Overview
Job Title: Chief Field Building Officer
Employment Status: Full-time exempt employee (40 hours per week), grant-funded position through December 31, 2024.
Location: This is a remote position. We are a California-based organization, and this individual will be expected to work on a Pacific time zone schedule.
Reports to: VP/Chief Strategy Officer
About The Center for Cultural Power:
The Center for Cultural Power (Cultural Power) is a women of color, artist-led organization, inspiring artists and culture makers to imagine a world where power is distributed equitably and where we live in harmony with nature. We support artists through fellowships, training, and opportunities for activation. We create intersectional stories and content addressing issues of immigration, climate, gender and racial justice. We engage movement groups in cultural strategy and organize artists around issues that inspire them. Together with allies, we are co-creating a field of cultural strategy with organizations and practitioners through convenings, design teams, and strategy tables. Our website has more about the organization and our team.
Our staff and board align around the following organizational values:
- Trust
- Collaboration
- Care
- Learning
- Inspiration
About The Constellations Culture Change Initiative & Fund
Housed at Cultural Power, The Constellations Initiative is a field-wide initiative to accelerate narrative and cultural change by creating a place-based network that distributes power and fosters collaboration. The goal is to build worldviews based on equity, collaboration and care. Constellations is about BIPOC communities building their own power from the ground up by working with artists and culture-makers to shift narratives and worldviews. The Constellations Culture Change Fund is the grantmaking arm of the Initiative and housed at the Amalgamated Foundation. This position will work across both entities. Learn more about the Constellations initiative here.
About The Cultural Engagement Lab (CEL)
We also have a sister organization, called The Cultural Engagement Lab (CEL), which is a 501(c)(4) organization that organizes a powerful network of seasoned artists and culture makers from impacted communities to lend their storytelling talents to meaningful advocacy, electoral, and civic engagement efforts. You can visit CEL’s website to learn more about this body of work and what we accomplished during the 2020 election year.
Who You Are
- A systems thinker who can design and drive strategic, innovative programs and initiatives.
- A responsive collaborator who loves to manage a team to test hypotheses and learn.
A cultural strategist with expertise in narrative strategy who can create proof of concepts in an emerging landscape. - A seasoned, culturally fluent leader, with strong people management skills, who loves building cross functional teams and knows how to align purposefully while leading through change.
Position Overview:
The Chief Field Building Officer leads, designs and develops programs and initiatives for the Field Building Strategy at Cultural Power, which builds narrative strategy and power at the intersection of arts, culture and social justice. The Chief Field Building Officer directs the Constellations Culture Change Fund and Initiative and serves on Cultural Power’s Leadership Team. The Chief Field Building Officer manages the new and growing Field Building team of three staff and additional consultants, including a Sr. Program Manager (to be hired), Program Operations Manager, Fellowship Manager (to be hired), and a contract Grants Strategist (to be hired). In addition, the Chief Field Building Officer supervises the Director of Artist Leadership to ensure alignment in our pedagogical framework, training programs and localization strategy. The Chief Field Building Officer will ensure that their diverse portfolio — which ranges from grant making strategies to design labs to fellowships and narrative research — advances our Theory of Change and strategic opportunities. The Chief Field Building Officer will play a strategic role in driving learning and impact for the field building portfolio. This position will be responsible for interfacing with funders, driving evolving strategy and ensuring fidelity to implementation and learning as we scale.
Responsibilities:
Program Design & Development
- Build a new program team that will launch the Constellations Change Initiative & Fund in alignment with the strategic framework and implementation plan.
- Test and learn about narrative strategies through implementing core narratives — including field-specific distribution strategies to support cultural strategy interventions.
- Ensure that projects and programs are right sized and implementable in the development phase so that deliverables and timelines can be reached.
- Oversee development of program plans that stem from the Constellations Strategic Framework and implementation plan.
- Work in partnership with Development and Communications leadership to create a
unified vision and methods to communicate impact and purpose.
Programmatic Oversight and Implementation
- Oversee the implementation of programs to support BIPOC artists including launching the Constellations fellowship and designing and implementing 4+ cycles of awards and commissions to artists in partnership with members of the Learning Labs.
- Design and oversee implementation of two general operating support grant cycles to grassroots BIPOC-led cultural strategy organizations under the direction of the Constellations Advisory Board.
