REPORTS TO: Director Shelter Operations
FLSA STATUS: Exempt
LOCATION: Cincinnati, OH- Colerain and Dane Shelters
ON-SITE REQUIREMENTS: 80% On Site
Join the young, ambitious, pioneering leadership team at Cincinnati Animal CARE in this
rapidly-growing, nationally-recognized animal services organization serving one of the Midwest’s most
vibrant cities in Ohio’s third largest county of 825,000 residents.
Cincinnati Animal CARE Humane Society
Cincinnati Animal Care (CAC) is a progressive, no-kill animal services organization. CAC assumed
operations of the Hamilton County Animal Shelter and Dog Warden operations on August 1st, 2020.
We have maintained a combined dog and cat 95% Live Release Rate ever since. Our mission is to
meet the immediate needs of animals in our community through individualized care, lifesaving
solutions, and temporary shelter en route to a safe, compatible home. Nearly 8,000 animals arrive at
our shelter every year and we have nearly 500 animals in care at any given time. The animals are
housed in two facilities in the Northside neighborhood of Cincinnati. We believe that lifesaving is a
community ethic and are committed to an exceptional level of animal services, implementing a
collaborative, holistic approach to animal sheltering and Dog Warden operations.
We value our talented team of nearly 90 compassionate, open-minded and resilient staff and
hundreds of volunteers and fosters who help us strive toward our vision of a community where all
animals are valued, protected and have a safe place to call home.
Organizational Highlights
Cincinnati Animal CARE offers a robust array of programming that supports animals and people in
our community. In 2022, our Dog Wardens responded to over 10,000 calls from the public and won
multiple cruelty case convictions. Our medical team hospitalized over 1,000 animals in need of
emergency or critical medical treatment. 450 families were assisted through our community
support program offering boarding, veterinary assistance, training assistance, or spay/neuter.
Nearly 1,000 stray animals were reunited with their families, 5,700 animals were placed into foster
care, and more than 5,000 animals were adopted into new ones. We are able to achieve
unprecedented results and deliver a robust offering of new services to our community despite
working out of an outdated, 60-year-old facility. Hamilton County has been a great partner and the
county has committed to building a new facility that we expect to be built and operational in the
next few years.
About Cincinnati
Cincinnati has lots to offer for anyone looking to relocate here, being recognized as the
highest-ranked and best city to live in Ohio, according to a recent list released by U.S. News and
World Report. In May 2023, Cincinnati was ranked 50th overall in the “150 Best Places to Live in
the U.S”. The city is nestled along the banks of the Ohio River, and the entire metropolitan area
spans portions of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Positive rankings are based on the diverse
economy, plenty of jobs, affordability, strong school districts and nationally recognized colleges and
universities, fun recreational options and excellent family-friendly neighborhoods. Whether you
want hip uptown living, suburban neighborhoods or rural living, we have it all within reach of our
shelter in Northside, a hotbed of creativity and a popular destination for entertainment and nightlife.
Just five miles northwest of downtown Cincinnati, Northside is known for its fun, eclectic and
diverse vibe. To learn more about Cincinnati and our home in Northside, visit www.visitcincy.com
and www.welcometonorthside.com
Position Summary
This critical leadership position is a pivotal opportunity for a results-driven, intellectually-curious,
growth-minded leader. We are looking for a seasoned marketing and communications expert to
become part of a vibrant team and lead the Marketing and Community Engagement Department
with the objective of winning the hearts, minds and the hands of our community. This person will
have the internal discipline to work effectively within the freedom and autonomy of a start-up entity
to achieve extraordinary results. They will employ strategic thinking and planning to deliver
executional excellence in community engagement through strategic marketing, brand building, and
communications. The successful candidate is a bold visionary who can rise above the day-to-day
demands of the job to take a holistic approach to program development, using data to make
decisions, forecast trends, anticipate challenges and execute a strategic response. This person
has deep marketing and communications knowledge, strong leadership skills, and a successful
track record of project development and management. The ideal candidate is unsatisfied with the
status quo and actively seeks and accepts feedback and opportunities for improvement.
The Marketing and Community Engagement Associate Director will lead the media, volunteer and
event teams, comprised of approximately 10 staff, and will interface with the community as a
leader of CAC. We have high expectations and are committed to hiring a performance-minded
individual who has a track record of growing and developing people, and producing remarkable
results. This successful candidate demonstrates critical thinking skills through the disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating
information gathered or generated from observation, experience and reflection as a guide to belief
and action.
