The Organization – The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
About The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, dedicated to fostering a vibrant and inclusive cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative projects that showcase the region’s cultural diversity and enhance public life, and we engage in an ongoing exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders. The Center is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.
For more information on The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, please visit https://www.pewcenterarts.org/.
Position Overview
Director of Performance
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
Philadelphia, PA
The Opportunity
The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage seeks a passionate arts advocate and strategic administrator to lead the Center’s project grantmaking and programming for the performing arts across the Greater Philadelphia region. The Director of Performance will support a thriving creative community and have substantial impact on the region’s cultural ecosystem.
Program Directors are a part of the Center’s senior leadership team, which works closely with the Executive Director to develop the vision and strategic agenda of the Center and to collaborate on Center-wide and/or cross-programmatic activities and projects. The Director of Performance is expected to work with the Executive Director to be fully invested in all aspects of program development, envisioning, and evolution across the performance sector, as well as to actively develop the capacity and effectiveness of programmatic staff.
Senior leadership at the Center necessitates a set of behaviors that evidence a broad and complete understanding of the Center’s values and agenda, good organizational intelligence, and sophisticated judgment. Program Directors lead, manage, plan, implement, and monitor all aspects of their assigned Program(s), in alignment with the Center’s mission of fostering a vibrant and inclusive cultural community in the five-county, Greater Philadelphia region, by investing grant funds in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural diversity and enhances public life. Through this work, Program Directors must also exemplify a sound understanding of the Center’s unique relationship with its funder, The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew), by demonstrating responsible stewardship of grant funds and in acting to conserve the Center’s strategic position within Pew’s broader mission and interests.
Program Directors work to assess the artistic and infrastructure needs of Greater Philadelphia’s diverse arts and cultural community leading to the conceptual development of strategies that respond to those needs within the scope of Pew’s work. Such response will include conceptual design and application of strategies that cultivate artistic excellence through:
• Administration of grant-making processes
• Liaise with, and outreach response to, the regional cultural community
• Oversight of grantee capacity building and professional development initiatives
• Cultivation of the Center’s constituency by providing access to information on the Program(s) and/or related to capacity building and project development
• Preparation of presentations and materials for outreach, reporting, and evaluation
As the “face” of the Performance Program to the community, the Director of Performance establishes and maintains the strong public relations image of the Center, its funder, and its programs while working to ensure access by organizations and artists meeting the Center’s eligibility guidelines. The Director will maintain strong relationships with local, national, and international arts and cultural resources and seek opportunities to connect local constituents with opportunities and resources outside of Philadelphia when possible.
Candidate Profile
While it is understood that no one candidate will bring every desired skill, characteristic, and experience, the following offers a reflection of the ideal candidate profile.
Commitment to Mission and Values
The next Director of Performance must demonstrate a passion and deep commitment to serving the Center’s mission to foster a vibrant and diverse cultural ecology in Greater Philadelphia. They will value artistic freedom and work to encourage and support the creative and professional growth of cultural practitioners. They will be committed to creating a culture of respect, open and honest communication, and trust, both internally and with external partners, grantees, and other constituent groups. Above all, the next Director of Performance will be an individual of unquestionable integrity and ethics, who will serve as an ambassador for the Center and, by extension, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Artistic Understanding
The successful candidate will demonstrate artistic literacy and understanding of contemporary artistic practice across and among disciplines, with a focus on performance writ large. The Center prides itself on its staff’s deep understanding of the arts and the work of artists and arts organizations; the Director of Performance will possess both subject knowledge as well as intellectual curiosity and an appreciation for continual learning. The ideal candidate will have an expansive and inclusive network in the cultural community nationally, and internationally and will maintain current knowledge of trends and emerging issues in creative practice.
Administrative and Organizational Expertise
A systems thinker, the individual in this role will be adept at leading and collaborating projects and processes with attentiveness to detail and timeliness as well as a big-picture view of strategic goals and metrics for success. The Director will manage the Program Officer for Performance and Program Administration and the Program Assistant assigned to Performance; as a senior leader at the Center, they will also serve as a model of integrity and professionalism, and as a resource for colleagues across the Center.
Flexible Mindset
The successful candidate will be a creative and agile strategist, with the ability to develop and adapt to new ways of approaching the work while staying true to the mission at the core of the Center. With a strategic review of grantmaking scheduled for 2024, the Director of Performance will bring an innovative eye to grants and programming that support the evolving needs and priorities of cultural organizations and artists.
In addition, strong candidates will offer:
• A high degree of emotional intelligence and the ability to develop and steward authentic relationships with broadly diverse grantee organizations
• A sense of humor and humility, with a desire to be of service to the artistic community of Greater Philadelphia
• A collegial mindset and enthusiasm for working closely, collaboratively, and supportively across the Center team and with partners
• Abiding commitment to discretion, as the Center staff are privy to sensitive and highly confidential information; the Director must develop and nurture the trust placed in the Center by the community as well as by Pew
Equity Statement
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is committed to supporting our grantees’ extraordinary contributions to the many communities of Greater Philadelphia. We believe that a healthy cultural ecosystem requires a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI; defined below). We recognize that, as a staff, we play a role in advancing those commitments in all facets of our work.
The Center prioritizes EDI values as intrinsic to our mission to support excellence in creative production. To this end, we intend to:
• Identify and mitigate barriers resulting from identity-based disparities and systems of discrimination as they affect the Center’s work;
• Cultivate and value a diversity of perspectives among leadership, staff, consultants, grantees, and the communities we serve; and
• Foster a work environment in which every team member feels respected, supported in their growth, and able to contribute fully to the organization’s work.
Embodying these values requires an ongoing, deliberate process of learning, dialogue, and adaptation in service of our mission.
How the Center Defines EDI
Equity is working toward fair opportunities and outcomes for all people or groups by addressing barriers resulting from unique disadvantages and challenges. Equity is different from equality, which assumes everyone starts on equal footing or with the same opportunities, ignoring basic differences among individuals and groups.
Diversity refers to the variations of different characteristics in a group of people—the people all around us. These characteristics could be everything that makes us unique, such as our cognitive skills and personality traits, along with the characteristics that shape our identity (e.g., age, cultural background, faith practice/religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, geography, occupation, race, sexual orientation, political views, and many more).
Inclusion can be defined as achieving an environment in which every participant feels respected, is granted equitable access to growth, and is able to contribute to the organization, community, or any other group of people. Inclusion provides an atmosphere where all team members belong, feel connected to the group, and can thrive.
Compensation & Benefits
Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $125,000 to $155,000 with a generous benefits package offered through the University of the Arts that includes healthcare, dental, vision, and prescription plans; flexible spending and health savings accounts; a 403(b)-retirement plan with a 2 to 1 match, paid time off and a hybrid remote work model, commuter benefits, life and disability insurance plans, telemedicine options and an Employee Assistance Program.
The University of the Arts is an equal opportunity employer.
How To Apply
Contact
Koya Partners, the executive search firm that specializes in mission-driven search, has been exclusively retained for this engagement. Tenley Bank and Naree Viner of Koya Partners will lead the search. To express interest in this role please submit your materials here: https://apptrkr.com/4746604 or email Tenley Bank directly at tbank@koyapartners.com. All inquiries and discussions will be considered strictly confidential.
Koya Partners is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email NonprofitSearchOps@divsearch.com. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.
About Koya Partners
Koya Partners, a part of Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophy—The Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the World—guides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.
For more information about koya partners, visit https://diversifiedsearchgroup.com/our-brands/koya-partners/.