Director of Events and Strategic Partnerships

Position Title: Director, Events and Strategic Partnerships

Status: Full Time

FLSA: Exempt

Location: Hybrid (Washington D.C.) or Remote
JOB SUMMARY & KEY PRIORITIES

The Director of Events and Strategic Partnerships leads the vision, strategy, planning, and execution for Active Minds events and experiential marketing while cultivating the strategic partnerships that make them successful. This role oversees a comprehensive events landscape including national and regional conferences, experiential marketing, local activations, and the end-to-end design of the annual gala fundraiser. This role is responsible for ensuring in-person events, activations and experiential marketing aligns with Active Minds’ strategic goals and desired experiences. By balancing event planning with relationship management, you will create events and brand activations that expand organizational reach and deepen Active Minds’ engagement.
 

Leading with both creativity and structure, you will manage and mentor a dedicated team while overseeing day-to-day event operations and cross-functional collaborations to identify new experiential marketing opportunities. You will work to ensure all events run efficiently and within budget. Ultimately, this position serves as the primary project leader to execute impactful events, bring critical partnerships to life, engage new audiences, and establish meaningful pathways for youth and young adults to become aware of Active Minds and take action for mental health.
 

Active Minds is the largest nonprofit in the United States mobilizing youth and young adults to transform mental health norms across society. For more than 20 years, we have equipped the next generation of peer mental health advocates through a variety of programs, including the Active Minds Chapter Network, A.S.K., and Send Silence Packing. Our advocacy, initiatives, and campaigns foster lasting change in how youth view and discuss mental health, encouraging them to use their voices to influence broader conversations and inform mental health supports within their communities. Together, we are building a diverse movement of champions committed to improving mental health for all. To learn more about Active Minds, visit activeminds.org.

Collaborate cross-functionally to identify optimal methods for reaching and engaging target audiences (conferences, local events, experiential marketing) and develop strategies and execution plans. Pursue events and experiential marketing opportunities that align with organizational goals. 

• Fundraising & Supporter Engagement Events: Lead the end-to-end experience design and serve as the key project manager for the annual gala hosted in the Washington, D.C. area, and collaborate cross-functionally to plan regional in-person supporter engagement experiences.
• National and Regional Conferences: Lead the event design and planning for an annual Active Minds Conference as well as regional conferences and convenings. Focus on the user-experience, marketing activations, venue and partner coordination, site logistics, scheduling, and on-site management.
• Youth & Young Adult Awareness Events: Lead the strategy, planning and implementation of experiential marketing activations that expands our reach, stands out and engages youth and young adults. 
• Experiential Marketing & Onsite Branding: Lead the strategy and development of an interactive and impactful presence at tabling events and high-visibility conferences and public spaces. Manage onsite engagement, data capture, documentation (photography, video, testimonials) and optimize attendee conversion and post-event engagement strategies.
• Partner Events & Activations: Lead the ideation, planning and implementation of joint events and experiential marketing opportunities with strategic partners to position Active Minds as a national leader in youth mental health advocacy.

• Strategic Partnership Identification & Growth: Identify, secure, and amplify strategic marketing partnerships with organizations—such as sports teams, entertainment venues, Greek-letter organizations, clubs, and associations—to reach core audiences, drive awareness and create experiential marketing opportunities.
• Relationship Management: Serve as the primary point of contact for experiential marketing and events partnerships. Build and nurture long-term relationships through consistent communication, ensuring all contractual obligations and Memorandum of Understanding/Agreement (MOUs/MOAs) are established and met. Vet inbound event opportunities, assessing alignment with organizational goals in collaboration with internal teams. 

• Project Management & Implementation: Lead project management including developing detailed project briefs and cross-team meetings. Leverage Active Minds' project management protocols and technology to establish explicit expectations, detailed timelines, and budgets.
• Performance Monitoring: Establish key success metrics, timeline adherence, monitor budget projections, and track attendee engagement data. Gather feedback to generate impact reports for funders, partners, and the broader Active Minds network.
• Budget management: Set and monitor budget adherence and efficiency for all partnership and event initiatives

4. Team Support & Collaboration 

• Manage, mentor, and develop direct reports within the Events and Strategic Partnerships team
• Provide day-to-day leadership, guidance and oversight including assigning tasks, reviewing projects, approvals and supporting skill development. Oversee recruitment, training, and retention of high-caliber talent
• Set performance goals, provide objectives, coaching, and foster professional growth
• Serve as a key point of contact for internal teams seeking support, helping gather insights and ensure timely execution.

