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, 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.