Senior Associate Director

The Senior Associate Director advances the mission of the Crown Family School by leading and implementing comprehensive communication strategies for the Advancement team, developing cohesive narratives across digital and print platforms to enhance the visibility and impact of Advancement initiatives and the capital campaign. This role collaborates with Advancement leadership to support strategic editorial projects and continuously seeks innovative approaches to engage alumni, donors, volunteers, and friends, fostering connection and philanthropic support for the school. This position serves as the primary liaison for the Advancement team to marketing and communications teams, working closely with senior leadership to support broader organizational goals. The ideal candidate is a collaborative and strategic communicator, proficient with digital tools and passionate about leveraging technology to encourage alumni engagement and drive fundraising success. This individual combines creativity with strong project management skills, thrives in a team environment, and excels at building relationships across departments. They bring a thoughtful, detail-oriented approach to their work and are committed to advancing the Crown Family School's mission through effective and purposeful communication.

Job responsibilities are categorized as follows: Visual and Editorial Communications (55%) Communications Strategy & Planning (20%) Campaign Marketing & Communications (20%) Other duties as assigned (5%) Specific, additional job responsibilities are detailed below:

• Provide consultative support and serve as the primary point of contact, engaging with faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders to develop marketing and communication materials that inspire philanthropic contributions and strengthen affinity for the school.
• Advise strategy adjustments by monitoring and investigating industry trends, researching new technology options, and analyzing key digital metrics on engagement and impact to enhance content performance, audience engagement, and continually refine and allocate resources effectively.
• Guided by data analytics, plan, execute, and optimize multi-channel campaigns and communications plans (print, email, web, and social media), ensuring a consistent voice, style, and tone in messaging for key audiences and alignment with university-wide standards.
• Develop and implement comprehensive, data-informed communications and digital strategies to support alumni relations, fundraising materials, events, and stewardship to increase institutional visibility and meet fundraising and engagement goals.
• Write, edit, and produce a wide range of advancement communications, including fundraising appeals, stewardship reports, proposals, digital content, and impact stories.
• Design visually compelling materials and digital graphics to engage alumni, donors, and community audiences.
• Create digital content for the advancement webpages, social media, and newsletters, with a focus on storytelling and community engagement, ensuring accurate, timely, and audience-focused messaging.
• Manage advancement communications assets (i.e., reports, newsletters, solicitations), platforms, and editorial calendars, aligning content with organizational goals and campaigns.
• Collaborate with central Advancement and school leadership to implement a communications and marketing plan that supports campaign goals, aligns with the university's core message, and maximizes impact.
• Design and craft compelling proposals, email marketing, and content (digital and print) to inspire donors to support the campaign, engage key audiences, and expand the school's campaign reach.
• Establish and maintain effective vendor relationships, including with writers and designers; create schedules and project plans, develop production timelines, traffic files, and ensure high quality, on-time delivery.
• Develops, plans, and disseminates information designed to keep the public informed of the organization's programs, accomplishments, or point of view.
• Solves moderate to complex problems related to the writing, preparation, and/or delivery of information from or about the unit.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in a related field. Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 5-7 years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Preferred Qualifications:

Master's Degree in communications, journalism, English, or related field.

• Communications experience, including oversight of web content, in higher education, non-profit, marketing communications agency, or other relevant experience driving branding efforts.
• Photography, video, and/or graphic design is a plus.
• Familiarity with University of Chicago and the field of social work is a plus.

Preferred Competencies:

• Demonstrated skill and knowledge of, or ability to learn quickly, the internal workings of the University as well as the technology tools including Salesforce, Mailchimp (or similar email platform), and Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Adobe Creative Suite Photoshop and InDesign, Outlook.
• Superior writing and editing skills, interpersonal, communication, and listening skills.
• Strong client service orientation and attention to detail and follow-up.
• Creative problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Effectively manage time, prioritize work, and multi-task across many assignments; think both strategically and logically, with the ability to function effectively under tight deadlines and high workload.
• Flexibility and adaptability to new programs in an emerging and changing environment.
• Willingness and ability to travel to campus and/or non-campus locations for University business and work occasional evenings and weekends.

Working Conditions:

• Hybrid work schedule, on-site at the Hyde Park campus in Chicago.
• Occasional evenings and weekends.

Application Documents:

• Resume (required)
• Cover letter (required)
• Design portfolio (required)

When applying, the documents MUST be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.