• Innovation & Growth Mindset: Proven ability to lead creative ideation and foster a culture of innovation. Highly skilled at executing iterative test-and-learn strategies to drive continuous improvement, elevate user experiences, and achieve breakthrough results.
• Event Portfolio Leadership: Proven track record of leading, planning and managing complex meeting and event portfolios and teams including large-scale fundraising galas, national conferences, and experiential marketing activations.
• Strategic Relationship Management: Demonstrated ability to source, build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships and strategic partnerships across corporate, educational, and non-profit sectors.
• Project Management Expertise: Strong capability in navigating cross-functional team collaborations, executing project briefs, managing vendor contracts, and handling event logistics.
• Budgeting & Analytic Tracking: Experience in managing financial projections, setting timelines, and establishing key data-tracking metrics to ensure continuous programmatic improvement.
• Self-starter with a positive attitude who is accustomed to leading diverse teams, working cross-functionally and working on multiple projects with different deadlines simultaneously.
• Belief that equity and social justice are important and driven to hear, reflect, and act on this belief.
• Passion for youth and young adult mental health 

You need to have:

• 8+ years of professional experience in event/experiential marketing, event production
• Demonstrated experience leading and planning major events, experiential marketing and partnerships
• Experience supporting or mentoring junior staff and interns.
• Familiarity with project management protocols and tools including MOCHA and ClickUp. 
• Digital literacy with Microsoft/Google tools and online collaboration platforms.

OUR CULTURE  

Active Minds is a place where every employee matters. We value diverse perspectives, radical  authenticity, and a community-driven approach. We dream big, offering flexibility to staff while we work to achieve our mission. As such, we are proud to offer competitive salaries and benefits and an environment that is friendly to remote working and life/work balance. 

Active Minds is an equal opportunity employer that works to advance racial equity and social justice in an increasingly multicultural and globally connected world. We value diverse experiences, including with regard to educational background, intersectional identities, and lived experiences. We make a particular effort to recruit people of color, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, and people with other marginalized identities. Active Minds encourages all to apply for our open positions as we depend on a diverse staff to carry out our mission. 

This position offers an initial range salary of $105,000–$119,700 along with robust benefits. The starting pay for this position is equal to others at the same level throughout the organization. Candidates whose experience meets both the minimum and preferred qualifications may be considered for a starting salary that exceeds the current amount. The role sits within Active Minds Level 5 salary band, and as such, has the potential to grow to $149,000 over time. FLSA Status: Exempt.

Active Minds has an industry-leading and competitive benefits package that includes Health, Vision and Dental Insurance, Paid Vacation and Sick Leave, Paid Holidays, Company Wide Mental Health Days, 401(k) Matching, HSA and FSA Options, Life Insurance, Short Term, and Long Term Disability, Fully Paid Parental Leave, Wellness Reimbursement Program, and Professional Development Stipends.

Active Minds recruits, hires, trains, compensates, and promotes our staff regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law.

• Active Minds will never ask an applicant to send – and Active Minds will never send an applicant - a check or any payment or item of value (such as a gift card) in connection with the interview process or job onboarding process. 
• Active Minds will never ask for personal information about an applicant (such as their Social Security number or banking information) until the job onboarding process; 
• Active Minds will never extend a job offer without first conducting multiple rounds of video interviews. The Active Minds interview/hiring process will always include at least 3 virtual interviews. 
• All legitimate Active Minds job offers are extended verbally by the HR/People & Culture Team.  
• If you are expecting an email from Active Minds, please always verify that the sending domain in the email is activeminds.org and NOT any variation of it. 

 For further information on how to protect yourself from employment scams, please review these “Consumer Advice” guidelines. 
 

Please submit a resume and questionnaire responses through this application form.