Membership and Engagement Manager

The Membership Growth and Engagement Manager will lead the development and delivery of a strategic, inclusive and values-driven membership programme for the Royal African Society. The role is responsible for growing, diversifying and retaining RAS’s membership base, deepening member engagement, and ensuring that membership is a vibrant pillar of the Society’s influence, sustainability and impact.

This role will be central to strengthening RAS’s community of individuals, students, academics and practitioners committed and interested in African perspectives and thought leadership. The role supports communications, and membership growth, ensuring data analysis and reporting and an enhanced membership experience. The output of this role’s data will provide input for the fundraising team. This multifaceted role requires a self-starter with a passion for Africa and strong administrative and interpersonal skills.

• Develop and implement a multi-year membership growth strategy aligned with RAS’s mission, financial sustainability and strategic objectives.
• Grow individual, student and institutional membership, with a particular focus on younger professionals, diaspora communities, researchers, policy practitioners and global partners.
• Design and refine membership tiers, benefits and value propositions to ensure relevance, accessibility and impact.
• Use data and insights to monitor membership trends, inform strategy and support continuous improvement.

• Lead on processing new memberships, renewals, and action lapsed membership accounts.
• Develop and deliver the membership journey: onboarding (issuing welcome letters), communications (related to benefits, payments and updates) and reminders (upcoming renewals and member events).
• Manage membership admin, including processing sign-ups, renewals, subscription payments and lapsed follow-ups.
• Monitor member satisfaction and feedback; develop improvements to the membership offering.
• Manage the RAS Membership mailbox, responding to enquiries and resolving issues in a timely manner.

• Create meaningful engagement pathways that foster a strong sense of belonging, purpose and participation among members.
• Develop and deliver a programme of member-focused activities, including events, briefings, round tables, learning opportunities and digital engagement.
• Work closely with the Events and Programmes teams to ensure members are effectively integrated into RAS’s convening, knowledge and thought leadership work.
• Lead retention initiatives, including onboarding, renewal campaigns and targeted member communications.

• Oversee membership communications across email, digital platforms and social media in collaboration with the Communications team.
• Ensure a high-quality, inclusive and consistent member experience at every stage of the membership journey.
• Act as a key point of contact for members, building trusted relationships with key individuals and institutions.

• Manage and optimise the use of Beacon CRM for membership tracking, renewals, communications and reporting.
• Ensure accurate data management, GDPR compliance and effective use of member insights.
• Produce regular reports on membership growth, income, engagement and retention for senior management and Council.
• Oversee the maintenance, configuration, and optimisation of the Society’s CRM (e.g. individual, corporate, partner and stakeholder data).
• Ensure high standards of data transparency to avoid errors, duplication, inconsistency, and compliance with GDPR and related data protection laws.
• Manage data integrations between CRM and other systems (RAS website, and platforms such as Mailchimp, payment gateways i.e. Xero, GoCardless and Stripe).
• Ensure that data workflows and processes are documented and user-friendly.

• Produce regular reports on member data, trends, income from membership, retention rates, resignations or lapsed accounts, etc.
• Provide insight and analysis to other teams (fundraising, comms, finance, events) to support campaign planning and…