Director of Membership Engagement

The Opportunity: NetHope Director of Member Engagement

This is an exciting time at NetHope as the organization develops programs and services for the Member community in collaboration with partners. We are looking for a person to level up our Membership engagement and increase NetHope’s reach, influence and impact – both within our NetHope INGO Members, but also wider to their implementing partners and others in the humanitarian, conservation and development sector.

Working with the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Senior Leadership Team (SLT), and Members, the Director leads the development of Member-focused content, programs, events, and other engagement opportunities to support, grow and deliver digitally-enabled impact for the NetHope Membership. This role helps our Members share their knowledge, grow their skills, and work together on projects – so that the NetHope community as a whole can lead the non-profit sector to digital transformation for good.

This Director will work across NetHope to represent Member priorities, including leading, designing, nurturing, and overseeing various activities that help NetHope Members catalyse their collective efforts in concert with NetHope partners. This role is a people manager and is a member of the NetHope Leadership Team. This role has both a direct line management team and, due to its cross cutting role and influence, will also manage cross team projects. The role will work closely with the NetHope program leads and corporate relationship managers to build initiatives that meet current and prospective Member needs, and fulfil the Members’ ambitions of where they aim to go with the power of digital.

Director of Member Engagement

NetHope is seeking an experienced, organized, and enthusiastic professional to lead and level up our Member engagement and experiences. This role is ‘the voice and soul of the Members’ within NetHope itself and to our Partners, and will oversee and energise a Membership body that has at present ~100 Primary and Deputy Reps at its core community, a further ~850 people engaged in thematic groups once a month, with an additional ~3000 interacting with NetHope at least once every three months, a Summit of ~2000 people once a year, and a further estimated ~5000 individuals in the nonprofit sector in our mailing lists. With your help we wish to nurture this strong foundation and increase our reach, so that more nonprofits can benefit from the NetHope effect. To that end you will oversee the content development of the NetHope annual Global Summit, and be responsible for the Working Groups, Regional Chapter Meetings, and other engagement channels with the NetHope Member INGOs.

This role requires expertise in large scale community management and growth, including audience segmentation, metrics for action, channel diversification and product differentiation. We are looking for a person who will take our existing 22-year practice of engaging INGOs in meaningful activities that deliver proven best practices, and grow and improve upon it in line with NetHope’s new strategy for 2023-2030. Through this role, the Director will create the spaces and content that give rise to the next generation of NetHope’s programs (through Chapters and Working Groups and tech sector engagement), NetHope leaders (through Global Summit and other content curation), and NetHope Members (through prospecting, expanding, and vetting organizations to join our Membership).

To be empathic to our core community and to be true to the ethos and mandate of NetHope, the Director must be able to span two content domains: international nonprofits, and digital technology. To this end the successful applicant will have a solid generalist understanding of the ways of working of the international nonprofit aid, development, and conservation community—preferably have worked in one of NetHope’s +60 Members.

They will also have a generalist understanding of the major themes in technology and ideally some experience of successfully utilizing digital in complex contexts, such as can be found in international nonprofit, education, or global health settings. NetHope is not necessarily looking for a technology specialist, but instead a broad basic literacy of technology topics like AI, ICT4D, digital inclusion, data and information management, connectivity and infrastructure, digital protection of children, cybersecurity, biometrics, climate change, and skills in a digital age.

Specific responsibilities include:

Membership Engagement

• Responsible for the overall Member engagement, evolution, health and approach within NetHope.
• Includes responsibility for the NetHope-wide framework segmenting the Member audience for effective communications, capacity building, and program implementation needs.
• Includes responsibility for NetHope’s strategic approach to Member growth and increased reach into Members’ staff.
• Includes interviewing and vetting new Members (with the support of the engagement team and the wider NetHope team), and coordinating Member votes and other business as a membership organization according to Bylaws.
• Act as peer partner to other teams in NetHope by helping in the design and implementations of NetHope programs, advocacy, and research by bringing in the deep understanding of Member needs and current situations, as well as utilizing your teams’ reach and channels into Members for initiatives.
• Accountable for the development, commissioning, and management of the annual Member engagement and content calendar, in consultation with Working Group and Chapter Leads, Global Summit Steering Committee, the NetHope Engagement Team, and the wider NetHope.
• Responsible for strong relationships with Member organizations through their representatives, especially with Primary and Secondary contacts/representatives. Director will use this relationship to identify opportunities that drive Member contribution and participation, and help catalyse those joint opportunities into reality.
• Responsible for creating a culture and work activities that foster a virtuous circle from Member participation to the measured value and benefits received by Members, in collaboration with the wider Engagement Team and the rest of the NetHope programs and work groups.
• Accountable for sustaining a high-quality approach to data and trend collection about Members interactions with NetHope (with the support of many other teams in NetHope), and the communication activities for decision making, needs analysis, and reporting accountability that ensure the most impact for Membership.
• Responsible for ensuring that Member activities have effective value proposition communications to support them, and to ideate with Members and the wider NetHope team about new benefits that NetHope could deliver to its Members.
• Work with the team to commission research projects (for example with the NetHope Center for the Digital Nonprofit), and coordinate fundraising activities for specific Member-led projects (for example with the NetHope External Relations team).
• Lead with the Membership Coordinator to ensure Member Working Groups and Regional Chapters have strong Member participation, are meeting on a regular basis, are staffed appropriately, and are addressing topics relevant to the needs of the Member organizations.

