Director of Lifecycle & Retention

About Chicago Public Media

Chicago Public Media is one of the nation’s largest local nonprofit news organizations. Home to WBEZ 91.5FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo. Chicago Public Media reaches more than 3.3 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to be the most trusted news source Chicagoans turn to for understanding the people, events, and ideas shaping our community.

Chicago Public Media is a 100% community-funded newsroom powered by nearly 97,000 members whose support makes our journalism possible. This sustained community investment helped drive nationally recognized work in 2025, including 29 awards from esteemed organizations, including the Public Media Journalists Association, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Association of Black Journalists.

We believe independent journalism is essential to a healthy democracy and that access to objective, fact-based news is a right for every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse content that informs and enriches our community, supported by a dedicated staff of approximately 250 professionals.

For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report .

The Opportunity

The Director of Lifecycle & Retention leads Chicago Public Media’s enterprise lifecycle strategy across brands, platforms, and audience touchpoints.

This role is responsible for designing the systems, frameworks, and strategies that strengthen retention, loyalty, participation, and long-term supporter value following acquisition. The Director establishes the lifecycle architecture, audience segmentation, performance goals, and optimization priorities that guide onboarding, engagement, renewal, sustainer conversion, upgrades, reactivation, advocacy, and long-term relationship development.

The role partners closely with Product, Marketing, Insights, Development, Editorial, and the Membership team to translate audience behavior and supporter data into coordinated lifecycle strategies across WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, Vocalo, and future platforms

General Responsibilities

Audience Journey Ownership The Membership department operates through two interconnected engines: Growth & Acquisition and Lifecycle & Retention.

The Director of Lifecycle & Retention owns the strategic framework governing the post-acquisition relationship. This includes defining how supporter cohorts move through lifecycle stages, where retention risks and opportunities exist, and how programs and channels work together to strengthen long-term audience value.

The lifecycle framework includes:

Onboarding & Early Member Experience

Sustainer Conversion

Renewal & Retention

Upgrade & Philanthropic Development

Reactivation

Advocacy & Community Participation

The Director establishes the strategy, segmentation, performance goals, and optimization roadmap across these stages. Specialized team members retain ownership of individual membership programs, channels, and experiences operating within that framework.

Growth & Acquisition owns performance through the first financial transaction. Lifecycle & Retention assumes primary strategic accountability following that transaction, with both functions jointly defining and evaluating acquisition quality.

Core Area of Focus - Lifecycle & Retention Design and continually improve a scalable lifecycle system that:

Strengthens long-term supporter loyalty and retention

Identifies and reduces preventable churn

Increases sustainer conversion and long-term giving stability

Expands lifetime value across supporter segments

Uses behavioral, transactional, and engagement signals to improve lifecycle decision-making

Creates pathways for deeper participation and philanthropic progression

Connects membership programs, communications, and experiences within a unified relationship strategy

Success Metrics

Retention and renewal performance

Sustainer conversion growth

Churn reduction across audience cohorts

Upgrade, reactivation, and long-term revenue growth

Lifetime value improvement

Audience participation and engagement performance

Lifecycle experimentation and optimization performance

Long-term supporter loyalty and relationship health

Sustainable Relationship Philosoph y

This role is responsible for strengthening long-term audience relationships through participation, trust, belonging, relevance, and ongoing engagement - not solely renewal transactions. Success in this role will be measured not only by retention performance but by the organization’s ability to deepen supporter connection and build durable, long-term audience relationships over time.

Strategic Responsibilities

Lifecycle Strategy & Modeling

Design and optimize lifecycle frameworks across brands, platforms, and audience segments

Establish lifecycle stages, audience strategies, and performance expectations

Develop retention, churn, and lifetime value models aligned with long-term growth goals

Identify retention risks, lifecycle drop-off points, and opportunities for deeper engagement.

