Senior Director Growth Marketing

The American Federation for Children (AFC) is the nation's leading school choice advocacy organization working to empower families, especially lower-income families, with the freedom to choose the best K-12 education for their children. We advocate at the state and national levels for policies that let education funding follow students, connect parents with resources to make informed choices, and develop the next generation of school choice leaders.

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About the opportunity

From January 1, 2027, donors can give up to $3,400 to scholarship organizations and receive the full amount back as a federal tax credit. The American Federation for Children is building the national platform that turns this policy into scholarships for hundreds of thousands of children. We launch with an in-house buying team, and a modern data stack. This role serves the whole AFC network, and we are hiring the leader who owns growth.

The role

You own end-to-end donor acquisition across every channel: paid search, paid social, connected TV, direct mail, affiliate, and new channels as we test them. You also own experimentation: A/B testing across landing pages, the website and the donor flow, working with the development and web teams to improve conversion. This is a hands-on, strategic role: media buying is in-house and the first launch quarter begins with new ad accounts, so direct involvement in accounts, forecasts and tests is expected. Two paid media specialists report to you.

The role serves the entire AFC, working closely with the lifecycle, implementation marketing, creative and copywriting teams.

What you'll do

Own donor acquisition end to end. Donor volume and CAC against plan across paid search, paid social, connected TV, direct mail, affiliate and new channels, with a clear forecast and an honest read on what is and is not working.

• Own experimentation. A/B testing across landing pages, the website and the donor flow. Partner with the development and web teams to improve conversion rates on site and on campaign pages, and maintain a disciplined testing roadmap.

• Set paid media strategy and run performance. Channel mix, budget allocation, account architecture and measurement, working daily with your paid media specialists.

• Lead the team. Two paid media specialists report to you; you set their priorities, standards and development.

• Own the launch quarter. Cold-start economics are the defining problem of Q1 2027: signal quality, seed audiences, pixel training and disciplined scaling as the platforms learn.

• Work across the network. Growth serves every AFC organization. Collaborate with the implementation marketing team so acquisition strategies serve state and program goals, not only donor campaigns.

• Partner across the department. Creative testing with the creative and copywriting teams, journeys with Lifecycle, and measurement and audiences with Data & Analytics.

• Shape the SEO and AI search strategy. Partner with the CMO and the Creative & Content lead on organic reach: performance-focused written content, search visibility across traditional and AI-driven discovery, and the connection between organic traffic and donor conversion.

• Report clearly, think economically. Reporting is AI-assisted across our stack; you own the economic judgment on top of it. Leadership receives a clear performance narrative: spend, results, learnings, and reallocation decisions.

Who you are

• Around eight years in growth or performance marketing, including owning an acquisition number at meaningful scale.

Hands-on: able to diagnose and resolve account issues directly in platform.

An economic mindset: CAC and LTV, incrementality, attribution limits, and forecasting you are willing to be held accountable to. Proficient with AI-assisted reporting and analysis, with the economic judgment remaining your own.

Experienced in conversion-journey optimization across pages, flows and channels, with a structured testing methodology.

You have managed or directly overseen large media budgets and understand account structure, signal quality and learning phases at that level.

A clear communicator, able to present performance to a board and work the detail with a media buyer.

Preferred but not required: fundraising or direct-response experience; connected TV or direct mail depth; in-house team builds or agency transitions; nonprofit or advocacy background.

Why this role

• Scale from day one: seven-figure monthly media budgets at launch.

A modern build: an in-house team and current technology stack, without legacy constraints.

A data advantage: a governed warehouse, a single view of the donor, and propensity models feeding your audiences.

The work funds scholarships. Better performance means more children served.

Our technology stack

Media platforms: Meta, Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, YouTube.  Measurement: GA4, Google Tag Manager, Conversions API and server-side tracking.  Data: Segment CDP, Snowflake, Sigma BI.  Lifecycle: Iterable.  Donations: Fundraise Up.  Landing pages: Unbounce.  SEO: Semrush. A/B Testing: VWO. AI-assisted reporting and analysis are standard practice across the team.

Logistics

• Remote within the US (Austin, TX a plus). xhyhwjd Competitive compensation and benefits.