Vice President, Direct Marketing & Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
Blue Star Families · Washington, District of Columbia, United States · hybrid
Job Title: Vice President, Direct Marketing & Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
Department: Development
Location: Hybrid within Washington D.C. Metro area
Reports to: Chief Development Officer
Direct Reports: No
Classification: Exempt
Position type: Full-Time Employee
Anticipated Pay Range at Commencement of Employment: $128,000 - $177,000 per year
Blue Star Families
Blue Star Families is the largest nonprofit dedicated to making military life better for families. Each year, we support over 1.5 million military- and veteran-connected family members through a national network of 450,000+ members and local chapters in communities across the country.
Our mission is simple and bold: We make military life awesome for families.
We listen, share, partner, and act to deliver evidence-based, data-driven solutions that work for real people. We’re a lifestyle organization, a friend and neighbor, and a trusted partner. Our approach is collaborative, human-centered, and designed with the whole family in mind.
A Blue Star Family is one with an immediate family member — a spouse, parent, or child — actively serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, including the Guard and Reserves. These families face unique challenges: frequent relocations, deployments, career disruption, and isolation. We respond with research-informed programs that create connection, build resilience, and foster a true sense of belonging.
We serve with urgency but build trust over time — because change happens at the speed of trust. Whether we’re driving spouse employment, supporting caregivers, or helping communities welcome military families, we strive for upstream solutions.
Who We’re Looking For:
- Bold thinkers. Fast movers. Smart collaborators. People who want to build, lead, and drive measurable change — and who care deeply about making an impact that matters.
What You’ll Do Here:
- Solve complex challenges with data, heart, and humility
- Build cross-sector partnerships that get things done
- Help military families feel at home wherever they live
If you're ready to work in a high-performance, mission-driven environment — and to make life better for those who serve — Blue Star Families is where you belong.
General Description
The Vice President, Direct Marketing & Peer-to-Peer Fundraising leads the strategy and performance of Blue Star Families' direct response and peer-to-peer fundraising programs. This role grows BSF's broad base of individual donors through multi-channel direct marketing. It also builds scalable peer-to-peer and grassroots giving programs that engage volunteers, ambassadors, chapter members and community members as fundraisers on behalf of military families.
Reporting to the Chief Development Officer and directly supervising [direct report title(s)], this leader partners closely with Marketing, Development Operations and Chapters/Programs staff to integrate direct marketing and peer-to-peer fundraising into the organization's broader revenue strategy.
This role requires the ability to travel overnight several times per year to attend team offsites, leadership sessions, fundraising events and company-wide events. Attendance and participation in these gatherings is a non-negotiable component of the position.
Key Job Functions
Direct Marketing & Mass-Market Fundraising
- Oversee multi-channel direct response strategy, including donor acquisition, retention, reactivation, and upgrade pathways across direct mail, email, digital advertising, SMS, and other mass-market channels.
- Set annual revenue goals, budgets and performance benchmarks for direct marketing programs.
- Ensure rigorous segmentation, A/B testing, and performance-based ROI analysis to inform channel investment, with a bias toward rapid experimentation and scaling winning plays.
- Manage relationships with external direct marketing vendors and agencies (e.g., MissionWired), ensuring quality, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness; hold partners to the same high-performance standard as internal team members.
- Monitor campaign performance, donor acquisition costs, retention, and lifetime value metrics, adjusting strategy as needed.
- Build a clear pathway that moves donors from first-time gifts to recurring, mid-level and major gift potential.
Peer-to-Peer & Grassroots Fundraising
- Design and grow peer-to-peer fundraising programs (e.g., team and individual fundraising campaigns, DIY fundraising, ambassador programs) to diversify and expand BSF's donor base.
- Partner with Marketing to build compelling peer-to-peer campaign assets, digital fundraising pages, and participant communications.
- Develop toolkits, training and playbooks that equip volunteers, ambassadors and chapter leaders to fundraise effectively.
- Set and track participant recruitment, fundraising, and retention goals across peer-to-peer campaigns.
- Create a visible scoreboard and recognition program that celebrates top fundraisers and teams and fuels healthy competition.
- Launch, test, and iterate on new peer-to-peer concepts quickly, scaling winning approaches and retiring those that underperform.
- Convert peer-to-peer donors and participants into ongoing supporters through targeted direct marketing follow-up.
Team Leadership & Performance Management
- Supervise staff and provide leadership and coaching to expand the chapter fundraising support function.
- Develop, coach, and appraise staff to ensure high performance and professional growth, providing regular, candid feedback and addressing performance gaps promptly.
- Build a high-talent-density team in which every member understands the strategy, owns their results, and makes decisions quickly.
- Foster a collaborative, solutions-oriented culture aligned with BSF values across the chapter network, grounded in freedom, responsibility, and accountability.
Program Integration & Cross-Functional Coordination
- Partner with Marketing & Communications on donor messaging, campaign creative, branding and channel strategy.
- Coordinate with the Chapters/Programs team to engage chapter members and volunteers in peer-to-peer campaigns.
- Ensure alignment between direct marketing, peer-to-peer, major gifts, corporate and events strategies to build strong donor pipelines.
Systems, Data & Reporting
- Oversee accurate tracking of chapter and peer-to-peer fundraising activity within the CRM, ensuring data integrity and consistent reporting.
- Establish performance dashboards and revenue pacing for direct marketing and peer-to-peer channels, using them as a real-time scoreboard for the team.
- Provide regular reporting to the Chief Development Officer, and to the Board as needed, on channel performance, donor retention and revenue forecasts.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Required Experience, Skills, Background
- 8+ years of progressive nonprofit development experience, including experience with chapter-based, affiliate, or peer-to-peer fundraising models.
- 3+ years of experience managing staff or leading a team.
- Demonstrated experience building or scaling peer-to-peer, grassroots, or volunteer-driven fundraising programs.
- A proven track record of meeting or exceeding ambitious revenue and participation goals, with specific, measurable wins you can speak to.
- An athlete's mindset: high energy, competitive drive, resilience after setbacks, and a hunger to keep improving.
- A coach's ability to motivate, hold accountable, and bring out the best in staff and volunteers alike.
- Comfort operating with a high degree of autonomy and accountability, and the ability to give and receive candid feedback.
- Experience developing training, toolkits, or resources to support a distributed or volunteer fundraising network.
- Strong relationship-building skills with the ability to motivate and support volunteer leaders across a geographically dispersed organization.
- Demonstrated success working with CRM systems (preferably Salesforce) a