Direct Response Data Manager

Overview

As a valued partner with Aquent, this leading agency is at the forefront of direct response fundraising, crafting impactful campaigns that forge deep connections between causes and their supporters. They are driven by a commitment to data-driven strategies, maximizing philanthropic efforts, and catalyzing lasting change. Joining this team means becoming an integral part of a mission that truly makes a difference, empowering non-profits to achieve their goals and cultivate robust community relationships.

About the Opportunity

Are you a meticulous data professional with a passion for precision and a unique ability to translate strategic vision into actionable data? We are seeking a pivotal individual to join our dynamic team, serving as the critical link between strategic planning, creative execution, and technical data operations, especially during our busiest fundraising cycles. In this impactful role, you will be instrumental in ensuring the integrity and accuracy of critical campaign data, directly shaping the success of fundraising initiatives and enabling effective engagement with supporters. Your expertise will be vital in safeguarding campaign schedules, resolving complex data challenges, and upholding the highest standards of data governance, making a tangible difference in every project you touch. This is a fixed-term temporary role from October 26, 2026, to January 31, 2027.

What You’ll Do

• Review diverse client strategies to author, update, and validate comprehensive data instructions for strategists and the data engineering team.
• Maintain and manage the organization’s data guidebook (wiki) and line-by-line data dictionary, capturing new business rules, identifying missing or conflicting logic, and translating strategic briefs into executable technical instructions.
• Support strategists during grid creation, donor select generation, and campaign brief handoffs to ensure clean inputs from day one.
• Perform rigorous quality control on data files returned from data processing and audit mail entry outputs from the lettershop to ensure strict campaign fidelity.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for data quality issues, ensuring technical questions are resolved with client teams before data processor execution.
• Uphold data governance, security, and PII handling standards on every client engagement.
• Build and refine standardized data instruction templates and process documentation throughout the engagement for seamless handover to staff.

What You’ll Bring

Must-Have Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience in direct response data management, including donor segmentation, selects, suppressions, merge/purge rules, source coding, and writing error-free data instructions.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience with SQL and relational databases.
• Working knowledge of ETL builds, data warehousing, and data quality practices.
• Comfort learning proprietary data platforms combined with a service-oriented mindset and the discipline required for a role accountable for production-bound mail files.
• Immediate availability for start on October 26, 2026.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

• Background as a Technical Project Manager, Data Project Manager, or Business Analyst. (Data Engineers will be considered, but must possess strong client-facing communication skills — this is not a hands-on data engineering role).
• Experience with enterprise CRM platforms, with hands-on Salesforce experience strongly preferred. Comfort learning donor/constituent management systems quickly.
• Exposure to AWS data services, cloud data warehousing, or lakehouse tooling is a plus (role will not build ETL pipelines directly).