Digital Strategist, Creative

BuildGood is a fundraising growth agency. We help nonprofits change the way they find new donors, retain them longer, and grow lifetime value, building a system that creates moments of generosity from first-time giver to legacy leaver.

Our approach is rooted in understanding why people give. Generosity grows when people feel motivated—when giving supports their identity, creates a sense of connection, and makes supporters feel competent and effective in their giving. We design fundraising systems around building donor motivation and leading first-time donors to become lifelong supporters.

We partner with nonprofits across North America to grow durable revenue, from donor acquisition and direct mail to digital fundraising, retention, and mid-level giving. Our work blends brand and direct response.

We’re a growing, research-informed fundraising agency with a clear point of view and big ambitions—and you can help shape what comes next.

Do you get excited about figuring out why an ad or funnel works, and then turning that insight into the next hook, concept, offer or experience worth testing?

Are you the person who looks at a fundraising goal and immediately starts thinking about the audience, the ad angle, the message, the landing page and the path from first impression to completed gift?

Can you dig into past campaigns, donor insights and performance results and say: “Here are the three ad concepts we should test next, here’s how the landing page should support them, and here’s why”?

Do you enjoy developing paid social concepts, writing hooks and ad copy, briefing static and video creative, shaping landing-page messaging, and making sure the entire funnel feels coherent—from the first scroll-stopping ad through to the donation ask and confirmation experience?

And do you want to own the entire creative learning loop: getting new ads and funnel variants produced, reviewing them before launch, looking at performance alongside a Performance Strategist, and deciding which hooks, messages, formats and landing-page ideas should be iterated, retired or scaled?

You’ll work directly with clients to uncover the stories, proof points, donor insights and offers that can become stronger digital campaigns, and then turn those raw ingredients into a steady pipeline of creative tests across Meta, Google, reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest, paid social and fundraising funnels.

• You prefer to execute someone else’s creative vision rather than set the direction yourself
• Your camera roll on your phone doesn’t have screenshots from interesting ads, emails, landing pages and funnels
• You’re uncomfortable giving and receiving direct, critical feedback on creative work
• You need a slow, heavily-layered approval process to feel confident in your work
• You’re drawn to brand-for-brand’s-sake and pretty creative over creative-that’s-built-to perform
• You’d rather hand off a concept and move on than stay close to how it performs and iterate from there
• You’d rather work on one campaign at a time than juggle multiple clients at once
• You need to be told what to do next, and wait until you are
• You avoid making decisions or are afraid of stepping on toes
• You don’t enjoy a highly entrepreneurial culture where things evolve quickly

• This is a fully remote role
• Attendance is required at the bi-annual staff retreat (3–4 days)
• Attendance and on-site participation are required for the BuildGood Summit (approximately 5 working days, including setup)
• This position will include some travel – like 5-10 days per year
• BuildGood team members operate with an owner’s mindset and take full accountability for their work
• You’ll be setting creative direction across multiple clients and channels at the same time
• You’ll be talking to clients frequently. You’ll present concepts, explain our thinking, take feedback and manage approvals directly
• Your creative work won’t end at the brief – you’ll be monitoring the campaign and be expected to have a point of view on what to do next – iterate, retire, expand or test something new.
• Roughly 10-15% of the role is staying sharp about what’s working in consumer marketing at the moment: what trends are happening, what is new in digital fundraising, what’s happening in other sectors – and bringing it back to the team.

• A workplace that values your need for autonomy, competence and connection
• An entrepreneurial culture that places a premium on rigor and accountability
• A teamwork environment built on both humour and challenging each other to continuously improve in our craft
• Meaningful work that directly influences how organizations grow
• Attendance at the Build Good Summit, Canada’s premiere fundraising conference
• Work from home/anywhere (fully remote position)
• 3 weeks vacation (4 weeks after 4 years at BuildGood)
• Bi-annual team retreat
• Summer Fridays (Fridays off in June, July, and/or August)
• Generous professional development budget
• Group Retirement Savings Plan (GRSP)
• Flexible Spending Account (HSA)
• Yearly profit-share based on meeting goals and targets

The main job:

You’ll set and drive the creative strategy behind BuildGood’s digital fundraising campaigns–turning donor insight and fundraising strategy into concepts, briefs, and direction that perform online.

Generally speaking:

The Creative Digital Strategist leads the development and execution of digital creative strategy across a roster of client accounts, with a focus on paid ads (Meta, google, reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, programmatic, etc.) and other digital placements. You’ll translate each client’s fundraising strategy and donor insights into creative concepts and briefs, direct copywriters and designers toward donor-relevant, identity-based fundraising creative, and use campaign performance data to keep sharpening what we make. You’ll partner closely with the Creative and Strategist teams to make sure creative and strategy move in step.

