|
OVERVIEW:
Folklife is an integral part of all American
lives. It is the story of America reflected in the cultural productions of
ordinary people who live everyday lives, from cooking and eating meals, to the
activities of work and play, to religious observances and seasonal celebrations.
Folklife is the songs we sing, the stories we tell, the crafts we make, the
voices with which we speak. And yet, when a voice is gone, it is gone forever.
Folklorists, cultural specialists, and dedicated
members of communities have been bringing to light an enormous range of cultural
expressions that have been little known outside the communities or families
where they were created. The Vermont Folklife Center, founded in 1984, is
dedicated to preserving and presenting the folk arts and cultural traditions of
Vermont and the surrounding region. Through ongoing field research, a multimedia
archive and an apprenticeship program, folklorists at the Vermont Folklife
Center document and conserve cultural heritage which could easily be lost;
through exhibits, media, publications and educational projects, they bring
recognition to the skills, talents and traditions of Vermonters, past and
present. The Vermont Folklife Center has made preservation of the spoken word
the core of its endeavors, and the Vermont Folklife Center’s archive now
comprises over 4,000 taped interviews, which have been transcribed and
electronically indexed.
The Vermont Folklife Center is seeking an
energetic and collaborative leader to take over for the organization’s founder
and chief architect. The new Executive Director will work with its talented
staff, board members, and founder to build on the great successes of the past 22
years, preserving what has worked well while building the organization for the
future. S/he will work to realize identified opportunities for continued growth
and set the artistic agenda, while managing the overall strategic, programmatic,
financial, and management operations for the organization. This is an
opportunity for a seasoned executive who is adept at both the visionary aspects
of leadership and the devilish details of day-to-day operations to take over a
flourishing folklife center praised nationally for its groundbreaking and
excellent work.
THE VERMONT FOLKLIFE CENTER:
In 1982, the Governor Snelling Conference on the
Future of Vermont’s Heritage passed a resolution to create an organization to
preserve Vermont’s rich culture and traditions. The Vermont Arts Council
recognized the need to establish an independent institution to conserve the
State’s cultural heritage, ongoing traditions, and practices passed on from one
generation to the next. Thus, the Vermont Folklife Center was born.
In 1999, the Vermont Folklife Center partnered
with the Vermont Community to purchase and renovate the historic Middlebury
Masonic Hall and create headquarters for both organizations. Since that time
the space needs of the Folklife Center have increased along with its desire for
a downtown location. As a result, in January 2007 the Vermont Folklife Center
moves to its new, permanent location at the John Warren House, in the middle of
historic downtown Middlebury. The facility includes state-of-the-art archival
storage, a research center, an exhibition gallery with a retail shop opening
onto Main Street, and offices for professional staff.
The Vermont Folklife Center Archive houses the
fieldwork of founding director Dr. Jane Beck as well as other folklorists and
oral historians. The repository provides a rich and unique resource of the
personal history and traditional culture of Vermont. Over the past two decades,
the Vermont Folklife Center has amassed over 4,000 interviews on audio and
videotape, transcripts, and an extensive collection of historic and contemporary
images.
The Vermont Folklife Center’s oral histories
include a wide range of topics, include farming, logging, stone quarrying, and
recreational heritage; documentation of folk practices, speech dialects, and
folk arts in Vermont and northern New England; and personal accounts chronicling
regional and national events and topics such as the Civil War and Depression
eras, Native American and ethnic experiences, rural commerce, and the maritime
history of Lake Champlain.
The Vermont Folklife Center’s projects include
publications, exhibitions of traditional and contemporary folk arts, educational
handbooks, children’s books, audiocassettes and CDs of oral interviews,
videotapes, and traditional arts apprenticeships and fieldwork grants. The
Vermont Folklife Center has won national recognition for its projects, including
the George Peabody Award and prestigious major grants from the National
Endowment from the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Lila
Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund.
The Vermont Folklife Center has an annual
operating budget of just under $500,000, a reserve of $1 M, and a staff of
seven. Its Board of Directors is comprised of funders, professionals, and
community and civic leaders. It is situated in downtown Middlebury, Vermont, a
distinctive New England town, center of Addison County farm country and home to
Middlebury College.
More information about the Vermont Folklife
Center can be found at
http://www.VermontFolklifeCenter.org.
THE POSITION AND ITS PRINCIPAL CHALLENGES:
The Executive
Director serves as the Vermont Folklife Center’s chief executive officer and is
responsible to the Board of Directors. S/he has overall responsibility for the
strategic, programmatic, financial, and management operations of the
organization. The Executive Director will lead a talented and highly
collaborative team of staff, researchers, and artists, and will be expected to
build upon the successes of the past 22 years by both visualizing and
capitalizing upon the opportunities for continued growth that lie ahead.
The position has become available as the current
Executive Director and founder, Jane Beck, retires and continues in her
folkloric pursuits. She is prepared to be an ambassador for and continue her
advocacy on behalf of the Vermont Folklife Center. Her availability gives the
next Executive Director the opportunity to benefit from the bridges Jane has
built for the Vermont Folklife Center and to sustain the funding she has helped
to secure.
Employed by and reporting to the Board of
Directors, the next Executive Director will have the following responsibilities
and priorities:
-
Strategic Planning and Leadership:
Develop and implement a strategic plan that will allow for the focus and
expansion of programmatic opportunities. Work closely with the Board of
Directors and the staff to develop a strategic plan which will solidify the
Vermont Folklife Center’s place in the community and will serve as a roadmap
for its future. Utilize staff knowledge and institutional memory to assess
current and future program potential. Streamline programs, create and
implement new programs, and always ensure excellence in program delivery.