Annual Global Summit

• Responsible for the content leadership of the annual hybrid NetHope Global Summit for approximately 2,000 participants. Participants include Members, nonprofit sector leaders, technology partners, funders, and governments.
• Responsible for creating and meeting the events targets and KPIs, working with the SLT, Engagement Team and Event Manager, to drive maximum opportunities for networking, collaboration projects, and fundraising for the NetHope community.
• Responsible for identifying themes and key messaging for the event, working with the SLT, Engagement Team, and Summit Steering Committee.
• Responsible for steering the NetHope team’s content portion of the event, specifically in the plenaries and VIP events, working with the wider events team, SLT, and Engagement Team to identify appropriate themes, speakers, and activities.
• Convene the Summit Steering Committee comprised of Member representatives and key staff that helps to guide the Community-content portion of the event. Work with them to curate the community-suggested portion of the event content.
• Collaborate with the wider NetHope team on Summit delivery including logistics, communications, tech support, sponsorships, and registration.

Qualifications:

Personal Characteristics

• A passion for NetHope’s mission and for working collaboratively and nimbly in a fast-paced dynamic environment.
• A passion for the international nonprofit sector and the power of digital to improve their impact.
• Excellent facilitator and motivator that can coalesce and lead stakeholders around a common vision. Comfortable in a live conversation (virtual and face-to-face) and with excellent written communications. Experience in leading large group meetings, and more private 1 on 1 information gathering settings.
• Excellent at working in a networked & virtual team environment, including being a champion and influencer across organizational boundaries.
• An entrepreneur who inspires their team and others to innovate new approaches and builds on proven practices to create processes and models that can be scaled.
• Cultural sensitivity across all aspects of work
• Values and encourages diversity of thought, backgrounds, and perspectives
• Solid judgement including handling of sensitive information
• Integrity/ethics beyond reproach
• Ability to multi-task while maintaining vigilant attention to detail in a fast-paced nimble working environment

Knowledge and Skills

• Experience building relationships with and between Members and other stakeholders, or similar coalition building or influencing space.
• Experience running a large membership or association program and developing growth strategies for these types of communities, with some experience of volunteer resource management being ideal.
• Generalist Information Technology experience required, ideally in a global nonprofit and ideally in a leadership role.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with multilingual verbal and written communication skills a plus
• Digital ideation and project management a plus
• Demonstrated success in event development and management
• Team management experience, specifically in a virtual and globally distributed organization
• Proactive and resourceful in pursuit of improving Member (aka stakeholder) experience
• Experience using platforms such as Salesforce, Asana, Box, Slack, and event management tools a plus.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution preferred or equivalent work experience
• Experience in a NetHope Member organization, or equivalent work experience
• NGO experience of at least 3 years, preferably within a NetHope Member or similar INGO

Reporting and Working Conditions:

• This is a full-time position that reports to the Chief Operating Officer, and works closely with the wider Leadership Team, Members, Senior Leadership Team, and private sector Partners.
• The Director directly supervises the Membership Coordinator and Engagement Coordinator, and occasionally external consultants. This role may also matrix manage others across the organization, either for the long- term or for specific projects/initiatives.
• NetHope is a virtual organization, so our team, our Members and our Partners are located around the world. Due to the global nature of the organization, meetings may thus be required at any time of the day to meet with our stakeholders in varying time zones. To meet these needs, NetHope embraces flexible schedules for team Members, and we work with each other to be located globally and have some predictability of work schedules, and still maintain a reasonable work time balance.
• As a global organization, we welcome qualified applicants with diverse backgrounds from various locations, and who may have non-traditional work patterns.
• NetHope is a networked team-oriented environment with staff working across functional areas to produce high-quality programs, services, and connections with the Members. We value open communication and believe that a staff working as a team produces the best outcomes. To this end we value applicants with a high entrepreneurial spirit, and those who have a track record of being proactive, creative and nurturing of cross-silo working.
• This position is 100% remote. International or domestic travel may be required for 2 to 3 NetHope events annually.