Cool Culture - Cultural Access Program Director

[Marhian Escuro]

ABOUT COOL CULTURE

Cool Culture helps underserved families access and enjoy New York City’s cultural life in order to provide educational experiences for children, and to strengthen families and communities.

Our Citywide Cultural Access Program provides 50,000 low-income families from 400 partnering NYC early education programs to 90 cultural institution partners including museums, botanic gardens, historic homes, and zoos. Through professional development programming, we train staff representatives from each early education site to implement Cool Culture resources in their community, engaging families with cultural institutions as a way to benefit young children’s early learning and development. Last year, more than 185,000 Cool Culture parents and children walked through the doors of our partner museums.

We help early education programs to meet their goal of supporting families; cultural institutions to engage with diverse communities and build new audiences; and – most importantly – we address the opportunity gap by enabling families to harness culture to prepare their children for success in school and in life.

 

ABOUT THE ROLE: CULTURAL ACCESS PROGRAM DIRECTOR

We are a fast growing organization with a highly collaborative culture, seeking a Program Director to oversee our signature Citywide Cultural Access Program.

As Program Director you will ensure all of the components of this program are engaged and thriving. From large-scale family events to professional development conferences to cultural institution partnerships, you will ensure our families, early childhood leaders, and partner relationships feel supported and in line with our mission.

You will be supported by a small, committed team responsible for the Citywide Cultural Access Program, including volunteer engagement, professional development, family festivals, and program communications.

 

HERE’S WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS OPPORTUNITY AT COOL CULTURE...

Members of our team can work at a variety of organizations. They choose to work here because:

LEGACY – Your work at Cool Culture will directly impact the success of our mission as you oversee our signature program. Be a part of an organization committed to social justice, and help us inspire creativity and possibility by making the world’s most renowned arts & culture accessible to underserved communities in NY.

MASTERY – Joining our dynamic and collaborative team will challenge and empower you to grow as a leader and professional. You will have the support and resources necessary to capitalize on your skills and ability to help us build our capacity and vision for the future.

FREEDOM –  Work with a highly committed, reflective team, focused on developing and refining community-engaged strategies to get to target results. Over the next few years, you will help bring our signature program to its next stage of development and increased impact.

 

WHAT WILL MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE…

• You have 5-10 years of experience in nonprofit programming, ideally in community organizing, education, museum, or arts related fields.
• You are energized by our vision and commitment to making cultural institutions accessible and available to all New York Families.
• You have significant leadership experience and enjoy the opportunity to manage and develop people on your team.
• You have a proven, quantifiable track record of creating and implementing programs with specific, targeted outcomes.
• You have the ability to lead and take initiative, and also effectively collaborate and build relationships.
• You are an action-oriented project manager, able to use your superior organizational skills to manage multi-faceted work-streams, juggle competing priorities, and appropriately drive teams towards deadlines.
• You are a relationship-builder and exceptional communicator with a proven ability to network with and influence individuals at all levels of an organization, including external constituents.
• You are culturally responsive and an excellent listener in your work with people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences, focusing on the strengths that each stakeholder brings.
• You view your work as an opportunity to learn, grow, explore, and have fun! Curiosity, flexibility, and a sense of humor are a must.

Bilingual Spanish/English skills a plus.

 

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE…

Program Leadership

• Leading the Citywide Cultural Access team in using outcomes-based planning to set short and long-term priorities and track progress towards achieving specific goals.
• Developing systems and communication tools to facilitate collaboration among the Citywide Cultural Access team and across departments to foster strategic alignment of programming.

 

Large-Scale Events for Families and Educators

• Planning, implementing, and evaluating small scale professional development workshops and the Cool Culture Fair – a professional development conference that prepares 500+ early childhood professionals to implement Cool Culture for families at their respective early childhood centers.
• Planning and hosting annual meetings/conferences for the directors of partnering early childhood programs to ensure clear communication and their compliance with partnership participation guidelines.
• Planning, implementing, and evaluating family festivals that are co-hosted and/or co-created with our cultural partners, each with attendance upwards of 3,000 adults and children.
• Overseeing promotional and outreach efforts to build attendance at these events.
• Overseeing the recruitment, training, and retention of a culturally and linguistically diverse group of volunteers that play a key role in making each event accessible to families.

 

Partnership Cultivation

• Maintaining and nurturing relationships with cultural institution partners, including annual partnership updates, addressing concerns and trouble-shooting problems.
• Overseeing program evaluation, with the assistance of our staff, by engaging partners to report results and planning for the sustainability of project evaluation.
• Keeping abreast of priorities and standards of NYC’s public early learning system to maintain strategic alignment between Cool Culture and our early learning partners.

 

Program Team Leadership

• Overseeing program staff in creating strategic and effective program communications about cultural institution offering for families and early childhood partners. This includes a bi-monthly newsletter, annual program guides, and social media content.
• Supervising 2-3 Americorps fellows, and 2 Program Assistants who assist in all aspects of programming outreach and implementation.
• Proposing and administering program budgets, identifying cost-savings and in-kind donations wherever possible.

 

HOW WILL WE KNOW YOU’RE THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB?

If you are chosen as a potential candidate, you will first be interviewed by ReWork and then by the Cool Culture team. The final step in the hiring process will be to arrange personal reference calls to confirm details of your work history and performance.

We'll be reviewing applications on a rolling basis with priority given to early applicants. The application deadline is Monday, February 29th.

 

If you have any questions about the role, please feel free to email us at tal...@rework.jobs. We look forward to reading your application!