VP of Communications & Marketing

VP of Communications & Marketing

Location: Denver

Work Schedule: Exempt, Full-time, Hybrid

Deadline for submission: Jan 19, 2026

Conservation Colorado is seeking a VP of Communications & Marketing to shape and execute the organization’s communications strategy to advance the organization’s mission, advocacy goals, strengthen its brand, and support fundraising efforts.

About Conservation Colorado

As the largest statewide environmental organization in Colorado, our mission is simple: we work to protect our state’s climate, air, land, water, and communities. We play a unique role in Colorado as our work focuses on organizing communities, influencing decision-makers, and electing conservation-minded leaders. We work for a Colorado where every community can breathe clean air, drink clean water, protect the landscapes we share and secure our climate future. And, where communities once burdened by environmental injustices lead the way forward. You can learn more about our mission here.

What You’ll Do

This position reports to the CEO and plays a vital role in advancing the organization’s mission by crafting powerful narratives that mobilize public support for protecting Colorado’s climate, lands, water, and communities. Through elevating the organization’s public profile and leading in creating multi-channel storytelling and strategic advocacy messaging, this role ensures the organization’s voice drives action, influences decision-makers, and builds lasting public engagement. — and supporting a team of content creators to do the same.

Advocacy Communications & Public Mobilization

• Develops and drives compelling, issue-based narrative strategies that inspire public action and influence decision-makers & creation of program collateral
• Oversees rapid response communications, campaign messaging, and issue framing across channels
• Builds relationships with media, influencers, and partner organizations to amplify advocacy efforts
• Ensures alignment between communications and program goals, integrating grasstops and grassroots voices and lived experience
• Applies an equity lens to message development, resisting harmful tropes and uplifting community expertise

Fundraising & Donor Communications

• Lead marketing and communications campaigns that support acquisition, conversion and stewardship of donors as a key audience and aligning messaging with the organization’s values, urgency, and community impact
• Oversees creation of fundraising collateral, campaign materials, and annual reports across digital and print formats
• Supports major gift cultivation through tailored communications strategies that reflect equity values and community impact

Organizational Branding, Visibility & Narrative Strategy

• Shapes, manages and evolves the organization’s brand identity, voice, and visual presence ensuring it is consistent, inclusive, reflective of communities served, and resonant across platforms
• Leads cross-channel storytelling that reflects mission, values, and impact (social media, website, email, brochures, etc.)
• Positions the organization as a thought leader through strategic content, media engagement, and public speaking
• Owns online membership engagement and works closely with the executive team to develop Conservation Colorado’s membership program.

Team Management & Executive Responsibilities

• Manages a high performing team of three (directly managing one person) that delivers results in a way that is equitable, centers collaboration and encourages transparency & open communication
• Promote a culture of high performance and continuous improvement that values learning and a commitment to quality
• Oversee the day-to-day activities of the team including budgeting, planning, staff development, and ensuring the organizing team has the resources, tools, and support needed to succeed
• Builds collaborative workflows with program, development, and executive teams
• Oversees the Communications Teams’ processes and structures that ensure the team is working as smoothly & efficiently as possible
• As a member of the executive team, shares responsibility for driving the strategic plan and operational success of the organization. Contribute to shaping and executing the organization’s strategic direction, ensuring departmental goals align with mission, values, and long-term impact.
• Partner with fellow executive team members to foster effective and efficient collaboration and alignment across departments, streamline decision-making, and advance shared priorities
• Equity-Centered Leadership: Champion equity, inclusion, and accessibility in organizational strategy, team culture, and external engagement; proactively surface and address systemic barriers

Qualifications

This position is a great opportunity to set organizational communications strategy dedicated to delivering content that motivates people to take action, raise money, move decision makers and to be a part of making real progress on some of the biggest issues facing us today.

