Director of Strategic Initiatives
Ingenuity Incorporated
Location: Chicago
The Chicago nonprofit Ingenuity Incorporated Chicago seeks to hire a qualified and motivated professional for its Director of Strategic Initiatives position. Candidates should be passionate and committed to promoting and supporting arts, cultural, and educational programs for public school children.
Research has revealed what we instinctively know—that when reading, writing, and math meet the catalyst of the arts, schools develop children who are critical thinkers and problem solvers, able to thrive and understand others.
Established in May 2011, the vision of Ingenuity Incorporated is that all Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students, from the day they start school until the day they graduate, will receive quality arts education at every grade level. If accomplished, we will spawn a generation of innovative thinkers capable of expressing themselves and contributing to the culture of their time.
Ingenuity Incorporated was formed by more than 400 Chicago leaders—school principals and artists, teachers and funders, museums and community arts organizations, universities and parents—all of whom came together over 18 months as part of the groundbreaking Chicago Arts Learning Initiative to strike a vision for utilizing the arts to improve public education for each child, in every school, throughout the city.
To carry out its vision, Ingenuity Incorporated does three things: 1) It is a continuing source of information, tracking and research on the extent to which Chicago students receive arts education and will supply stakeholders with knowledge to increase efficiency in arts education delivery; 2) It is a tireless advocate for the arts in education; and 3) Finally, it provides invaluable resources to schools, teachers, and principals who want to improve and expand the delivery of arts and to the hundreds of community arts and cultural programs whose work enriches our public schools.
On the surface, the number of people and organizations teaching the arts in CPS is impressive. More than 200 arts organizations and more than 4,000 teaching artists join the 620 certified arts educators in providing arts programming across the sector.
To support this community, Ingenuity Incorporated is building a core staff of 5-6 administrators. Along with an active board of directors, outside consultants, new multi-year communications and strategic plans, and an annual budget of approximately $1MM, Ingenuity Incorporated implements its services in partnership with leaders and educators from the CPS district, its 678 schools and the 200 community arts organizations who provide programs throughout the system.
Roles and Responsibilities
The Director of Strategic Initiatives will be charged with establishing two sector-wide strategies and launching their related initiatives. First is to develop a plan for improving the ability of community arts organizations to more effectively partner with Chicago Public Schools. Second, the Director will be charged with building the capacity of individual CPS schools to provide robust arts programs. The combined end goal is to increase arts learning opportunities for CPS students. The success of this sector-wide capacity building initiative lies in identifying, aligning, and coordinating all relevant partner organizations—including CPS—whose resources, intellectual capital, and programs can contribute to the end goal.
By focusing on the advancement of quality training for arts partners, district, and school leadership; the creation and dissemination of exemplary arts-based policy models; and developing tangible school-level arts action plans in tandem with school leaders and arts stakeholders, the Director will help elevate the role of arts education in Chicago Public Schools.
The Director of Strategic Initiatives will be responsible for maintaining a hand-in-hand partnership with one or more departments in the Chicago Public Schools district offices, as well as creating a timely communication network with CPS Chiefs of Schools, principals, teachers, and a collection of 200+ community arts organizations. The position is an opportunity to build a program agenda that will influence decision making in Chicago’s arts and education fields over the coming years.
The main function of the Director position is to engender sector-wide (arts and public education) collaboration and knowledge sharing, so the know-how, information, and the experience of Ingenuity Incorporated, its partners, and arts-rich CPS schools is shared with the goal of reducing arts deserts and bolstering existing arts programs across CPS. The Director will be expected to communicate effectively with all levels of stakeholders.
We seek a results driven, proactive individual who maintains high standards of personal integrity. The successful candidate will be able to establish productive partnerships and collaborate with many community partners; have the ability to influence and resolve differences across organizational boundaries; and gain support and commitment from others without formal authority.
Key responsibilities include:
Partnerships & Community Arts Capacity
- Develop and maintain a productive, mutually supportive operating partnership with the Chicago Public Schools Offices of Humanities, Arts Education, and other pertinent CPS District Offices.
- Develop and maintain a supportive relationship with the community of 200 community-based arts organizations that provide services to Chicago Public Schools.
- Develop strategies to support, connect, and align external professional development for arts specialists, arts partners and their Directors of Arts Education, and teaching artists.
- Develop replicable systems to provide arts partners with the critical tools necessary to more efficiently foster school partnerships including sample partnership MOU’s, sample unit plans, teacher and evaluation forms, curriculum and assessment models, and other tools.
- Assist with the selection and manage a group of 10-12 city leaders in arts and education who will serve as the Strategic Initiatives Advisory Committee to inform and advise Ingenuity’s strategy related to supporting arts partners and building CPS school leadership and capacity.
School Capacity
- Develop concrete strategies to build school capacity around arts education in order to reduce arts deserts and bolster existing programs.
- Document and disseminate qualitative benefits of effective arts learning to school leaders and community members.
- Work directly with CPS Principals and leaders to identify arts opportunities in their schools and help establish plans that will result in a school-wide commitment to arts learning.
- Establish methodologies that will help schools more effectively create arts-rich learning environments through strategic actions such as embedding the arts in SI-PAAA plans, bringing the arts into daily classroom instruction, providing arts-based professional development, and establishing relationships with arts partners.
- Identify existing local and national models for arts partnerships and/or school-based arts policy, and create templates for use across the CPS system.
- Help school leaders identify methodologies for creative use of time and resources such as internal/external school leadership teams, finding sources of income, use of after-school time and others.
- Work with CPS to create and launch a peer-to-peer Principal and school leader presentation and training series.
- Stay on top of current research and technology trends and anticipate useful tools or programs to support stakeholders
- Promote knowledge sharing throughout the sector and seek opportunities to partner with other organizations to integrate and connect information systems and facilitate seamless exchange of information through online sources
- Work with Ingenuity Executive Director, board, and community stakeholders to make informed decisions about how to leverage existing community assets and improve the distribution of arts education resources across the Chicago Public Schools
Skill Requirements
- Demonstrated success as a results-driven project manager
- Strong familiarity with large-scale public school systems, preferably Chicago’s and deft community organizing skills
- Ability to analyze issues and problems systematically, gather broad and balanced input, draw sound conclusions and translate conclusions into timely decisions and actions
- Excellent interpersonal skills, particularly school-related
- Ability to analyze large-scale problems, and devise effective solutions
- Experience working effectively with diverse populations and leading projects that involve numerous tasks and multiple teams while maintaining a positive attitude
- Proficiency in all Microsoft Office programs, with some Mac experience also a plus
- Ability to work autonomously
Background
- 5-7 years of experience in public education systems, preferably connected to the arts
- Masters degree in arts, education, public policy, education policy, or business administration preferable
- Experience in establishing and maintaining effective partnerships a must
- Exceptional, effective and persuasive written and oral communications skills
Contact by Dec 1: employment@ingenuity-inc.org