Sr Retention Marketing Lead

World Vision is seeking a mission-oriented team member to join our Marketing division as a Senior Retention Marketing Lead. In this role, you will own the lifecycle retention strategy for World Vision’s flagship Sponsorship portfolio, serving as primary journey owner for sponsor retention from month 13+ (post-year-one) to reduce churn, improve tenure, and strengthen sponsor trust. This role creates segmented retention journeys and experiences that respond to sponsor needs, risk signals, and behaviors, translating sponsor and performance insights into a sequenced roadmap and scalable interventions across channels and touchpoints.

At a Glance

Role: Senior Retention Marketing Lead Reports to: Senior Director of Sponsorship Product Marketing Location: Remote Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, analytics, or related field, or equivalent professional experience. Master’s degree preferred. Minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in retention/lifecycle marketing, CRM/journey strategy, direct response fundraising, or related customer/sponsor experience roles, including demonstrated ownership of churn reduction programs and measurement. Experience working with analytics tooling (e.g., BI dashboards) and with CRM/journey platforms; ability to partner effectively on requirements for data, segmentation, and experimentation. Preferred: experience with sponsorship, recurring revenue, or subscription-style donor programs; familiarity with cancellation drivers such as non-payment/delinquency and program/fulfillment constraints. Work Authorization: Must be authorized to work in the U.S.A for any employer Pay Grade: 227 Estimated hiring range: $96,500 - $137,030

The Job

The Senior Retention Marketing Lead partners closely with the Director of Sponsor Experience to ensure lifecycle retention moments align to the full sponsor journey. This role leads retention problem-solving through a disciplined test-and-learn approach, partnering with Analytics, Product/Digital, Creative, channel owners, Sponsor Care/Service, and Programming stakeholders to diagnose root causes, define hypotheses, launch pilots, and scale what works. The Senior Retention Marketing Lead also establishes retention measurement and lightweight governance (success measures, decision gates, and readiness) so improvements are evidence-led, operationally feasible, and aligned with safeguarding and policy requirements.

Responsibilities

Keep Christ central in individual and corporate life; actively participate in and contribute to the spiritual disciplines of the organization (Christian conduct, chapel, prayer, worship, devotions, and leadership of devotions); incorporate WV Core Values into decisions within scope of role.

Help carry out our Christian organization’s mission, vision, and strategies. Personify the ministry of World Vision by witnessing to Christ and ministering to others through life, deed, word and sign.​

Own lifecycle retention strategy for the Sponsorship portfolio with primary accountability for the month 13+ sponsor retention (post-year-one), including clear ownership for churn reduction and tenure growth across priority risk moments (e.g., delinquency/non-payment, project closures/phase outs, child drops, and general attrition) in later tenure.

Develop and maintain a sequenced, insight-led retention roadmap (12–24 months) that prioritizes the highest-impact interventions, clarifies dependencies, and balances in-year needs with long-term portfolio health.

Govern retention measurement (in collaboration with Analytics) including churn by category/type/tenure, save rate, non-payment risk indicators, and leading engagement indicators. Lead deep-dive cancel analytics to identify trends and drivers (by segment, acquisition channel, tenure, payment behavior, communications engagement, and operational/program factors) and translate findings into clear, prioritized opportunity hypotheses.

Create and optimize segmented retention journeys and experiences (audience rules, triggers, messaging strategies, channel mix, and timing), with emphasis on month 13+ lifecycle stages that mitigate churn, strengthen sponsor trust, and protect donor experience while minimizing operational burden and ensuring readiness for Sponsor Care/Service.

Lead retention test-and-learn plans: use cancel insights to size opportunities and define hypotheses; translate into briefs and requirements; partner with channel owners and Product/Digital teams to implement pilots (e.g., A/B, holdouts, phased rollouts); evaluate incremental impact and scale validated solutions with documented standards and playbooks.

Partner with Operations and Impact Lead to ensure sponsor-facing impact claims are credible, evidence-informed, and aligned to sponsor expectations.

Collaborate with Sponsor Experience journey owners (e.g., onboarding, extension, and operations/impact) to ensure retention interventions are coherent across the lifecycle and do not conflict with other touchpoints or channel priorities.

Maintain and evolve documentation and playbooks (journey maps, segmentation logic, decision logs, creative standards, and launch checklists) to support repeatable execution, partner self-service, and compliance alignment.

Represent Sponsor Experience/Sponsorship Product Marketing in cross-functional forums as assigned, advocating for retention priorities and surfacing risks, dependencies, and tradeoffs.

• Work collaboratively with team members when assigned to work as part of a team.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Maintain awareness of corporate goals, objectives, organizational announcements, and activities. Reference and follow organizational policies and procedures, seeking clarity as needed.

You Bring These Skills

Demonstrated experience using data to identify trends and drivers of cancellation/churn, develop/partner on predictive risk indicators (e.g., cancel propensity), and translate insights into segmented journeys, prioritized test roadmaps, and measurable retention outcomes.

Demonstrated ability to lead through influence (without direct authority), build cross-functional alignment, and translate learning into scalable implementation.

Strong communication skills.

Alignment with World Vision’s Christian mission and values.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, analytics, or related field, or equivalent professional experience. Master’s degree preferred. Minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in retention/lifecycle marketing, CRM/journey strategy, direct response fundraising, or related customer/sponsor experience roles, including demonstrated ownership of churn reduction programs and measurement. Experience working with analytics tooling (e.g., BI dashboards) and with CRM/journey platforms; ability to partner effectively on requirements for data, segmentation, and experimentation. Preferred: experience with sponsorship, recurring revenue, or subscription-style donor programs; familiarity with cancellation drivers such as non-payment/delinquency and program/fulfillment constraints.

Salary & Benefits

WVUS Pay Grade Level: 227 Estimated hourly hiring range: $96,500 - $137,030 The posted hiring salary range reflects pay for U.S. locations and is determined using market data and internal compensation guidelines. Actual compensation may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic location, job-related experience, and applicable laws. A different range may apply in certain locations. For information about World Vision U.S’ comprehensive benefits package, please visit this link.

About World Vision We're a global Christian humanitarian organization. We partner with children, families, and their communities to empower them as they reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. For 75 years, World Vision has followed Jesus' example to show unconditional love to the poor and oppressed. We serve every child regardless of faith.

What Happens Next? Due to the high volume of applications, only short-listed candidates will be contacted for an initial phone conversation with a recruiter. We encourage you to submit a PDF resume and a cover letter. Our goal is to fill this vacancy with the right person in the shortest amount of time.

Originally posted on Himalayas