To be successful in this job, you will demonstrate leadership, strategic thinking, flexibility, results-focused work, and efficiency to work well with our team. Fundamentally, we want someone who loves communications and marketing strategy while leading a team to create on-brand, creative and impactful content, and who has the skills to do that in the context of a fast-paced, political, issue-advocacy based environment. More specifically, you will have or be most or all of the following:

Strategic Thinking & Visioning: Demonstrated ability to craft and articulate a long-term communications strategy that advances organizational mission and values. Proven track record of anticipating industry, media, and cultural trends, and positioning the organization to lead rather than react. That includes the capacity to translate complex priorities into clear and compelling narratives, the skills to align communications initiatives with broader organizational strategies, and inspiring teams and the executive team with a forward-looking vision that fosters innovation while maintaining focus on measurable outcomes. Doing this in the context of an organization that is focused on building power to deliver policy wins, including working on elections is a plus.

Excellent Content Standards Creation & Editing Across Multiple Channels: In addition to having your own direct experience with creating content, this position requires high-level experience leading a team to produce, craft, refine, and oversee high-impact content that advances advocacy, fundraising and political goals, strengthens brand identity, and engages diverse audiences across multiple digital and print platforms.

Strong People Manager: This position oversees a team of three so you’ll need the skills and orientation to build a strong team with a proven ability to lead, mentor, and inspire a diverse team. We expect our managers to manage with a spirit of collaboration & accountability, transparency, and with a focus on skills development and growth. We also expect managers to have a commitment to equity-centered management practices that value the team as individuals and building & sustaining a high-functioning team that thrives under pressure while maintaining staff wellbeing.

Demonstrated project management skills in a fast-paced, high-volume environment: Our work context is ever-shifting and moves quickly here and you will need the skills to manage that while leading large-scale, multi-stakeholder projects with clarity, efficiency, and strategic alignment without sacrificing quality. This includes strong organizational and planning abilities, with experience implementing systems that streamline workflows and enhance team efficiency (Asana is a tool we use).

Emotional Intelligence, Self-Motivation & Drive: Ability to lead with empathy, self-awareness, and cultural humility, fostering trust and inclusion across diverse teams and stakeholders. Given the level of work, a strong internal drive and resilience, with a proven capacity to sustain focus and momentum in complex, high-pressure environments is critical to success. And being able to proactively identify opportunities, anticipate challenges, and inspire others is necessary. All the while balancing that with emotional intelligence and determination – navigating conflict constructively, motivating teams, and advancing organizational priorities with both compassion and persistence.

An Equity Analysis: A proven track record of working to share the stories or otherwise working to incorporate the voices of disproportionately impacted communities into communications work is vital to success. Ensuring cultural competency in our work, reinforcing our bilingual brand (we translate most of our work into Spanish), and staying on top of best practices in the field is critical. We work with a translator and also have a bilingual content creator on the team. Being a bilingual Spanish/English speaker would be a skill we would value highly in this position.

To Apply

If this job speaks to you, please click here to submit a cover letter & resume and answer a few short questions. If you have a disability and need accommodation or assistance with our online application process, please tell us how we can help by calling us at 303.333.7846.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this full-time role is $160,000 - $175,000 with exact salary depending on relevant experience and demonstrated competencies. We offer competitive pay and benefits, rooted in equity, transparency, and trust—and never ask for prior salary history.

We provide high-quality health insurance and a strong benefits package that includes a SIMPLE IRA retirement plan with a match, at least 30 days of vacation & holidays in addition to six physical & mental wellness days in your first year, a parental leave and a sabbatical program. Please note that as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, Conservation Colorado employees are not eligible to participate in the Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

All Conservation Colorado roles involve some in-person work, so COVID vaccination is required. We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid model without a fixed in-office schedule—each team member works with their manager to determine what makes sense based on role and preference. Those who prefer can work from the office full-time.

We are committed to building a more diverse & inclusive organization and conservation movement to fully represent and engage all Coloradans and to build as powerful a movement as we can. Recruiting staff that better reflects Colorado is a priority, and we encourage applicants from all cultures, races, ethnicities, geographies, political affiliations, sexual orientations, gender identities, and all other identities represented in Colorado or protected by law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We work with a translator and also have a bilingual content creator on the team. Being a bilingual Spanish/English speaker would be a skill we would value highly in this position.