Communications & Development Manager

Key to Change's mission is to inspire underserved youth through world-class music instruction and support their development as self-aware leaders.

The Communications & Development Manager plays a central role in how Key to Change tells its story, builds relationships, raises funds, and turns audience interest into meaningful action.

This position combines strategic communications, digital engagement, fundraising communications, lead management, donor engagement, and development support. The Manager will help move individuals from initial awareness and interest toward deeper engagement—whether that means making a donation, attending an event, enrolling in a program, responding to outreach, or building a long-term relationship with Key to Change.

The Manager will also help manage the organization's engagement and development pipeline by identifying and following up with prospective donors and warm leads, executing annual giving and small-dollar fundraising activities, maintaining accurate Salesforce records, supporting donor stewardship, and tracking whether communications and outreach result in meaningful engagement.

The successful candidate understands the difference between distributing information and inspiring action. They understand how audience, storytelling, emotion, urgency, relevance, trust, segmentation, timing, repetition, and clear calls to action influence whether someone simply reads a communication or decides to act.

This is not an entry-level position. We are seeking someone who can independently produce polished professional communications, manage day-to-day execution, and use data to improve results with limited editorial oversight.

• External written communications
• Email and e-newsletter execution
• Website content
• Fundraising and engagement campaigns
• Audience segmentation and communication workflows
• Lead and prospect follow-up systems
• Salesforce data quality and activity tracking
• Annual giving and small-dollar development activities
• Donor stewardship communications
• Campaign reporting and performance analysis
• Coordination between communications and development

• Write compelling copy for the website, e-newsletters, fundraising appeals, donor communications, annual reports, program announcements, impact stories, campaign materials, and print communications.
• Translate Key to Change's mission, student experiences, outcomes, and priorities into communications tailored to specific audiences and designed to inspire action.
• Develop email and digital campaigns with clear objectives, calls to action, segmentation, testing, and performance measurement.
• Manage e-newsletter strategy, including writing, scheduling, segmentation, testing, and analysis.
• Maintain accurate, compelling, current, and accessible website content aligned with fundraising, enrollment, and engagement goals.
• Develop communications calendars and workflows that support proactive outreach.
• Analyze engagement and conversion metrics—including opens, clicks, website activity, giving, registrations, and other actions—to improve messaging, timing, segmentation, and calls to action.
• Maintain a consistent organizational voice and high editorial standards.
• Interview staff, students, families, donors, and community members and identify stories that demonstrate student impact and organizational value.
• Collaborate with the Social Media Associate to align social media, email, website, and fundraising efforts.

• Manage and cultivate a portfolio of individual donors and prospective donors.
• Support the Director of Strategic Relationships & Partnerships with donor cultivation, stewardship, prospect research, meetings, and solicitation activities.
• Build donor relationships through thoughtful, personalized, and consistent communication.
• Develop and execute annual giving and targeted fundraising campaigns across email, website, print, direct outreach, and other channels.
• Identify opportunities to renew, upgrade, reactivate, and deepen donor relationships.
• Follow up consistently with prospective donors and warm leads generated through events, referrals, social media, email, website activity, and community engagement.
• Maintain organized follow-up plans based on donor interests, giving history, engagement, behavior, and relationship stage.
• Support donor meetings, events, tours, cultivation, and stewardship activities.
• Track campaign performance, donor retention, response rates, conversion, upgrades, and average gift size.
• Collaborate with the Director and Executive Director on prospect identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.

• Maintain accurate donor, prospect, and engagement records in Salesforce, including interactions, gifts, communications, interests, solicitations, and follow-up activity.
• Develop and improve lead-management systems so individuals who demonstrate interest receive timely and…