Director, Demand Generation

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Description

Vanco Faith is the newly combined powerhouse behind how churches across the country manage ministry and move money, bringing together Vanco Payments, the payments platform already trusted by tens of thousands of congregations, and ACS Technologies (ACST), the church management software (ChMS) long relied on by ministries to run their day-to-day operations.

What You'll Do:

We recently brought two businesses together, which gave us a large installed base, a growing sales team, and the chance to build a demand generation function from the ground up in our unifying organization, rather than inherit one. We are looking for the person who builds and refines it, moving fast, using best practices, and leveraging the latest tools and AI capabilities.

This is a build role, not a tuning role. You will define what a qualified lead means here, design the touch architecture that works those leads, partner with the SVP of Customer Success to stand up the cross-sell motion into our installed base, instrument the funnel so cost per outcome is knowable, and prove which channels earn more budget. You will do it with modern tooling, which means judgment about where to apply AI and where to apply people/contractors to maintain elasticity in your work is part of the job.

What you own

• Marketing-sourced, sales-accepted pipeline in dollars. This is the number. Accepted means a seller took it, not that marketing scored it.
• The share of new-business opportunities that carry a payments attach. Most of our new business should sell as software and payments together, so payments demand is largely earned inside those deals rather than in a separate campaign.
• Cross-sell and upsell opportunities created in the installed base, measured in count. These deals are small and numerous, so counting them in dollars would hide the work. We want digital and product driven scal to the long tail and ABX opportunities for strategic tier.
• Cost per accepted opportunity, by channel. You will set the baseline and then improve it.
• The definition of a qualified lead, and the discipline to hold it when volume looks better without it.
• Demand strategy and conversion paths. You own the audiences, offers, campaign strategy, channel mix, conversion paths, nurture architecture, testing, and optimization that turn positioning into response. Product Marketing owns positioning and the messaging architecture; you translate that strategy into measurable demand programs, partnering with Creative and Content to develop the assets needed to perform. On a team our size, you should also be able to write and execute directly when speed and experimentation require it.
• The touch architecture. How many touches, at what frequency, on which channels, with what message, and how far personalization goes. You design the whole sequence, inbound follow-up through nurture through cross-sell. Sales executes their portion and is measured on compliance; Revenue Operations builds the tooling and the routing.

How the work is divided

We are specific about this because you should know what you can count on and what you will be held to. Fuzzy boundaries are how these roles fail, and we would rather you see ours before you apply.

• You get a data layer that someone else is accountable for building. Attribution, lead routing, the scoring model build, and reporting are owned and resourced by Revenue Operations. Demand Gen defines qualification criteria, signals and business requirements; RevOps owns technical implementation, routing, data integrity and reporting. You will specify what you need and hold them to it, and you will not be graded on infrastructure you did not build.
• Sellers and their leadership are accountable for their half. Speed to first touch, cadence compliance, and win rate belong to the sales organization and are measured there. You are accountable for what enters the funnel and what it costs.
• You get real budget and real authority. Channel mix inside your envelope is your call, and you direct our paid media and SEO agencies rather than routing through anyone. If bringing things in house save budget and allow reallocation to other areas of demand, that's a choice as well.
• You get partners on positioning, enablement, and pricing. Product marketing, our enablement lead, and our pricing owner carry those. You will push on all three and you are not responsible for delivering them.

Your first ninety days

We are hiring for outcomes in the first quarter, not an assessment and diligence period. By day ninety, we expect the demand engine to be producing the qualified volume and sales-accepted opportunities required to support our Q1 2027 pipeline goals. Inherent in this is baseline operations, such as a qualified-lead definition in production with our history restated under it, a follow-up service level agreed with sales, a measurable step up in the rate at which qualified leads become accepted opportunities, the first cross-sell motion live and producing pipeline, a published cost per accepted opportunity by channel, and at least one channel you have recommended we stop funding. You will also deliver a demand plan for the following year with a monthly number you are willing to sign your name to.

That is an aggressive first quarter. It is achievable because the diagnostic work is already done. You will not start from a blank page; you will start from a documented set of findings and a mandate to act on them. We will share that analysis with you as part of a case study workshop in the process.

