Director of Data Services - DickersonBakker

About the Company

DickersonBakker is seeking a Director of Data Services to lead, govern, and evolve the data function for all service lines in the business. This is a senior, hands-on leadership role responsible for ensuring data quality, consistency, and credibility across all client fundraising programs, while building scalable systems that reduce risk, eliminate tribal knowledge, and enable more advanced analytics, attribution, and forecasting.

About the Role

This role exists to solve real problems: inconsistent client data intake, frequent QC issues, fragmented reporting, and over-reliance on individual operators or legacy processes. The Director of Data Services will bring order, standards, and confidence to how fundraising data is collected, transformed, analyzed, and reported. The ideal candidate is a seasoned direct response fundraising data leader who is deeply technical, highly opinionated about quality and governance, comfortable auditing and correcting existing systems, and energized by building structure inside an entrepreneurial, fast-growing agency environment.

Responsibilities

Data Leadership & Governance

• Own fundraising data end-to-end, from client data intake through reporting, attribution, and analysis.
• Define, document, and enforce data standards, intake requirements, QC protocols, naming conventions, and reporting definitions.
• Establish clear governance that reduces ambiguity, prevents rework, and increases confidence in reported results.
• Serve as the authoritative voice on data integrity and feasibility for DickersonBakker leadership.
• Identify and remediate legacy risks, inconsistencies, and undocumented dependencies across existing data workflows.

Technical Execution & Oversight

• Remain highly hands-on in day-to-day technical work, including SQL development, data modeling, ETL oversight, and Power BI datasets, especially during the first phase of the role.
• Audit existing queries, reports, attribution logic, and production workflows to identify gaps, inefficiencies, and failure points.
• Partner with Account Directors, Production, and Creative to ensure data requirements are clearly defined and accurately executed for campaigns.
• Oversee segmentation logic, appeal and ask strategies, attribution methodologies, and results processing for direct response programs.
• Ensure repeatable, trusted reporting supports QBRs, annual planning, and strategic decision-making.

Analytics, Attribution & Reporting

• Advance attribution and forecasting capabilities, so insights are credible enough to influence fundraising strategy.
• Standardize reporting outputs used across clients while allowing for necessary customization.
• Own Power BI standards and datasets, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and usability.
• Support approximately 20 percent internal reporting needs while maintaining primary accountability to client fundraising data.

Team & Vendor Leadership

• Directly manage and develop one Data Service Manager, with responsibility to scale the function over time.
• Own relationships with external data contractors and vendors, ensuring work meets DickersonBakker standards.
• Reduce reliance on individual operators by building durable systems, documentation, and cross-training.
• Foster a culture of accountability, precision, and continuous improvement within the data function.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Operate as a behind-the-scenes strategic partner to Account Directors, SVPs, and Operations leadership.
• Participate selectively in client onboarding conversations to ensure proper data collection and feasibility alignment.
• Provide clear guidance and guardrails to internal teams, including the authority to say no when data or reporting requests introduce risk or inconsistency.
• Make informed recommendations about tools, architecture, and data practices for all service lines of DickersonBakker, and contribute perspective to broader company initiatives when appropriate.
• Ability to influence other agency departments in efforts to optimize processes and workflows.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience working with fundraising or direct response marketing data.
• 5+ years of progressively senior responsibility in data, analytics, or data operations roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading teams and managing external vendors or contractors.
• Agency experience strongly preferred; startup or high-growth environment experience a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree (B.A. or B.S.) or equivalent professional experience.

Required Skills

• Deep prior experience in direct response fundraising data, including donor files, segmentation, ask strategies, attribution, and results analysis.
• Advanced proficiency in T-SQL with a strong track record of building and optimizing complex queries and workflows.
• Strong working knowledge of ETL processes, data quality controls, and reporting pipelines.
• Demonstrated experience with Power BI or comparable BI tools, including dataset modeling and governance.
• Proven ability to lead people while remaining a highly capable technical executor.
• Comfort auditing, challenging, and rebuilding existing systems rather than maintaining the status quo.
• Exceptional attention to detail and low tolerance for ambiguity in data definitions or outputs.
• Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Skills

• Strong alignment with faith-based nonprofit organizations and the mission-driven work of DickersonBakker’s clients.
• Desire to be part of the entrepreneurial, build-and-fix wing of the company rather than a mature, fully standardized environment.