Senior Director - Digital Marketing

AKF HAS ENGAGED THE SERVICES OF STAFFING ADVISORS FOR THIS SEARCH SO PLEASE APPLY THROUGH THEIR WEB SITE: www.staffingadvisors.com/job/senior-director-of-digital-marketing

As one of the nation’s most trusted and highest-rated nonprofits, the American Kidney Fund fights kidney disease on all fronts for more than 35 million Americans—no other organization has a more comprehensive approach or makes a greater direct impact on patients’ lives. As Senior Director of Digital Marketing, you’ll shape how patients, caregivers, and supporters engage with AKF’s mission through a modern digital presence designed for the future of how people connect and give online. AKF is financially strong, with no reliance on federal funding, and makes strategic investments that keep the organization at the forefront of how nonprofits use technology to bring life-changing information, support, and inspiration to those who need it most.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role for a data-savvy leader who thrives on innovation, collaboration, and execution. You'll be highly visible across the organization, regularly interacting with the CEO, executive team, peers in other departments, and external partners, to align digital strategies with goals in fundraising, programs, and advocacy.

Reporting to the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, you will lead a high-performing team of four (growing to a team of six) and oversee a digital program that brings together paid media, social media, SEO, and web strategy into a unified approach. You will collaborate closely with the Senior Directors of Brand Marketing and Communications to ensure digital strategy is seamlessly integrated with content, creative, public relations, and storytelling efforts. You will also lead AKF’s next major website redesign, ensuring the platform reflects best practices in AI-powered search, user-centered design, accessibility, and discoverability.

The ideal candidate is an enthusiastic, people-first leader with proven ability to develop and empower teams, and a forward-thinking web strategist with a deep understanding of how AI and emerging technologies are transforming digital engagement.

How You’ll Make an Impact
Working closely with colleagues across communications, development, advocacy, and programs, you’ll design digital experiences that strengthen AKF’s connection with patients, donors, partners, and advocates. Initial focus areas include:

• Driving performance across AKF’s digital advertising portfolio. Oversee a comprehensive paid digital advertising program, including more than 30 corporate-funded campaigns and initiatives, with strategic and tactical support from the associate director of digital marketing.
• Guiding the strategy and execution of AKF’s next website redesign. Oversee the 2026 project from RFP development and vendor selection through internal stakeholder work and project launch. Ensure the new site is built with UX and accessibility top of mind, with a focus on integrating AI capabilities and modern user engagement opportunities.
• Leading and developing a high-performing team. Provide direction, mentorship, and growth opportunities for a talented team of four that will grow to six in 2026.
• Contributing to organization-wide initiatives that modernize how AKF works. Support the implementation of a Digital Asset Management system to improve how content is organized and delivered. Collaborate with leadership to plan digital integration of upcoming brand changes informed by a brand study now underway.

Responsibilities

Digital Strategy & Integration

• Develop and lead a comprehensive, future-ready digital strategy that aligns with organizational goals in fundraising, programs, advocacy, and audience growth.
• Ensure the digital ecosystem reflects best-in-class UX, AI-driven site architecture, and compliance with evolving Google experience standards.
• Guide the strategic use of AI, automation, and predictive analytics to optimize user journeys and content discoverability.
• Collaborate across departments to unify messaging, timing, and impact across all digital campaigns.

Website Leadership & Redesign

• Oversee all aspects of web strategy, including site architecture, performance, UX, accessibility, and analytics.
• Lead a major website redesign initiative, ensuring full integration of AI-powered tools and next-generation user behavior trends.
• Supervise the Webmaster/Director of SEO and manage external web vendors and consultants.
• Play a key role in AKF’s 2026 implementation of a Digital Asset Management system.

Paid Digital Advertising & SEO

• Lead paid digital advertising strategy across search, social, display, and programmatic.
• Plan and oversee campaign development, creative direction, testing, and optimization in support of programmatic and advocacy goals.
• Work closely with the Development and Programs departments on cultivating and executing corporate-sponsored health education campaigns.
• Oversee the organization’s SEO strategy, with a focus on structure, content optimization, and search discoverability in both traditional and AI-driven search environments.
• Supervise the Associate Director of Digital Marketing and related vendor relationships.

Social Media (Organic & Paid)

• Oversee strategy and execution for both organic and paid social media, ensuring channel-specific goals are met across platforms, including Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and others.
• Partner with the Senior Director of Brand Marketing to ensure brand voice, storytelling, and visual identity are carried consistently across all channels.
• Oversee and mentor the organization’s two social media managers to further develop and standardize AKF’s social voice and to develop channel-tailored, video-centric, social-first content.
• Monitor trends and platform shifts, optimizing performance and engagement through testing, analytics, and AI-enhanced tools.

Collaboration & Team Leadership

• Serve as a collaborative thought partner to senior leadership and programmatic teams across AKF.
• Triage and prioritize requests across departments to ensure high-impact work is delivered in a fast-paced, lean environment.
• Provide day-to-day guidance and long-term development opportunities for a small, high-performing digital team.
• Foster a team culture of innovation, accountability, and empathy, supporting team members at all stages of professional growth.
• Regularly present strategic recommendations and performance results to the CCMO and the rest of the Executive Team.

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of progressive experience in digital marketing and strategy, with at least 3–5 years of direct leadership responsibility for teams and cross-functional initiatives, ideally in a nonprofit or mission-focused environment.
• Demonstrated success leading organization-wide web strategy and redesign efforts, including AI readiness, search optimization, and management of complex stakeholder needs.
• Expertise across paid digital advertising, paid and organic social media, SEO, and user experience.
• Familiarity with AI-informed search, chat-based interfaces, and next-generation content delivery.
• Strong understanding of generative engine optimization (GEO) and other search landscape trends.
• Experience collaborating across communications, marketing, and other teams (such as fundraising, advocacy, and programs) to achieve shared goals.
• Demonstrated successful experience in developing and managing budgets.
• Experience selecting and managing digital vendors and agencies, particularly in web development and paid media.
• Excellent interpersonal, collaboration, communication, and presentation skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated success in mentoring and developing digital professionals at varying levels of experience.
• Proficiency with CMS platforms (e.g., Drupal, WordPress) and analytics and marketing tools such as GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, and SEMrush.
• Experience working with or adjacent to healthcare or pharmaceutical industry audiences is a plus.

AKF HAS ENGAGED THE SERVICES OF STAFFING ADVISORS FOR THIS SEARCH SO PLEASE APPLY THROUGH THEIR WEB SITE: www.staffingadvisors.com/job/senior-director-of-digital-marketing