Background:

Every professional sports team plays an important role in the civic fabric of its community. The Washington Nationals are committed to leveraging its highly visible brand to galvanize community engagement that delivers impact greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Nationals Philanthropies is the official charitable arm of the Washington Nationals. Its mission is to help children, families, and communities thrive through sport-based youth development and access to healthy food. The organization delivers on this commitment by spurring investment in community-based programs that address the disparity of opportunity for residents of the region.

Since 2007, the foundation has issued over $6.8 million in grants to local organizations. Through its signature program, the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, the organization operates year-round youth development and baseball instruction activities, as well as a holistic food access program – supporting the delivery of nearly 1 million meals into the Washington, DC region since 2018. Since 2013, the organization has invested $42 million for facility construction and annual programming through the Academy.

Summary:

Organizational excellence and community impact depends heavily on the implementation of fundraising capabilities through grassroots marketing. To accomplish this, Nationals Philanthropies deploys more than a dozen unique fan-facing fundraisers throughout the year to steward mass participation in high-quality community impact initiatives germane to the organization’s mission. Leveraging the Nationals brand through marketing-led tactics, the organization makes targeted calls to action that encourage fans to donate money and time benefitting the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, the Nationals’ food access efforts, and MLB or player-led charitable initiatives.

The Marketing Manager will support the organization’s grassroots fundraising activity through leadership of digital marketing platforms as well as a portfolio of fan engagement initiatives. The ideal candidate understands the value of demonstrating impact through a clear articulation of measurable results achieved by the organization – both through its own programs and activities as well as in the context of similar efforts regionally, nationally, and across sports philanthropy and youth development.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Digital Marketing Strategy – Through proven experience working within the professional sports industry and/or nonprofit brands, manage across digital platforms with adherence to brand guidelines and voice as well as an understanding of how to motivate consumer behavior.

• Thorough knowledge of how to develop and deploy an effective multi-channel marketing strategy.

• Optimization across email, web, social media, and donor platform to put forth a seamless integrated marketing-fundraising strategy.

• Ability to identify distinct audience segments for the purpose of tailored marketing communications.

Content Development – Have command over all content required to deliver activations within portfolio.

• Develop high-quality written materials including but not limited to website copy, email appeals, social media captions, and partner communications.

• Liaise with Nationals creative department and/or external design vendor on the creation and development of graphics needed to execute each activation as well as evergreen materials.

• Liaise with Nationals Youth Baseball Academy staff to obtain and create content designed to effectively tell the Academy story.

• Contribute to key fundraising collateral including but not limited to sponsorship packets, Annual Reports, event recaps, and impact reports.

Portfolio Management – Deliver on the above across the following fundraising activation portfolio – supporting the generation of over $2 million in annual gross revenue.

• Integrated Marketing – work cross functionally with the Nationals Marketing team to integrate community initiatives seamlessly into the consumer marketing strategy across the ball club. Includes the following sub-departments: Creative, Promotions, Player Relations, Photography, Production, and Communications.

• Evergreen In-Stadium Fundraisers – Support content and marketing strategy surrounding the 5050 Raffle, Scoreboard Messages, and License Plate fundraising initiatives.

• Fundraising Events – Play a leadership role in the content and communications strategy as well as execution of the organization’s annual fundraising events such as the Nationals Homecoming Gala and the Mushball Classic corporate softball tournament.

• Player Philanthropy – Support Senior Director, Marketing with the stewardship of charitable player initiatives, including the Player Ambassador to the Youth Baseball Academy. Includes cross-collaboration with the Player Relations department of the ball club to manage all player memorabilia and activation needs.

Requirements:

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent military experience
• 3-5 years of work experience in marketing and/or charitable fundraising, sports philanthropy is a plus
• Excellent computer skills, with a strong familiarity in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities necessary to perform essential functions:

• Experience with or general proficiency in the following tools/platforms:
  • Website management (Wordpress preferred)
  • Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop and InDesign strongly preferred)
  • Donor marketing platforms (Classy and Salesforce preferred)
  • Email marketing automation tools (Pardot preferred)
  • Google Analytics

• Strong verbal and written communication skills – ability to deliver clear and compelling communications with internal and external colleagues and stakeholders
• Strong time management and organizational skills with ability to take initiative and follow through

• Ability to think creatively and handle multiple tasks simultaneously in a fast-paced environment while remaining extremely organized with meticulous attention to detail

• Strong client-service orientation with an understanding of how to “manage up” and proactively answer questions before they’re asked

• Uphold Core Values: Excellence, Performance, and Accountability. These core values set the tone in everything we do, help us succeed on and off the field, make a difference in the community and provide the best guest experience in sports. It is important that the person in the position commits themselves to these core values so that we can constantly move forward in the same direction – Together.

Physical/Environmental Requirements

• Office: Working conditions are normal for an office environment
• Position will require occasional weekend and/or evening work