Director of Marketing

About Islamic Relief USA

Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) is a faith-inspired humanitarian and development organization committed to saving lives and empowering communities around the world. With programs spanning emergency response, food security, education, clean water, and more, IRUSA reaches millions of people annually across dozens of countries. Headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area, IRUSA operates a full-scale marketing and communications department that drives donor engagement, brand stewardship, and multi-channel fundraising across the organization's entire portfolio.

Role Overview

The Director of Marketing provides executive-level leadership for IRUSA's marketing department, overseeing the full spectrum of the organization's brand, fundraising, content, digital, and communications functions. The Director will serve as the primary point of contact, manager, and liaison, overseeing the relationship between the organization and its external outsourced partners. This is a senior leadership role with significant cross-departmental influence and organizational authority. The Director is a voting member of the Program Approval Committee (PAC) on behalf of Marketing, sits on the Executive Committee, and represents Marketing's strategic perspective across organizational planning and decision-making bodies.

In this role, the Director leads and coordinates strategy across internal teams and external partners — including marketing service providers and technology vendors — ensuring that IRUSA's brand voice, mission alignment, and donor relationship priorities are upheld across every channel and deliverable. This is not a purely executional role; the Director is expected to bring institutional vision, relational intelligence, and senior-level judgment to every dimension of the department's work.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Organizational Representation

• Serve as Marketing's representative on the Executive Committee and other senior decision-making bodies, including casting votes on behalf of the department for Program Approval Committee approvals of humanitarian programs.

• Lead Marketing's participation in organizational and operational planning cycles, working collaboratively across departments including Fund Development, Department of External Affairs (DEA), Programs, Finance, IT, and Volunteer Management.

• Chair, co-chair, or participate in cross-departmental committees and task forces as assigned, both representing Marketing's interests and contributing specialized strategic expertise to organization-wide initiatives.

• Set the department's strategic priorities on a rolling basis, including annual campaign calendars, budget cycles, and team performance objectives.

Multi-Channel Fundraising & Campaign Oversight

• Lead the strategic planning, production oversight, and post-mortem analysis of all major fundraising campaigns — including Ramadan, Qurbani, End of Year, and emergency response campaigns — across digital and direct channels.

• Drive fundraising appeal strategy across email, SMS, web, social media, direct mail, and advertising, both within larger campaign structures and as standalone digital initiatives.

• Oversee emergency campaign launch protocols, working in coordination with Program Directors and the C-suite to activate multi-channel emergency responses rapidly and effectively.

• Ensure donor management platforms, fundraising infrastructure, and CRM systems are leveraged optimally in service of donor acquisition, retention, and re-engagement goals.

Digital & Content Operations

• Provide strategic oversight of IRUSA's digital ecosystem, including the main website, donation infrastructure, social media presence, email and SMS programs, paid advertising, and search strategy.

• Guide the organization's data and analytics practice — ensuring marketing performance is accurately measured, reported, and used to optimize future efforts across web analytics, donor management, and attribution platforms.

• Champion marketing automation, audience segmentation, and CRM-integrated campaign workflows as tools for donor lifecycle management.

Budget & Technology

• Own the Marketing department's full budget, including oversight of print, postage, promotional items, software subscriptions, and service partner fees — ensuring responsible stewardship of organizational resources.

• Lead or participate in technology stack evaluation, procurement, and implementation decisions, collaborating with IT on integrations and platform governance.

• Maintain awareness of industry best practices across channels — email, social, advertising, web, automation, and brand awareness — continuously evaluating opportunities for experimentation and adoption.

Team Development & AI Upskilling

• Spearhead the department's continuous professional development efforts, focusing on emerging marketing technologies and best practices, including the ethical and strategic application of generative AI, predictive analytics, and marketing automation tools within the humanitarian context (or sector).

• Identify key skills gaps within the team related to digital transformation and AI adoption, and develop training roadmaps and resources to address these needs.

• Foster a culture of experimentation and data-driven learning, ensuring the marketing team remains at the forefront of technological innovation while upholding brand integrity and organizational values.

Publications, Events & Promotional Materials

• Oversee the production of organizational publications including the Annual Report, Partnership Magazine, donor reports, and campaign collateral, in collaboration with the External Affairs communications team.

• Ensure all promotional and branded materials — including apparel, event collateral, and visibility items distributed to partners as well as US and International programs — reflect current brand standards.

• Support event marketing for major organizational milestones, including interfaith events, community programs, and national campaigns.

Vendor Relationships & External Partner Coordination

• Serve as IRUSA's primary strategic lead in coordinating with external marketing partners and service providers, setting direction, approving deliverables, and managing escalations.

• Review and approve all major creative, content, and campaign outputs — including brand assets, advertising campaigns, email communications, social media strategy, and web presence.

• Ensure all external partner deliverables reflect IRUSA's organizational values, brand standards, and mission-driven voice.

• Manage relationships with technology vendors and platform providers across the marketing technology stack, in coordination with IT as needed.

Brand Stewardship

• Serve as the ultimate custodian of IRUSA's organizational brand identity and reputation, ensuring consistency across all channels and all organizational microbrands (e.g., iRaise, Grand Iftar, Medical Missions).

• Ensure brand guidelines, visual identity systems, and tone-of-voice standards are maintained, documented, and communicated across internal stakeholders and external partners.

• Oversee the development and refinement of taglines, logos, color palettes, photo and story procurement frameworks, and cross-channel content strategies.

Qualifications

Required

• 10+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience, with at least 3 years at the director level or equivalent.

• Demonstrated success managing complex, multi-channel marketing programs — including digital advertising, email and SMS, social media, content, and brand — ideally in a nonprofit, faith-based, or mission-driven context.

• Experience managing or overseeing vendor and agency relationships at a senior strategic level.

• Proven ability to lead cross-functional collaboration and represent a department at the executive or leadership team level.

• Strong command of digital fundraising principles, donor lifecycle management, and CRM-integrated marketing.

• Analytical orientation with the ability to draw actionable insights from web analytics, donor data, and performance reporting tools.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate marketing strategy into organizational narratives.

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or a related field.

Preferred

• Experience working within Islamic, Muslim-serving, or broader humanitarian and international development organizations.

• Familiarity with donor relationship management platforms, marketing automation tools, digital fundraising infrastructure, and multi-channel analytics systems.

• Experience overseeing full-service marketing partner or agency-of-record relationships.

• Master's degree or equivalent advanced credential.

Core Competencies:

Strategic Vision

Translates mission into actionable, measurable marketing strategy.

Organizational Influence

Operates effectively at the executive level with credibility and clarity.

Relational Intelligence

Builds trust with internal stakeholders, vendors, and donors.

Brand Custodianship

Guards organizational identity with rigor, consistency, and sensitivity.

Data-Driven Decisions

Uses analytics and performance data to optimize strategy and spend.

Adaptive Leadership

Navigates change, ambiguity, and urgency — including emergency campaigns — with composure.

Islamic Relief USA is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that reflects the communities we serve. At Islamic Relief USA we are committed to safeguarding and protecting all individuals we come into contact with through our work. IRUSA representatives must adhere to its organizational values: Sincerity, Excellence, Compassion, Social Justice, and Custodianship. In accordance with these values, IRUSA operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Code of Ethics, and Anti-Harassment and Discrimination.