ArtPlace America is looking to hire a director of communications as part of our executive team.
We are a ten-year fund that will sunset in 2020; and we are a collaboration of 16 foundations, 8 federal agencies, and 6 banks that is looking to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development in order to strengthen the social, physical, and economic fabric of communities.
Our three primary program areas are the National Creative Placemaking Fund, which to date has invested $67M in 227 projects across 151 communities of all sizes across the United States in for projects that are working toward place-based community development outcomes through arts and cultural processes and interventions; our Community Development Investments through which we have committed $18M to 6 place-based organizations that are working to permanently and sustainably incorporate arts and culture into their core work; and our research strategies, which are aimed at exploring deeply the possible collaborations among arts and culture as a sector and other discrete community development sectors.
We are looking for a director of communications to join our team and take charge of sharing the stories and knowledge we are collecting through these three program areas in order to help connect the people and organizations who are already working this way with one another in a community of practice, as well as to help grow the number of like-minded practitioners, policy makers, funders, and others colleagues.
The director of communications will need to develop an overall communications strategy for our organization, and we anticipate that s/he will then execute this strategy through four primary channels:
- ArtPlace’s website, blog, and social media footprint (which currently is comprised of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram);
- the extensive travel and public appearances that our executive director and other colleagues regularly undertake (which to date has largely been responsive and driven by requests we receive rather than through a proactive strategy driven by audience and content);
- ArtPlace’s annual grantee summit, which took place in Los Angeles, CA in 2014 and Philadelphia, PA in 2015; and will take place in Phoenix, AZ this year; and
- traditional media outlets by placing stories about the projects and organizations we are supporting, as well as others who are working in this way.
In addition to having responsibility for the above, the director of communications will, of course, be free to work in additional ways toward our goal of making arts-driven processes and interventions part of the standard toolbox for any comprehensive community planning and development effort.
The director of communications will supervise a communications associate; report to the executive director; and work closely with every member of the ArtPlace team, as well as with our foundation and other partners.
We are looking for someone who has a relevant background that includes varied experience in community planning and development, in arts and culture, or (ideally) some of both.
S/he will need to be an excellent communicator, both in writing and in person; able to synthesize ideas and share them in clear and compelling ways; and able to work with an exhaustive (and at times exhausting!) range of colleagues.
The director of communications will need to toggle back-and-forth between big picture, strategic thinking and managing the minutiae of administrative and other details that come with working in a small organization. S/he will need to operate with urgency and creativity, while balancing that out with a sense of perspective and making sure the rote work gets done.
In all of our communications, we work to be human, transparent, trustworthy, humorous, and inviting of conflicting and contradictory ideas. We would like to find a colleague who shares those values and that way of communicating.
This position is budgeted at $90,000 per year with a comprehensive benefits package.
If you are interested in being considered for this job, please send a cover letter and resume to jobs [at] artplaceamerica.org.
(That e-mailbox will be shared by everyone who is involved with the search, so please direct all communications about this job posting to that address.)