Direct Response Data Manager

As a partner with Aquent, this leading agency specializes in direct response fundraising, driving impactful campaigns that connect causes with supporters. They are dedicated to leveraging data-driven strategies to maximize philanthropic efforts and create lasting change. Joining their team means contributing to a mission that makes a real difference in the world, empowering non-profits to achieve their goals and foster strong connections with their communities.

Are you a meticulous data professional with a passion for precision and a knack for transforming strategy into actionable data? We're seeking a pivotal individual to join our team as a data manager, acting as the crucial link between strategic vision, creative execution, and technical data operations during our busiest fundraising periods. In this role, you will ensure the integrity and accuracy of critical campaign data, directly impacting the success of fundraising initiatives and the ability to connect with supporters effectively. Your expertise will safeguard campaign schedules, resolve complex data challenges, and uphold the highest standards of data governance, making a tangible difference in every project you touch. This is a fixed-term temporary role from October 26, 2026, to January 31, 2027.

What You'll Do:

• Review diverse client strategies to author, update, and validate comprehensive data instructions for strategists and the data engineering team.
• Maintain and manage the organization's data guidebook (wiki) and line-by-line data dictionary. Capture new business rules, identify missing or conflicting logic, and translate strategic briefs into executable technical instructions.
• Support strategists during grid creation, donor select generation, and campaign brief handoffs to ensure clean inputs from day one.
• Perform rigorous quality control on data files returned from data processing and audit mail entry outputs from the lettershop to ensure strict campaign fidelity.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for data quality issues, ensuring technical questions are resolved with client teams before data processor execution.
• Uphold data governance, security, and PII handling standards on every client engagement.
• Build and refine standardized data instruction templates and process documentation throughout the engagement for seamless handover to staff.

What You'll Bring:

Must-Have Qualifications:

• 3+ years in direct response data management, including donor segmentation, selects, suppressions, merge/purge rules, source coding, and writing error-free data instructions.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience with SQL and relational databases.
• Working knowledge of ETL builds, data warehousing, and data quality practices.
• Comfort learning proprietary data platforms combined with a service-oriented mindset and the discipline required for a role accountable for production-bound mail files.
• Immediate availability for start on October 26, 2026.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

• Background as a Technical Project Manager, Data Project Manager, or Business Analyst. (Data Engineers will be considered, but must possess strong client-facing communication skills - this is not a hands-on data engineering role).
• Experience with enterprise CRM platforms, with hands-on Salesforce experience strongly preferred. Comfort learning donor/constituent management systems quickly.
• Exposure to AWS data services, cloud data warehousing, or lakehouse tooling is a plus (role will not build ETL pipelines directly).