Senior Strategist Jobs

Please apply directly via our posting through Workable.

We’re hiring a Senior Strategist to join our team at Big Duck. Senior Strategists deliver communications solutions for our most complex strategic work while deepening our team’s knowledge and helping us continually refine our processes for client work.

The Senior Strategist will be assigned to a variety of projects for our nonprofit clients, including brand development, fundraising and outreach campaigns, strategic communications plans, and coaching for communications and development teams.

Here’s some of what the job includes:

• Leading capacity-building trainings for nonprofit staff and board members via workshops, webinars, conferences, etc.
• Developing brand strategy recommendations and bringing a strategic perspective to the development of brand assets, such as messaging and visual identities, in collaboration with our writers, designers, and account managers.
• Bringing insights and skills to inform how we approach client work, including looking for ways to strengthen processes and deliverables so that they work better for our clients and for our team.
• Facilitating and presenting in client meetings and workshop sessions (virtual and in-person).
• Contributing to Big Duck’s thought leadership and content marketing (e.g., by writing blog posts, recording podcasts, and speaking at events).
• Supporting Big Duck’s new business development, which includes helping develop proposals and participating in presentations with prospects.
• Advancing Big Duck’s DEI plan by engaging in ongoing competency-building workshops, participating in internal equity meetings, and bringing a focus on equity and inclusion to client work and with colleagues.
• Crafting communications, marketing, and donor engagement plans that provide strategic and tactical direction and reflect an understanding of each client’s context, mission, and capacity
• Working with colleagues on the creative and account management team to generate campaign concepts, and writing plans for campaign communications, including capital/major donor campaigns, fundraising campaigns, and recruitment/participation campaigns
• Participating in regular team meetings and projects to advance our company goals.
• Conducting research (interviews, focus groups, surveys, materials reviews, landscape scans) to inform brand and communications strategies with an emphasis on equitable and inclusive research processes

The Senior Strategist reports to the Director of Strategy and is a member of the strategy team. They collaborate closely with all project departments, including the creative team, account management team, and marketing team.

The Senior Strategist is a full-time, exempt, salaried position. All roles on the Big Duck team are fully remote. Our standard workweek is 40 hours, though occasional evening or weekend work or travel may be required.

About Big Duck

Big Duck is a worker-owned cooperative that helps nonprofits develop their brands, campaigns, and communications teams. We’re an all-remote team made up of thoughtful, creative people dedicated to helping our clients achieve their goals and make change in their communities. We are a values-driven, democratically-run business, and we work to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in how we work together as a team and with our clients and partners.

Requirements

Strong candidates for the Senior Strategist role will have the equivalent of at least five years of relevant, full-time experience in some combination of branding, nonprofit management, fundraising, and communications. Successful members of our strategy team come from a range of professional backgrounds, including in-house experience in nonprofits, and agency or consulting experience.

Key competencies include...

• Strong presentation, training, and facilitation skills
• Deep knowledge of the branding and communications challenges and opportunities that nonprofits experience as they advance their missions
• Ability to develop big-picture communications strategy and detailed tactical plans and move between these levels
• Commitment to centering equity and inclusion in their day-to-day work and contributing to the goals mapped in Big Duck’s DEI plan
• Commitment to fostering learning and growth in themselves and others
• Ability to implement scopes of work pragmatically and adaptively
• Demonstrates excellence in collaborative work, appreciating diverse perspectives, forging strong relationships, and cultivating a positive and inclusive team environment.
• Commitment to collaborating respectfully and productively with colleagues and clients, building relationships based on trust and openness
• Enthusiasm for participating in a democratically-run, worker-owned company, including learning about and contributing to the business’s strategy and direction
• Ability to share and receive feedback with candor and kindness
• Ability to conduct research to inform communications strategies with an emphasis on equitable and inclusive research processes
• Effective communication skills—in person, by video, and in writing
• Ability to meet deadlines and manage a large workload independently
• Comfort with Google Workspace, Asana, Slack, SurveyMonkey, and Zoom—or eager to learn!

Additional requirements

Our standard work hours are Monday through Friday, 9-5 ET / 8-4 PT / 8-4 or 9-5 for folks working Central or Mountain Time. We have a flexible time policy that encourages team members to take breaks and work in ways that support their health and productivity. Workloads are based on a standard 40-hour work week.

Aside from being generally available to work and meet during our standard work hours, qualified candidates must...

• Have a permanent residence in the continental United States
• Be available and able to travel occasionally (at least twice a year for team gatherings, and as needed for client projects—likely 2-6 times/year; primarily domestic travel, but international is possible)
• Be able to participate in and facilitate video calls, including working sessions (with breaks built-in) that can run four hours or more
• Have consistent access to a work environment with a stable internet connection, suitable for participating in video calls with colleagues and clients

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable candidates or employees with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Benefits

For the experience level we’re expecting in this Senior Strategist hire (5+ years of experience), we are offering a salary range of $75,000 - $85,000. Big Duck’s salary bands are documented and available for all staff to review.

Benefits for full-time employees include:

• A 401(k) plan with an employer match (up to 4% of your salary, depending on your own contributions)
• Optional enrollment in Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Savings Accounts, for pre-tax savings
• Employee-paid supplemental insurance plans, including life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability
• Partially-subsidized dental and employee-paid vision plans
• A flexible time policy that allows team members to take breaks and adjust the shape of their workdays when needed to accommodate wellness and personal needs
• Annual stipend for professional development
• 20 days of paid time off and 10 paid holidays
• Useful services through our PEO, Justworks, including complimentary membership in One Medical and access to a free healthcare advocacy service
• Subsidized health insurance plans from Aetna (we currently cover the full cost of individual enrollment in a good-quality, zero-deductible plan)

After a year on staff, employees are eligible to become worker-owners at Big Duck. Worker-owners vote on significant decisions affecting our company, receive an equal share of Big Duck’s profits, and are eligible to run and vote for our Board of Directors.

Big Duck provides each employee with an Apple computer (typically a laptop) and basic workspace equipment as needed (including an external monitor, headset, keyboard, and mouse as requested). We also provide an annual budget for any additional improvements you choose to make for your home workspace.

Process

Please apply directly through our posting on Workable to ensure we collect all information needed. You can find a direct link on our website under Jobs.

Besides this application, the hiring process may include the following:

• Submission of a selected portfolio of work samples
• 2-3 video interviews by Zoom
• An exercise in which finalists will be compensated to develop work for a sample project (approximately 2-3 hours of work)
• Reference checks

Ideal candidates will be available to start in September 2023.

To ensure that your application is included in our first round of reviews, please submit all of your materials by the end of day on July 15th, 2023. The job posting will be open until the role is filled.

We appreciate the time it takes to apply for jobs like this one, and we know it can be tough to send out applications without ever hearing back. We will be in touch as soon as we can to let you know the status of your application. If you haven’t heard from us within thirty days of submitting your materials, please feel free to follow up with us at hello [at] bigduck.com.

Decided not to apply? If, after reviewing this job description, you have decided not to apply, we’d appreciate your feedback. Please let us know why by completing this form: https://forms.gle/uusmbr7ZGTRCQ1xm8