Marketing & Communications Lead(Temporary Backfill ~ Potential for Extension)

About Center for the Heart

Center for the Heart is a mission-driven nonprofit offering end-of-life and grief support and caregiver education. Our work is grounded in dignity, supporting death and grief literacy and equitable access to support. We serve individuals and families nationwide through virtual programming while maintaining a strong local footprint in NJ/NY through events, partnerships, local program offerings and community engagement.

Role Summary

This role serves as the organization’s lead marketing and communications strategist during a temporary backfill period. You will maintain continuity across Center for the Heart’s marketing strategy, public communications, digital presence, event promotion, fundraising visibility and external and internal marketing- and communications-related stakeholder engagement while executing a high-priority marketing overhaul.

This is a systems + conversion + content authority role. You must be able to:

• Lead strategy while also executing key work hands-on
• Keep the organization oriented toward non-negotiables
• Delegate effectively to contractors and interns
• Operate with autonomy, granular detail and high-level vision
• Maintain momentum even as priorities shift quickly

Core Responsibilities 

1) Strategic Marketing Leadership & Execution Ownership 

• Own and execute the marketing strategy and implementation plan supporting the marketing overhaul
• Translate organizational priorities into weekly execution plans and deliverables based on your team’s weekly hourly thresholds
• Maintain clarity across shifting priorities while protecting core deliverables
• Provide strategic recommendations and reporting to the COO
• Ensure all marketing aligns to ethical standards, deliverability and operational readiness (no premature promotion but ready to promote once operations and program structures are in place)

2) Website, SEO and CMS Ownership

• Serve as primary owner of the website and CMS
• Implement technical SEO fixes (metadata, images, broken links/404s and sitemap hygiene)
• Create and optimize high-priority educational pillar and service pages
• Build and optimize user journeys for:
• services and offerings
• event registration
• free download ~ low-cost guide ~ paid support pathway
• donation flows

3) SEO Resource Blog Overhaul & Authority Engine

• Lead and execute a full overhaul of the organization’s educational SEO resource library
• Consistently maintain regular blog publication cadence
• Ensure consistent tagging, metadata, internal linking and publication cadence
• Ensure SOPs are followed by support staff and interns
• Maintain quality and E-E-A-T standards appropriate for grief and end-of-life content

4) Email Marketing, Segmentation and Automation Systems 

• Own the organization’s email marketing platform (Brevo)
• Build out from existing internal copy and optimize:
• welcome flows
• donor welcome flows
• newsletter templates and cadence
• workshop pre/post follow-ups
• free download ~ tripwire ~ upsell sequences
• Monitor performance (open rates, click rates and engagement) and iterate
• Lead segmentation and data hygiene improvements across contact types (clients, donors, partners, grantors, providers and volunteers)
• Lead and implement optimization for deliverability (DMARC, SKIM, SPF and other best practices)

5) Fundraising Visibility + Donation Conversion Infrastructure 

• Implement and optimize donation pathways through Givebutter and/or PayPal
• Ensure donation pages, thank-you flows and donor communications are functional and aligned
• Support development of fundraising assets and impact metrics
• Maintain ethical timing and messaging standards for fundraising communications

6) Conversion Infrastructure & Revenue Literacy 

• Build funnels that generate:
• consult requests
• workshop registrations
• donations
• paid downloads and tripwires
• Track and improve conversion performance using clear KPIs
• Ensure marketing supports revenue-generating conversions while remaining mission aligned and ethically timed

7) Analytics, Tracking and KPI Reporting 

• Own setup and ongoing use of:
• Google Analytics (GA4)
• Google Tag Manager
• Google Search Console
• Local SEO tools and/or citation management tools
• SEO research tools (SEMrush, Ahrefs, Squarespace Analytics)
• Maintain baseline KPI dashboards and lead monthly KPI reviews

8) Event Marketing + Local Visibility (Summit NJ and Surrounding Counties) 

• Lead marketing strategy and promotion for in-person and virtual events
• Create all event collateral (flyers, signage, one-pagers, decks and social graphics)
• Coordinate print preparation and production
• Attend and support select events in Summit NJ and surrounding counties (plans to expand to NYC in late 2026)
• Draft post-event recaps and follow-up communications
• Implement and own tracking of event conversions and success measurements (UTM, lead tracking, partnership tracking)

9) Partnerships, PR and External Communications 

• Support targeted partnership outreach
• Develop partner materials (one-pagers, outreach templates and co-branded assets)
• Support PR story angles and local media pitching
• Maintain professional communications with venues, partners and co-hosts

10) AI Enablement + Workflow Automation 

• Use AI tools to increase marketing speed and consistency (drafting, editing, outlining and formatting)
• Strongly preferred: experience customizing AI systems for organizations (prompt libraries, workflows, standard outputs and brand tone systems)
• Support implementation of an internal marketing and communications AI hub to improve efficiency across the team

11) Integrations + CRM Source of Truth (Preferred, but Not Required) 

• Support transition toward Salesforce as the long-term CRM source of truth
• Strongly preferred: experience building or leading teams to build integrations between:
• website forms
• email marketing platform
• donation tools (Givebutter and PayPal)
• CRM systems (Salesforce or similar)

12) Team Leadership & Delegation 

• Lead and coordinate support contractors and interns
• Maintain clarity through trackers, calendars, SOPs and documentation
• Ensure deliverables continue smoothly beyond the backfill period
• Build continuity documentation and improve file organization

13) Maintain + Optimize Social Media Channels for Growth and Visibility

• Implement and maintain content repurposing strategy for regular posting cadence on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube
• Ensure events and other internal and external initiatives are properly promoted on socials
• Implement and maintain regular ManyChat conversion funnels and initiatives
• Maintain Social Media relevance by engagement on adjacent accounts weekly and monitoring of related trends
• Assist internal experts in creating video content for use in reels

Required Qualifications 

• 5+ years in marketing, communications or digital growth (nonprofit, startup or mission-driven org experience is a plus)
• Strong website and CMS experience (Squarespace or similar)
• Strong SEO experience (technical, on-page and content architecture)
• Proven ability to manage email marketing, segmentation and automations
• Proven experience building funnels and tracking conversions
• Strong writing and editing skills for compassionate, high-trust communications
• Experience building social media visibility, following and conversions
• Able to work independently, manage shifting priorities and lead without hand-holding
• Comfortable collaborating across a distributed US-based team
• Able to attend in-person events in Summit NJ area

Preferred Experience 

• Experience building integrations and automations
• Paid ads experience (Meta and Google) and UTM-based conversion tracking
• Experience improving local SEO presence (Google Business Profile updates and local directories)
• Familiarity integrating donation and fundraising management platforms with website, email and social and with ensuring public facing communications via these platforms are on-brand and ethically-times (Givebutter or similar platform)
• Salesforce experience (especially marketing + fundraising workflows)

Systems & Platforms You Must Be Able to Work In (or Equivalent) 

This role must be comfortable working in our organization’s systems, including:

• Squarespace (or similar CMS)
• Brevo (or similar email marketing platform)
• Givebutter and PayPal (or similar donation tools)
• Salesforce (or similar CRM)
• Meta Business Suite
• Canva
• Microsoft 365 and SharePoint
• Social channels (Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook)
• Video publishing platforms (YouTube or similar)
• Google Analytics (GA4)
• Google Tag Manager
• Google Search Console
• Google Business Profile
• SEO research and local SEO tools (SEMrush, BrightLocal or equivalents)

This is an independent contractor position. You will be responsible for your own taxes, insurance, and any tools or equipment required to perform the work. Center for the Heart does not provide employee benefits such as health insurance, retirement contributions, or paid time off.