Determine expansion, growth, and collaboration opportunities and implement
necessary steps to reach these goals.
-
Organizational Management:
Oversee the creation of concrete and realistic timelines, budgets, and work
plans in all organizational areas. Assume final responsibility for
effective project management, ensuring top-quality performance of
established programs, outreach initiatives, and internal efforts that range
from performance reviews to fiscal responsibility. Enhance decision-making
and communications pathways and maintain a supportive, nurturing, and open
organizational culture while encouraging increased accountability,
timeliness, and efficiency. Assess and develop the Board of Directors.
-
Resource Development:
Work collaboratively with the founder and development staff to raise funds
by building relationships with and securing additional commitments from
existing donors while cultivating new donors. Oversee an enhanced
foundation relations program including grant writing that supports new and
existing programs. Work with the Board, staff, and folklorists to support
ongoing fundraising activities and the development of new initiatives.
-
Program Oversight:
Provide direct supervision for program and educational staff and work to
ensure program goals are aligned with the Vermont Folklife Center’s
strategic and revenue goals. Oversee the design, implementation and
evaluation of all the Vermont Folklife Center’s programs, trainings, and
collaborative partnerships, taking final responsibility for ensuring that
deadlines and budgets are met while encouraging program activity that
furthers the Vermont Folklife Center’s mission. Foster new opportunities
for earned income.
-
Outreach, Collaborations, and Marketing:
Represent the Vermont Folklife Center to the broader community, fostering
and maintaining vibrant and productive relationships with partners,
volunteers, donors, community organizations, government partners,
foundations, and program participants. Develop a comprehensive marketing
and public relations plan using all forms of media. Develop relationships
with and appear before influential civic and government groups, churches,
businesses and other non-profits to tell the Vermont Folklife Center story
and develop support and sponsorship for the organization. Support internal
communications that will equip all Vermont Folklife Center staff, board, and
volunteers to be good ambassadors to the community.
QUALITIES DESIRED IN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
The interviews done by the Vermont
Folklife Center to preserve cultural heritage are only successful with a mutual
trust and respect between interviewer and interviewee, and a genuine enthusiasm
for what is shared. As a small nonprofit, the Vermont Folklife Center demands
that such trust and enthusiasm permeate every level of its staff and board as
well. High value is placed on support, partnering, and mutual respect, as well
as the distinct strengths, dreams, creativity, and impact each staff member
brings to bear.
The successful candidate will be a
seasoned and enterprising manager with a stellar track record managing an
operation of similar size and complexity and directing successful change in a
thoughtful manner. S/he will be an innovative and strategic thinker who can
nurture current partnerships while identifying and forging new collaborations.
S/he will be expected to honor the legacy of the founder and capitalize on
unrealized opportunities, translating an ambitious vision into realistic
strategies and programs, supportive management, and well and diversely-funded
operations. S/he must possess a deep
respect for folklife and culture as well as the savvy, courage, humor, and
sophisticated interpersonal skills to navigate the
challenging opportunities inherent in this critical and nontraditional
leadership transition.
While no one person will embody all of the
qualities enumerated below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the
following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:
-
A seasoned,
collaborative and energetic leader who has the courage to make hard
decisions. The ability to elicit the respect and
trust of staff, which will be essential for leading the organization through
a period of unprecedented change.
-
Demonstrated
success managing a cultural operation of similar size and complexity and
directing successful change in a heavily founder-imprinted organization. At
least ten years of experience is preferred.
-
An unwavering
dedication to the importance of the preservation of cultural heritage, if
not a professional background or training in folklife studies. Familiarity
with the current trends in funding around arts, humanities, and education
programming. A Master’s degree in Non-profit/Management,
Folklore/Folklife, Museum Studies, or Public History is
preferred.
-
A strategic thinker who can foster the
collaborative transition of leadership from an organization synonymous with
its founder to that synonymous with itself as an institution. The ability
to translate strategies into well-funded operations.
-
Outstanding oral,
written, listening, and interpersonal communications skills. A proven track
record and passion for nonprofit fundraising that manifests a commitment to
maintaining current donors and a zest for cultivating new contributors.
Demonstrated success developing partners from government, foundations, and
the private sector is essential as is the ability to develop new revenue
streams. Success planning for and implementing fee-for-service models
within nonprofit atmospheres is desirable.
-
Experience working with a volunteer Board of
Directors and leveraging the talents and time of staff and board. The
maturity, courage, and interpersonal skills to assert leadership, especially
within the context of a founder transitioning to a board position. The
ability and finesse to educate and develop a Board of Directors
transitioning from a founders’ board to a governing board.
-
An entrepreneurial nature married to a
service-providing orientation and an ability to act creatively and nimbly in
response to the unexpected. The integrity, wisdom and humor necessary to
address the practicalities of nonprofit life, the respect and humility to
honor the impressive work done to date, and the courage and creativity to
grow the organization to reach new levels of promise.
TO APPLY:
Applications are due by October 31,, 2006, but will be reviewed as received.
Please send a cover letter describing your interest and qualifications, your
resume (in Word format), and salary history. Applications should be sent to
Search Committee at
vfc@cgcareers.org. Please write “VFC Executive Director
Applicant” in the subject line.
VFC is an equal opportunity employer. We
seek diversity within our staff that reflects the diversity of the communities
we serve.
|