Establish lifecycle KPIs, dashboards, and performance reporting frameworks

Lead lifecycle performance analysis and strategic recalibration

Audience Intelligence & Optimization

Develop lifecycle segmentation frameworks using transactional, behavioral, and engagement data

Identify behavioral signals associated with retention, churn, conversion, upgrade potential, and long-term loyalty

Define priority lifecycle cohorts and differentiated relationship strategies

Establish testing standards and a lifecycle experimentation roadmap

Translate performance insights into strategic recommendations for programs, communications, and audience experiences

Engagement & Loyalty Strategy

Define engagement strategies that strengthen retention, participation, and long-term supporter value

Identify the experiences and behaviors most strongly associated with loyalty and retention

Establish audience priorities that inform member programs, benefits, communications, and experiences

Partner with Product and audience teams to connect personalization, digital behavior, participation, and membership strategy

Develop frameworks for measuring relationship health beyond financial transactions.

Retention & Revenue Strategy

Establish retention strategy and performance goals across supporter segments

Define strategic frameworks for sustainer conversion, renewal, upgrade, philanthropic progression, and reactivation

Identify cohorts requiring differentiated retention strategies

Evaluate retention economics and lifetime value across supporter segments

Partner with membership program owners to translate lifecycle strategy into effective renewal, stewardship, upgrade, benefit, and engagement programs

Lead recurring lifecycle and cohort performance reviews

Lifecycle Messaging Strategy

Establish messaging frameworks for onboarding, stewardship, retention, upgrade, and reactivation

Define audience objectives, segmentation priorities, behavioral triggers, and measurement expectations for lifecycle communications

Ensure continuity between acquisition messaging and the long-term supporter experience

Partner with channel and program owners to translate lifecycle strategy into effective email, direct mail, digital, event, and other audience experiences

Cross-Functional Leadership

Lead lifecycle strategy across Product, Marketing, Insights, Editorial, Development, Revenue Operations, and technology teams

Translate Membership priorities into cross-functional requirements for audience data, personalization, product experiences, measurement, and engagement

Establish shared lifecycle goals and decision frameworks across teams whose work influences retention and supporter value

Represent lifecycle and retention priorities in organizational planning and product development

Team & Operational Leadership

Manage and develop team members responsible for specialized functions within Lifecycle & Retention

Establish clear strategic priorities, decision rights, performance expectations, and accountability across lifecycle functions

Ensure membership programs, communications, and engagement efforts operate within a unified lifecycle strategy while maintaining clear functional ownership

Build team capabilities in lifecycle strategy, audience intelligence, experimentation, measurement, and optimization

Identify capability, resource, technology, and process gaps that limit lifecycle performance

Qualifications

Experience leading lifecycle, retention, subscription, membership, CRM, loyalty, or audience relationship strategy

Demonstrated ability to design lifecycle frameworks across multiple audience segments, products, channels, or brands

Strong understanding of retention strategy, cohort analysis, churn reduction, segmentation, and lifetime value optimization

Experience translating behavioral, transactional, and engagement data into audience strategies and organizational decisions

Experience establishing KPIs, performance frameworks, experimentation programs, and optimization roadmaps

Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives across Product, Marketing, Insights, Development, Editorial, technology, or comparable functions

Ability to move between enterprise strategy, analytical insight, and implementation through specialized teams

Experience building personalization, loyalty, engagement, or member experience strategies

Strong people leadership, strategic communication, and organizational planning skills

Demonstrated ability to build new capabilities, systems, or operating models rather than solely manage established programs

Compensation

The expected pay range for this position is $118,000 - $147,000 per ANNUM.

Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.

Working at Chicago Public Media

At Chicago Public Media, we care deeply about our employees as we know attracting, developing, and growing talent is key to our success and enhancing our impact.

Our culture is one where collaboration, diversity of ideas, and innovation are encouraged. We value colleagues who will enhance our culture by bringing new ideas, divergent experiences, and talents to our dynamic workplace.

At Chicago Public Media we believe dedication to a great workplace includes supporting our employees and their families. As a result, we provide a broad and generous benefits package for employees at hire and in the years to come.

Our benefits include a competitive salary and benefits package which includes medical, dental, vision, vacation, holidays, life insurance, disability coverage, retirement savings, and a commuter benefits plan.

Chicago Public Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we actively seek and welcome people from all backgrounds, orientations, and life experiences to join our team.

The essential functions described above are not all-inclusive and are not intended to create any contractual or other legal commitment. Chicago Public Media may change the content or format of this job at any time in its sole and exclusive discretion without notice.