Senior Director, National Campaigns

Description

Position Summary:

Reporting to the Vice President, Campaigns, the Senior Director, National Campaigns provides strategic leadership for HRC's national campaign portfolio by turning organizational priorities and emerging opportunities into coordinated national action. The role leads the national campaign and engagement work of the Campaigns team,working across HRC by recognizing opportunities, setting direction, aligning leaders, and mobilizing people, partners, and resources to advance strategic priorities. The Senior Director tracks the political, advocacy, and movement landscape; exercises sound judgment about opportunity and risk; and ensures HRC is prepared to act quickly and effectively when national moments arise. The role also maintains posture readiness to deploy and to provide visible, on-the-ground leadership when HRC's presence can strengthen campaign outcomes, partnerships, or organizational impact.

The Senior Director, National Campaigns is a hybrid position based in Washington, D.C.

Key Position Responsibilities:

Deliver National Campaigns

• Lead national campaigns that advance HRC's strategic priorities and expand engagement with HRC.

• Translate organizational priorities into coordinated national campaign strategies, clear outcomes, and investment recommendations.

• Ensure national campaigns are appropriately prioritized, resourced, evaluated, and positioned for success.

• Provide strategic leadership during major campaign and rapid-response moments by setting direction, clarifying organizational objectives, and removing barriers to action.

• Maintain readiness to deploy, including on short notice, when senior campaign leadership on the ground will strengthen execution, partnerships, or HRC's impact.

• Build and maintain relationships with national organizations, coalition partners, campaign leaders, and movement partners that strengthen campaign effectiveness and expand HRC's reach.

• Evaluate campaign effectiveness and ensure lessons learned inform future strategy and organizational readiness.

Recognize Opportunities for National Campaign Action

• Track the political, legislative, cultural, advocacy, and movement landscape to identify emerging opportunities, threats, and trends that may warrant national campaign action.

• Build an organization-wide and external network of relationships that continuously surfaces opportunities for HRC leadership and coordinated action.

• Partner with leaders across HRC to identify and evaluate opportunities based on potential impact, strategic fit, organizational capacity, timing, resources, and risk.

• Convene cross-functional leaders to develop coordinated recommendations and determine how HRC can lead, support, join, or create campaign opportunities.

• Recommend campaign priorities, strategic partnerships, and organizational investments to the Vice President, Campaigns.

• Approach emerging opportunities with a solutions-oriented "yes, and" mindset-seeking practical paths to action while identifying, evaluating, and responsibly managing political, legal, reputational, operational, and organizational risk.

Align the Organization Around Campaign Strategy

• Serve as the senior Campaigns leader responsible for aligning national campaign strategy across the organization once priorities and opportunities are identified.

• Convene and align leaders across Communications, Government Affairs, Development, Membership, Legal, Digital, Data, and other departments around shared campaign objectives, roles, and decisions.

• Ensure the Campaigns team is prepared to coordinate planned initiatives and rapid-response moments with clarity, speed, and shared accountability.

• Build collaborative relationships across the Campaigns team and the organization that encourage initiative, creative problem-solving, and shared ownership of results.

• Ensure national campaign and engagement work remains connected to state opportunities, field realities, and the operational systems required for successful execution.

Build Leadership Capacity

• Develop a high-performing leadership team grounded in accountability, collaboration, initiative, adaptability, and continuous improvement.

• Establish clear priorities, decision-making expectations, and performance standards while empowering leaders to act within their areas of responsibility.

• Coach leaders to exercise sound judgment, identify opportunities and risks, solve problems, and lead through influence.

• Foster a "yes, and" culture that encourages innovation, responsible risk-taking, and practical solutions that move the organization forward.

• Model the Campaigns team's shared expectation to deploy when needed, lead people, think strategically, collaborate across teams, build people power, and deliver results.

Manage Organizational Resources

• Develop and manage portfolio budgets, staffing plans, and resource recommendations aligned with campaign priorities.

• Balance ambition, impact, capacity, and risk when recommending how HRC invests people, money, and attention.

• Ensure national campaign work is supported by strong planning, systems, reporting, project management, logistics, and operational discipline.

• Promote operational excellence, innovation, data-informed decision-making, and compliance with organizational policies.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (or the equivalent)

• At least ten years of progressively responsible experience in electoral campaigns, issue advocacy, organizing, political strategy, movement building, or a related field, including substantial experience leading complex campaigns or major initiatives.

• At least five years of experience supervising staff, including demonstrated experience managing managers or senior-level staff and developing strong, accountable leaders.

• Proven success developing and leading complex campaign strategies that turn organizational priorities, political opportunities, or emerging moments into clear objectives, coordinated action, and measurable results.

• Strong political and strategic judgment, including ability to assess rapidly changing environments, recognize opportunities, anticipate challenges, make recommendations with incomplete information, and adjust strategy as circumstances evolve.

• Ability to identify, evaluate, communicate, and manage political, legal, reputational, operational, and organizational risk while advancing organizational priorities with a solutions-oriented approach.

• Ability to lead across organizational boundaries and through influence by convening and aligning colleagues across functions around shared objectives, roles, decisions, and execution.

• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with national and state organizations, coalition partners, campaign leaders, elected officials, advocates, movement partners, and other external stakeholders.

• Deep understanding of campaign strategy and execution, including electoral campaigns, legislative and issue advocacy, grassroots organizing, volunteer engagement, coalition building, communications, digital organizing, and other approaches used to build and mobilize people power.

• Ability to connect high-level strategy to execution by establishing priorities, translating strategy into actionable plans, allocating resources, removing barriers, and maintaining accountability for results in fast-moving or rapidly changing environments.

• Demonstrated commitment to developing people and high-performing teams, including setting clear expectations, coaching leaders, encouraging initiative and sound judgment, and fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, adaptability, creative problem-solving, and continuous improvement.

• Strong communication, facilitation, public speaking, and interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate complex strategy clearly, build alignment among people with different perspectives and responsibilities, and represent HRC effectively with internal and external audiences.

• Strong analytical and organizational management skills, including experience using data, political intelligence, campaign results, and other information to inform strategy and experience managing significant budgets, staffing plans, campaign investments, or other organizational resources.

• Familiarity with contemporary campaign technology and organizing infrastructure, including digital organizing platforms, campaign analytics, voter or supporter data, distributed organizing tools, and emerging technologies such as AI-enabled tools.

• Commitment to LGBTQ+ equality and to advancing racial justice, equity, and inclusion, including an understanding of how intersecting identities and systems of inequality affect LGBTQ+ people and communities.

• Ability and willingness to operate as a campaign generalist when organizational priorities require it, including stepping outside the immediate national campaign portfolio, deploying on short notice to support priority campaigns or organizational moments, traveling frequently or for extended periods, and working evenings and weekends during major campaign, electoral, legislative, or rapid-response periods.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading national, multi-state, or other large-scale electoral, legislative, advocacy, organizing, or issue campaigns.

• Experience working in a national membership, advocacy, civil rights, political, or federated organization with significant state and local partnerships.

• Experience designing or leading integrated campaigns that combine field, digital, communications, partnerships, volunteer mobilization, coalition engagement, or distributed organizing.

• Experience working with volunteer leaders and developing engagement opportunities that build sustained participation, leadership, and organizational capacity.

• Experience managing geographically dispersed or remote teams.

• Experience working in a unionized environment.

All positions at the Human Rights Campaign may require travel on a regular basis or periodically. Where the need arises for business travel, appropriate compensation as outlined by the Fair Labor Standards Act will apply.