Ours is a fast-paced, stressful, high-stakes industry. The successful candidate will thrive in an
environment of uncertainty and ambiguity, rising to the challenges inherent in a start-up entity. This
is a unique opportunity for an entrepreneurial-minded self-starter to make a significant impact and
build a legacy through innovative program development in a professionally supportive,
intellectually-stimulating environment.
Primary Responsibilities
The Marketing and Community Engagement Associate Director will be responsible for setting the
short- and long-term strategy and identifying key performance measures of the collective marketing
and community engagement program. This person must be able to “build the plane while flying it”.
Program oversight will include marketing, brand building and awareness, internal and external
communications including website, news media, social media, collateral material events, and
volunteer programming. Key responsibilities include:
● Develop, prioritize and align strategic initiatives with executive leadership
● Create short-term and long-term strategy for delivering exceptional marketing, brand building,
and internal and external communications that supports the community engagement goals of
the organization
● Build and retain engaged volunteer and customer bases
● Conduct market research to identify industry trends and analyze data about target
demographics
● Demonstrate courageous leadership through the ebbs and flows of animal welfare, particularly
while the organization is in internal or external crisis
● Analyze data and turn insights from data into action to drive better results
● Define key performance measures and metrics for marketing, communications, and community
engagement
● Form and leverage strong internal and external relationships to facilitate a community approach
to lifesaving; effectively collaborate up, down and across the organization to executional
excellence and operational efficiency
● Ownership of department staff development – hiring, training, performance management,
retention and career pathways
● Enable program managers through coaching, development and resourcing
● Ability to make tough decisions and gain consensus through decisiveness, transparency,
humility and respectful communications
● Contribute to the development of a financial budget for department and manage to budget
Required Skills and Mastery:
● Mastery of highly effective marketing, brand building, and communications strategies
● Proficiency in internet marketing techniques, technologies, trends and solutions
● Ability to perform on- and off-camera interviews with confidence and professionalism, while
armed with data and planned, strategic messaging
● Ability to research the market and apply thoughtful analysis of the competition and consumer
and industry trends
● Highly effective external communication skills including persuasive communication and
de-escalation techniques
● Exceptional creativity that can be applied to fresh and imaginative marketing campaigns
● Experienced cross-functional project manager and business planner who uses KPIs, forecasting
and budgeting to deliver and execute a robust action-oriented plan that is aligned with
organizational goals and objectives
● Anticipates and identifies problems, and proactively seeks solutions in the absence of perfect
data; practices excellent and creative problem-solving skills
● Practices dynamic, holistic and critical thinking that consistently delivers exceptional results
while maintaining alignment on timelines and targets
● Demonstrates decisive decision-making
● Highly-effective communicator, up, down, across and outside the organization
● Strong leadership skills to support organizational transition in times of uncertainty
● Ability to engage, empower, enable, energize and lead others within department and
cross-functionally
● Effective cross-functional collaborator who works cooperatively with other leaders to find new
and better approaches
● Experience successfully working for either a start-up or high-growth organization is a real plus
Professional Attributes:
● Unwavering composure, integrity, and professional maturity
● Passionate for animal care and welfare
● Authentic leader and partner – ability to lead by forming productive cross-functional teams,
showing respect for what the team has accomplished while bringing break-through thinking and
solutions to improve the performance of the business
● Superior inspirational qualities – one who creates an atmosphere where people work together
enthusiastically and cooperatively to produce outstanding results; one who attracts top talent
from outside the organization while developing strong teams within
● Operates with a sense of urgency driven by a recognition that we are in a lifesaving business
● Innovative mindset- inspired and unafraid to bring something new to this space
● Results-oriented – ability to drive results to plan with full accountability
● Nimble – demonstrates learning agility, proactively shifting efforts as trends and business
variables change
● Growth-minded – self-reflective, humble and open; seeks, welcomes and incorporates,
professional feedback with an authentic commitment to improve and grow
● Inquisitive- has a history of seeking out best practices and successfully assimilating them into
their organization
● Embodies unwavering commitment to CAC’s values and positive workplace culture
Qualifications/Educational Background:
● 5+ years of marketing or communications experience
● 5+ years of leadership experience managing a variance of teams, including entry level and
management
● Bachelor’s Degree in marketing, advertising, sales, business administration, journalism,
communications or equivalent
Schedule and Availability:
● This is a 40+ hour, exempt position
● Must have availability after-hours and on off-days for emergencies, consultation, and
advisement to managers and Executive Leadership Team as needed
Salary:
● Range $70,000-$80,000 dependent on experience and skill-level
● Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, 403b, PTO, EAP, Professional Development