Location: Washington, DC
Reports to: Executive
Salary: $120,000-$140,000/year
Status: Full-time
About EARTHDAY.ORG
EARTHDAY.ORG is the nonprofit organization that created and leads Earth Day, the largest environmental movement in the world. Each year, Earth Day mobilizes people in more than 190 countries and reaches close to one billion people through global media.
While Earth Day (April 22) is the movement’s most visible moment, EARTHDAY.ORG works year-round to educate, mobilize, and activate people to protect the planet through campaigns, partnerships, education, and advocacy.
Position Summary
The Marketing & Communications Director leads the global marketing, storytelling, and brand strategy for EARTHDAY.ORG and oversees the execution of that strategy across digital platforms, campaigns, and media outreach. This role ensures that Earth Day’s unparalleled visibility is intentionally shaped, clearly branded, and converted into year-round engagement, measurable impact, and sustainable fundraising.
This is a senior leadership role for someone who understands how to build trust, meaning, and action at massive and global scale — and how to do so in a fragmented, AI-influenced information environment.
Key Responsibilities
Marketing, Storytelling & Brand Strategy
- Own the global marketing and storytelling strategy including online programs, all traditional and social media, our website, emails and other communications.
- A global cultural moment, and
- Define how Earth Day functions as both:
- The entry point to a year-round organization and movement.
- Ensure all messaging clearly connects Earth Day to EARTHDAY.ORG’s mission, programs, and impact.
- Steward the EARTHDAY.ORGbrand globally, ensuring consistency in voice, tone, and visual identity.
- Translate annual Earth Day themes into compelling narratives that drive awareness, trust, and action.
Campaign Development & Audience Engagement
- Lead integrated campaigns that extend Earth Day momentum across the year.
- Design audience pathways that move people from awareness to participation, advocacy, and giving.
- Align campaign messaging with organizational priorities and fundraising goals.
- Collaborate across teams to surface authentic, funder-relevant stories of impact.
- Build the environmental movement through all communications vehicles
Digital & Social Communications
- Oversee digital platforms (website, email, social media) as primary storytelling and engagement tools.
- Use social media as both a storytelling and distributed news channel.
- Adapt narratives for platform-specific formats and audience behavior.
- Leverage data and analytics to continuously improve reach, engagement, and conversion.
Global Media & Outreach Execution
- Execute media outreach strategies that amplify core marketing and storytelling priorities.
- Lead engagement across:
- Traditional media (TV, radio, print, wire services)
- Digital-first outlets, newsletters, podcasts, and streaming platforms
- Influencers, creators, and independent journalists
- Emerging and nontraditional news channel
- Ensure EARTHDAY.ORG is consistently identified as the organizer of Earth Day in all coverage.
- Manage rapid-response communications during peak Earth Day visibility.
Fundraising & Revenue Alignment
- Partner closely with development leadership to integrate fundraising into marketing and communications strategy.
- Shape donor-facing narratives that clearly communicate urgency, credibility, and impact.
- Convert Earth Day visibility into sustained donor engagement and long-term support.
- Understand how messaging, timing, and channel mix influence donor behavior.
AI, Innovation & Information Integrity
- Lead organizational understanding of how AI is reshaping communications, content discovery, and trust.
- Use AI tools responsibly to enhance content creation, monitoring, and audience insight.
- Address risks related to misinformation, brand misuse, and AI-generated content.
- Ensure EARTHDAY.ORG remains credible and authoritative in an AI-driven media ecosystem.
Performance, Measurement & Accountability
- Establish clear, outcome-driven performance standards for Earth Day and year-round campaigns, with emphasis on audience growth, engagement durability, and action.
- Oversee systems for capturing and qualifying new supporters during the Earth Day period at meaningful global scale.
- Measure short-term and early-stage retention to understand how newly reached audiences continue engaging beyond April.
- Track and strengthen sustained local and regional media presence, prioritizing repeat coverage and relationship-building over one-day spikes.
- Define and monitor cost-efficiency benchmarks for outreach, engagement, and action across channels.
- Ensure all results are documented in funder-ready reporting formats, including acquisition, engagement persistence, and cost effectiveness by campaign or pilot market.
- Use performance insights to refine strategy, improve returns on investment, and guide future campaign design.
Qualifications:
- Senior-level experience in marketing, communications, and brand leadership
- Proven success building and managing large-scale, high-visibility for year round programs
- Strong storytelling and brand strategy expertise
- Deep understanding of digital platforms, media ecosystems, and audience behavior
- Experience aligning communications with fundraising goals
- Significant contacts with all types of traditional and social media, along with understanding newest trends in communicating with a global audience.
- Knowledge of AI’s impact on marketing, media, and information trust
- Ability to operate strategically under intense global attention
- Commitment to environmental and social impact
- Responsible for design and content for emails and website
Why This Role Matters
Earth Day is one of the most powerful and recognizable environmental moments in the world — but moments alone do not create lasting change.
This role ensures that when nearly a billion people engage with Earth Day, they understand the organization behind it, trust its leadership, and know how to stay involved beyond April 22.
The Marketing & Communications Director turns global attention into meaning, momentum, measurable results, and long-term impact.
To apply, please send your letter of interest and resume in pdf format with subject line: “Application for Marketing and Communications Director”. This position is open until it is filled. EarthDay.Org is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes a diverse pool of candidates in this search.