Your main responsibilities:

• Create the creative and messaging strategy for each account, translating the yearly digital plan into campaigns, concepts, offers, messages and creative themes
• Lead creative concepting and campaign ideation for digital channels, including paid social (Meta and beyond), display, and other digital placements
• Write and/or oversee creative briefs, ensuring every concept reflects BuildGood’s donor-relevant, identity-based fundraising philosophy
• Develop the creative testing roadmap in partnership with the Sr. Digital Strategist – identifying which hooks, messages, formats, offers and creative variables are worth testing
• Develop hooks, headlines, ad copy, calls to action, offers and messaging angles
• Direct and coach copywriters and designers to sharpen digital creative and get to great fundraising work
• Provide creative direction for static, video, UGC-style content, and other digital ad formats – briefing designers, editors, vendors and other creative partners. You may even create some of the work yourself.
• Own the digital creative production pipeline, making sure the Performance side always has enough high-quality creative variations to test and scale.
• Direct A/B testing as a core part of the creative process—building clear hypotheses, creating meaningful variations, and learning what actually changes donor behaviour.
• Work directly with clients to gather inputs, understand their program and priorities, present creative concepts, collect feedback, and manage approvals
• Track requested creative changes and make sure feedback is accurately reflected in the next version
• Review creative before launch for message clarity, brand alignment, fundraising effectiveness, and consistency across the full ad-to-landing-page journey
• Review performance results with the Performance Strategist and decide the creative response — what to iterate, retire, expand, or test next
• Spot patterns in creative performance across accounts and help build BuildGood’s library of winning hooks, offers, messages, formats, and creative principles

An important note: Since BuildGood operates very much like a startup, the exact job description might change over time and depending on the season. The main thing is: you will help nonprofits fundraise effectively in one way or another, and you will help improve and grow the business as part of a team effort.

• 4–6 years of experience in digital creative strategy, copywriting, art direction, or similar
• Proven track record leading digital creative for multiple client accounts or complex fundraising campaigns at once
• A deep understanding of direct-response and donor-relevant fundraising — and the ability to call out and coach others to get to great fundraising creative
• Experience creating and directing creative for paid social and Meta ads, along with other digital platforms
• Familiarity with digital ad platforms and specs (Meta Ads Manager and similar)
• Comfortable using campaign performance data to inform and refine creative decisions
• Experience partnering closely with a performance/analytics function to build and run a creative testing roadmap
• Excellent communicator: you’re clear, concise, and confident with clients and internal teams alike
• Highly detail-oriented: you catch the things others miss and take pride in work that’s thorough and well-executed
• An innate bias for action: you produce something fast, learn from it, and improve
• Proficiency in Google Suite and project management tools (we use Teamwork)
• Prior agency experience is a bonus

• Operate with a high level of autonomy and ownership — you’re trusted to lead the creative direction on your accounts
• Work in close, ongoing partnership with the Performance Strategist — creative and performance aren’t separate lanes here; they’re a loop you help run
• Collaborate closely with Client Service and Creative teams to execute great creative products for our clients
• Move between strategic thinking and hands-on execution in the same day — some weeks you’re briefing others, some weeks you’re writing the hook yourself
• Expect feedback to go both ways: you’ll give direct, critical feedback on creative, and you’ll be expected to take it the same way
• You will report to the Client Service seat

• Canadian resident with legal status to work in Canada
• Must be willing to work during standard business hours in the CST timezone
• Access to your own computer, reliable internet, and a phone is essential

To Apply

• Send an email to [email protected]
• Subject Line: Application – Digital Creative Strategist
• In the email, briefly share why you want to work with BG, why it’s a good fit, and a link to a song that gets you excited about fundraising
• If you have LinkedIn, include a link to your profile
• Attach your resume (we’ll read it) and don’t attach a cover letter (we won’t read it)
• Fill out this application form.

We can’t guarantee that we will get back to every single applicant. If you have not heard from us two weeks after you send your application, please assume that you were not included in the final field of applicants.

What To Expect

1. An initial interview. Selected candidates will be selected for an initial interview to assess fit.
2. A technical assessment. Selected candidates will participate in a technical assessment over Zoom followed by a short interview.
3. Follow-up interview. Selected candidates will be contacted for a final interview.
4. Reference checks. We will complete at least 3 reference checks for the final chosen
   candidate.