We currently have an outside agency under management as well as a fractional demand generation boutique firm. You'll have resources and support from day 1 and we're looking for you to direct these resources immediately.

Your first year

Our operating plan is underwritten by a conversion rate we intend to reach and do not yet hold. Closing that gap is the job, and it is the reason this role exists rather than a request for more leads. Success in year one means conversion holds where the plan needs it or we know precisely why it cannot and what the plan should say instead, marketing sources meaningful payments and cross-sell pipeline, every dollar of program spend has a channel and a cost per outcome attached, and next year's budget is set from evidence you produced rather than a benchmark someone borrowed.

The team around you

You will work most closely with our Revenue Operations lead on data and definitions, with the sales organization on handoff and follow-up, and with product marketing on content and positioning. You will direct our paid media agency and our SEO vendor. We also have a fractional demand generation advisor helping through the rebuild and an engineer prototyping AI-assisted inbound and personalization with us. When you arrive you will inherit the work already in flight and, within your first month, tell us how you want it divided. We would rather you shape it immediately.

Requirements

What we are looking for

• You have personally built demand generation in a high-volume, lower-price-point motion, not only run a channel inside an established machine. You can name the funnel you built, the numbers before and after, and the decisions you made.
• You are AI-forward in practice, not in theory. You use modern AI tooling in your daily work to research segments, build and test messaging, prototype scoring and signal models, personalize sequences at a scale a small team could not reach manually, and compress the cycle from idea to live campaign. We will ask you to show us, and we care as much about where you decided the tool was wrong as where it worked.
• You are fluent in unit economics. Cost per qualified opportunity, customer acquisition cost, and payback are how you think, not terms you have heard.
• You have designed cadence and sequence, not just campaigns. You have opinions about touch counts, timing, and how far to push personalization before it stops working.
• You can write. Offers, emails, and pages that convert, in your own voice and at speed.• You have worked with imperfect data and shipped anyway, while pushing to make it better.
• You have run a motion into an existing customer base, not just net-new acquisition. Lifecycle, in-product, and partner-assisted plays are familiar.
• You can tell a seller the truth about lead quality and take the same honesty back.• Experience selling to churches, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, or another values-driven buyer is a real advantage. It is not required if the rest is strong.

Why You'll Want to Work Here:

• Mission-driven organization making a meaningful impact on the communities we serve
• Work alongside small, collaborative teams where your ideas influence both business outcomes and company culture
• Grow your career through ongoing professional development and a strong commitment to internal promotion
• Enjoy 100% employer-paid medical coverage through our HSA or Base Plan, plus employer-paid dental, life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance.
• Access additional voluntary benefits including vision, accident, critical illness, and supplemental life & AD&D coverage.
• Recharge with 9 paid holidays, 2 floating holidays, and 4 weeks of PTO.
• Receive 8 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment.
• Give back with paid volunteer time off.
• Build your financial future with a 401(k) plan and employer match.

The annual starting base pay for this position typically starts between $130,000 - $190,000. Placement within the range is determined by a variety of factors, including but not limited to: knowledge, skills, years & depth of experience, location, and equity with internal team members. Total compensation for this position includes a quarterly performance bonus.

How we will select

We run a short process and we are candid inside it. Before the first substantive conversation we will share a confidential briefing on the state of our funnel and what our plan requires, so you can decide whether the problem interests you with real information rather than a job posting.From there we will send a working brief with a seventy-two hour clock: a funnel, a set of numbers, and a set of decisions to make. We expect you to use AI tools to do it, and we will ask to see that work, including where the tool was confidently wrong. Then we spend an hour together walking your answer and extending it live. Final conversations are with the leader you would report to, our Revenue Operations lead, and our CEO.

What this is notThis is not a brand or communications role, and it is not a campaign project manager. We are not looking for someone to produce more leads. We are looking for someone to produce more revenue per lead and then scale it.

Why nowThe combined business gave us an installed base we have barely sold across and a sales team that is growing into it. The demand engine is the piece that has to catch up, and it will be built once. The work is unglamorous at the start and consequential at the end. If you want to point at an engine in two years and say you built it, this is that job.

For remote positions, employees must reside in one of the following locations: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NH, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WV. All other states are not in consideration for this role at this time.

Vanco is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex including sexual orientation and gender identity, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.