Senior Manager, Direct Marketing - Stewardship and Engagement

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At Heart & Stroke our mission is to promote health, save lives and enhance recovery. We are committed to a culture that exemplifies our core values: champion health, practice humility, embrace change, drive impact, learn and grow and be heartfelt as we work together to beat heart disease and stroke.

We believe in equity, diversity and inclusion―it’s embedded in our values and core mission work to support all people in Canada to lead healthier lives. We are committed to applying this principle to cultivate a welcoming environment that embraces diversity among our employees. Candidates from diverse backgrounds, including but not limited to, Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, women, and people living with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

To learn more about our mission, values, commitment to EDI, and the difference Heart & Stroke makes in the lives of people in Canada at every age, please visit our website.

The opportunity

PleasenoteHeart&Strokeoffersahybridworkoption. Candidates must be able to travel to the Toronto office 1-3 days/month.

The Senior Manager, Direct Marketing Stewardship and engagement is responsible for designing and leading integrated donor stewardship and relationship cultivation strategies across key fundraising audiences, including annual donors, recurring donors, and lapsed donor segments. This role focuses on strengthening donor relationships over time, improving retention, reactivation, and donor value, and ensuring donors experience thoughtful, relevant, and timely engagement across channels and programs. Working closely with cross‑functional partners, including the Intermediate Giving, Development and Constituent Experience teams, this role ensures stewardship, engagement strategies, and fundraising offers are aligned to support healthy donor continuity and informed transitions across programs. The Senior Manager leads a small team and plays a key role in shaping strategy, setting priorities, and translating insights into practical, executable programs that balance donor experience with business objectives.

How you will make an impact every day

Donor Stewardship and cultivation strategy

• Lead donor stewardship and relationship strategies across annual, recurring, and lapsed segments.
• Design and execute donor journeys aligned to motivations, behaviours, and lifecycle stages, with a focus on retention, reactivation, and growing long‑term value.
• Champion a donor‑centric approach that aligns stewardship with broader fundraising priorities and supports progression across the donor lifecycle.

Fundraising Offer Strategy and Development

• Lead the fundraising offer strategy and end‑to‑end development across annual, recurring, and reactivation audiences, grounded in donor insight, stewardship principles, and defined success measures.
• Establish and lead a test‑and‑learn approach to offers, building organizational understanding of what resonates with different donor segments over time.

Stewardship‑informed campaign enablement

• Partner with integrated campaign, annual giving, and monthly giving leads to strengthen stewardship and donor experience components that support overall program success.
• Identify and address risks, gaps, and continuity issues across donor communications, ensuring stewardship reinforces integrated campaigns and protects retention and donor confidence.

Analytics, insights and performance management

• Partner with analytics to define and track success metrics for stewardship and relationship programs, using data and insight to inform strategy, segmentation, testing, and optimization.
• Translate insights into clear recommendations and actions, leading a test‑and‑learn approach that improves donor experience, engagement, and outcomes over time.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Contribute to an integrated, enterprise‑level view of the donor experience, helping reduce silos and improve alignment across programs and channels.
• Build strong lateral relationships and engage stakeholders early to foster shared understanding, alignment, and support for stewardship initiatives and fundraising priorities.

Talent Management

• Lead, develop, and support a high‑performing team by setting clear expectations, providing ongoing coaching and feedback, fostering collaboration, and building skills and career growth aligned to business needs.
• Provide clear direction on priorities and outcomes, ensure effective resource deployment, and recruit and manage talent in line with Foundation policies to deliver against current and future goals.

Who we need

Education

• University Degree in related area

Experience

• 7+ years of progressive fundraising or donor engagement experience, with demonstrated success designing and implementing donor journeys and stewardship programs that retain and grow donor value.
• Experience developing and testing fundraising offers to engage new audiences and increase donor value.
• Proven ability to use data and insight to inform strategy, decision‑making, and performance improvement.
• Minimum 3 years of people‑management experience, including coaching and team development.
• Strong experience working cross‑functionally and with external partners or agencies.
• Demonstrated budget and project management experience in a complex, matrixed environment.

Skills

• Strong understanding of donor motivations, behaviours, and relationship management.
• Big picture thinker with the ability to translate strategy into practical execution.
• Data‑informed, outcome‑oriented decision‑maker comfortable operating in ambiguity and change.
• Strong collaborator with effective stakeholder management and interpersonal skills.
• Empathetic leader with a coaching mindset and high personal initiative.
• Excellent written, verbal, and editorial communication skills.
• Flexible, action‑oriented, and able to operate with urgency to deliver results.

What we offer

At Heart & Stroke, we make it a priority to foster a culture of caring by implementing practices and programs that foster respect, compassion, trust and attentiveness to our own and others’ health and well‑being.

This role offers a hiring range of $95,000 to $120,000, aligned with our compensation framework and your professional background. We believe that time off is integral to the personal health and wellness of our employees. We offer a generous paid time‑off package including vacation days, personal days, wellness days and paid company‑wide closure between December 25 and January 1. We also provide competitive health, medical, dental and vision benefits, life insurance, disability benefits, an employee assistance program (EAP) and a defined contribution pension plan with employer matching. Our employees also enjoy a flexible hybrid working model and reimbursement for mobile phones and home office setup, as well as opportunities for professional development.

Accommodation

We are committed to fostering an inclusive, barrier‑free and accessible environment. If you have been contacted for an interview and require accommodation to participate in the recruitment and selection process, please let us know and we will do our best to address your needs.