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 Philosophy
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, ex