategies, including digital, email, events, and direct mail.
- Building and managing complex plans across stakeholder groups, creating and monitoring budgets, and overseeing data-driven reporting and metrics.
- Galvanizing populations to identify with a sense of community and shared purpose.
This role is hybrid requiring 3-4 days/week onsite in St. Paul, MN. The target annual base salary for this position is $150,000-$175,000, depending on experience and qualifications.
