Senior Director of Marketing

Job description

About the George Lucas Educational Foundation

Founded by filmmaker George Lucas in 1991, the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming pre-K-12 education so all students can thrive in their studies, careers, and adult lives. As a part of GLEF, Edutopia is a solutions-based media organization finding and telling the stories of what works in prek-12 schools across the world–its website, newsletters, and social media channels reach millions of educators every month, highlighting research-backed strategies and real-world examples they can use immediately. We’ve built a vibrant, positive, highly engaged community of educators committed to improving learning outcomes for all students.

Our mission-driven team values collaboration, continuous improvement, and transformative storytelling. As a fully remote organization, we foster an inclusive environment where innovation thrives and every team member is empowered to drive meaningful educational change.

The Opportunity

We seek a Senior Director of Marketing to join us in the next part of Edutopia’s journey, setting Edutopia’s growth vision by expanding our educator community and growing our brand reach among preK-12 educators and other education stakeholders. You will maximize impact across all platforms and channels, both online and offline, by creating meaningful connections and amplifying educator voices. You will infuse bold, creative thinking and innovative marketing approaches into every initiative and build efficient systems and processes that optimize budgets and empower a high‑performing team. As a senior member of our organization, you will always think holistically and integrate marketing tightly with content and product initiatives, ensuring that your team’s work supports organization‑wide needs, practices, and constraints.

Over the past two years, Edutopia has established a distinct market position through a community-centric approach, highly creative strategic initiatives, and strong internal partnership with our editorial and product teams. We are hiring from a place of strength and differentiation within the market, seeking someone who can maintain this momentum while bringing their own innovative approach to the role.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership:

• Develop and own the integrated marketing strategy, calendar, and budget (≈ $1–1.5 M), including paid media, events, tools, and team
• Inspire breakthrough ideas and champion a test‑and‑learn mindset that pushes creative boundaries
• Create quarterly OKRs with measurable channel‑specific targets for KPIs such as educator reach, newsletter list growth, and member acquisition or retention
• Maintain tight, proactive alignment with the GM/Chief Content Officer through weekly touchpoints and team updates during the standing editorial meeting, ensuring marketing priorities advance Edutopia goals
• Ensure all marketing assets reflect and resonate with educators of all backgrounds
• Serve as senior advisor to the executive team and board on brand positioning, audience trends, and marketing performance

Community Engagement:

• Build upon and expand Edutopia’s Community Engagement Program to strengthen relationships with educators, foster loyalty, encourage lifelong engagement, and inspire them to become active advocates of Edutopia’s mission by:

  • Designing storytelling opportunities and other engagement initiatives that highlight educator-generated content across Edutopia’s digital and real-world touchpoints—including the website, social media, newsletters, and events
  • Collaborate closely with the content and product teams to create dynamic digital experiences, advocacy campaigns, and community-centered events that extend the reach and resonance of our educator communityMeasure and report on community impact, including engagement, lifetime value, and educator satisfaction

• Measure and report on community impact, including engagement, lifetime value, and educator satisfaction

Campaign Development:

• Oversee multi‑channel paid and organic campaigns—from brief to launch—across digital platforms and in‑person touchpoints such as conferences and events; including A/B testing, attribution analysis, as resources allow, and optimization of media mix to achieve target KPIs (OR, CTOR, CPA) while maximizing educator retention and lifetime engagement
• Coordinate scheduling of social, email, and special campaigns in partnership with content and product teams to ensure consistent audience engagement
• Approve high‑impact copy, creatives, and social hooks to safeguard Edutopia’s voice
• Oversee the design of branded materials, ads, landing pages, and promotional content, ensuring they reflect Edutopia’s brand values

Team Leadership:

• Recruit, coach, and performance‑manage a small in‑house team plus freelance partners and agencies
• Lead by example—operating at both strategic and tactical levels and rolling up sleeves alongside the team when needed
• Foster a culture of experimentation, problem‑solving, data‑driven decision‑making, and continuous learning
• Promote cross‑functional collaboration with Editorial and Product teams

Performance Analysis and Optimization:

• Report monthly on channel KPIs: unique visitors, email list growth, social engagement, email open rate (OR), conversion, educator retention, and other engagement impact
• Leverage GA4, Sheets/Excel, Meta, Sprout Analytics, and SimilarWeb to derive insights and recommend course corrections

Budget and Vendor Management:

• Manage the marketing budget; allocate resources across channels to maximize ROI

• Negotiate and oversee vendor and agency contracts; ensure on‑time, on‑budget delivery

• 8+ years experience with a proven track record in marketing to educators or audience development for an education-focused media brand or content-focused organization

• Experience leveraging diverse channels and tactics, managing end-to-end campaigns, and executing against a holistic strategy

• Ability to employ data-driven, digital-first strategies. Experience analyzing and optimizing campaigns to drive results and hit growth goals

• Familiarity with paid search/social ad platforms (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn) and SEO best practices

• Creative problem-solving skills with a knack for getting things done; comfortable with complexity, ambiguity, and able to think outside the box

• Strong business acumen and motivated by ambitious goals in an “all hands on deck” collaborative culture

• Highly organized and detail-oriented multitasker. Capable of managing multiple projects, relationships and complex initiatives with an eye for nuance

• Superior communication skills, diplomacy, and positivity. Can-do attitude and comfort working on a small, nimble team

• Proven experience in stakeholder management and board engagement, with ability to communicate complex marketing strategies to diverse audiences

Preferred:

• Background in K‑12, EdTech, nonprofit media, or mission‑driven brand
• Master’s degree in Marketing, Communications, or related field

Work Environment and Requirements This role operates remotely; candidates should have a dedicated home workspace with reliable high-speed internet and standard office equipment. The position requires effective coordination with remote team members across time zones. Mandatory travel is required to attend two HQ Weeks in Marin County each year, plus other occasional domestic travel up to 10-15%. The position requires prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

Eligibility Requirements

This position is open only to individuals legally authorized to work in the United States who will be W-2 employees. We are not accepting applications from staffing agencies, consulting firms, or third-party recruiters. Candidates must be able to work as direct, full-time employees of the organization.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary range: $175,000-$200,000 with exact salary depending on experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

We offer a generous benefits package competitive with peer organizations, including three weeks of paid time off (and the workdays between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are also paid holidays), comprehensive health/vision/dental insurance, an employer match of up to 6% of salary for your retirement fund (vested immediately), and an annual professional development stipend.

This role reports to the GM/Chief Content Officer of Edutopia.

The George Lucas Educational Foundation is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage and welcome all people to apply, as applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or veteran or military status.