- Oversee network-weaving across the core Constellations bodies to encourage individual artists and cultural strategy organizations to collaborate, share best practices, learn, and grow the emerging field. This includes overseeing learning labs for culture bearers and cultural strategists, overseeing funder learning circles, and overseeing narrative research and programmatic impact evaluations for the initiative.
- Ensure that the portfolio of field building deliverables are tracked, met and reported on.
- Oversee reporting, evaluation and assessment for programs, including the synthesis of impact data and artist engagement metrics; leverage data to adjust strategy and tell stories that frame impact.
- Ensure that artists, organizations and field partners are tracked with accuracy and timeliness in Salesforce, our database.
- Ensure that the Field Building team submits expense reports, program reports, and other reports in a timely and thorough manner.
Staff Supervision and Budgeting
- Supervise Field Building team ensuring clear job descriptions and scopes of work. Provide performance feedback and coaching. Ensure that working norms and protocols are followed to foster a team environment of collaboration, care, learning, trust, and inspiration.
- Develop benchmarks for success and oversee the implementation of goals and projects with an eye towards quality and innovation, ensuring alignment with organizational goals, Constellations Strategic Framework, and Strategic Plan.
- Oversee department budget, track expenses, respond to changes and make sure spending is controlled, while meeting department benchmarks and deliverables.
- Manage and implement the annual staff evaluation process for the Field Building team in alignment with HR’s best practices.
Leadership, Fundraising and Strategy
- Serve as an organization expert on narrative strategy in partnership with Chief Campaigns Officer and VP to advance organizational and field goals.
- Serve as a thought leader and ambassador for the organization.
- Partner with development on fundraising strategies; develop and maintain relationships with funders.
- Ensure that the President, VP and leadership team are informed of critical issues.
Contribute to building a vibrant organizational culture. - Support fundraising efforts through funder meetings, writing strategy documents, defining strategic objectives and providing narratives and reporting needs for grant proposals and reports.
Timeline:
Ideally, we’d like to start the person in April, 15th 2022.
Qualifications:
The candidate must have:
- 10+ years in program development, management and implementation with organizations that serve BIPOC Communities.
- 5+ years managing teams, with a track record of creating collaborative, high performing, cross-functional teams
- 2+ years designing and implementing narrative and cultural strategy programs, with demonstrable experience implementing and aligning work around narrative vision and narrative strategy.
- Experience leading trainings strongly preferred
- Experience networking leaders and/or leading artist cohorts strongly preferred
- Experience working with narrative consultants, researchers in order to design and implement evaluation and impact strategies
- Strong project management skills and ability to maintain high-level focus, delegating tasks while keeping momentum on projects.
- Exceptional written, verbal, interpersonal, and presentation skills
- Cultural fluency and direct experience working with BIPOC communities.
Compensation & Benefits
This position is full-time with a salary range starting at $130,000 or more, determined by experience and qualifications. We offer a generous benefits package including full medical, dental, vision (100% company paid for employee & 80% contribution towards dependent premiums), life, long-term disability, flex spending accounts, $50 monthly stipend to support cell phone/wifi expenses, and a 401k plan with 3% employer contribution (regardless of employee contribution); generous vacation, office closures, sick leave, bereavement leave, Covid leave, and paid holidays. We also offer ample flexibility as a remote workplace.
Application Process
To apply, please send the following to jobs@culturalpower.org with Chief Field Building Officer in the subject line:
- A cover letter outlining why you are interested in working for Cultural Power, your relevant professional experience, and your salary requirements.
- Your resume.
- Work sample: a strategy document or an example of a program that you created and implemented.
- A list of three professional references. Two or more of these references must be previous or current supervisors.
All applications will be acknowledged, but only complete applications will be reviewed. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
The Center for Cultural Power supports artists and culture makers whose voices are most needed to transform the status quo towards a more just and inclusive future. This includes artists and cultural workers of color, Black artists, Indigenous artists, migrant artists, artists with disabilities, queer artists, transgender and nonbinary artists, and women of color identified artists. As such, we strongly encourage individuals from these communities to apply. We are committed to the collective work and intentional investment necessary to consistently move in the direction of equity and inclusion. The Center for Cultural Power is an at-will employer.
We look forward to hearing from you!