Over half a billion people use Wikipedia and its sister projects every month. As a top five web property and the only donor-supported site in the top 100, the Wikimedia Foundation enables a global community of volunteers to collect, develop and make freely available the sum of humanity’s knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking an Executive Director to guide the organization through its next phase of innovation and growth.

No deadline.

Community Arts Development Coordinator, Nevada Arts Council

The position manages the Community Arts Development Program of the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency. The position develops and coordinates short- and long-term programs, initiatives and partnerships that serve local arts agencies, civic leaders, communities and community-based arts organizations to strengthen and enhance community vitality and access to the arts. This position is located in the Carson City office and requires travel throughout the state to serve rural communities, as well as the Reno and Las Vegas metropolitan areas.

No deadline. Salary range is $40,862.16 to $60,405.84.

Senior Vice President, Arts & Theatres, Ticketmaster

The SVP, Arts & Theatres primary role is to lead a team of senior account executives (Client Development Directors or “CDDs”), who manage our client relationships, focusing on overall client satisfaction, client profitability, revenue growth and client retention.  Additionally, the SVP and team have primary responsibility for sourcing and securing new ticketing accounts.  It is critical for the SVP to thoroughly understand the fundamentals of the CDD job—development of account plans, management of the renewal cycle (including RFP management and the development of winning financial proposals), effective and consistent client communication, operational problem solving, etc.—as well as Ticketmaster’s overarching strategy and priorities.   The SVP must be deeply connected to our clients, principally at the executive level.  This allows the SVP to set and adjust priorities as the environment changes, particularly with respect to client needs and the competitive environment.   The SVP must successfully balance strategic and operational roles, and display the judgment, work ethic, creativity and commitment to results necessary to make the SVP an outstanding role model for not only the CDDs, but for others throughout the company as well.

No deadline. Yeah, it’s Ticketmaster…but hey, I’m sure it pays a shitload of money!

Director of Programs, EmcArts

EmcArts is looking for an experienced practitioner who can lead the design and continuous improvement of our programs, assist in delivering portions of the programs, oversee the implementation of each program, and build relationships with current and prospective program supporters. The successful candidate will have a strong interest in organizational innovation and adaptive change in arts and culture organizations and be an outstanding and proactive leader and implementer with strong program design, process facilitation, organizational, and interpersonal skills. Candidates should have experience working with arts and culture organizations, experience facilitating, coaching and/or teaching adult groups, developing partnerships, designing experiential learning processes and events, and thrive working as a part of a small, close-knit creative team.

Deadline: July 21. They are open to an 80%/4-day-a-week arrangement for the right person.

• EMCArts’s Director: Activating Innovation position, which we first posted about in March, is open again. Details here.

Cool Projects

• You simply MUST watch the entirety of this video produced by the fine citizens of Grand Rapids. Organized after an article published on Newsweek’s website named Grand Rapids one of “America’s Top 10 Dying Cities,” the world-record-setting “LipDub” – lip sync video – proves GR’s vitality in inspiring fashion. Theresa Cameron has more of the story over at ARTSBlog.
• Hartford’s iQuilt creative placemaking initiative has received a whopping $400,000 grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
• Andrew Taylor reports on the progress of Panera Bread’s experiment in pay-what-you-can pricing. Most customers are paying the retail price for the food, and only about 20% are taking advantage of the opportunity to pay less than what they would pay for the exact same food elsewhere. It’s an interesting lesson for economists on how social norms or pressures may influence behavior towards arbitrage opportunities. I also can’t help but wonder how much the apparent success of the experiment is made possible by the locations of the stores, which are in Clayton, MO; Dearborn, MI; and the Hollywood district of Portland, OR. None of those cities are poor, they have similar overall demographics (with the exception of the large Arab-American population in Dearborn), and Clayton is a wealthy suburb of St. Louis.
• TCG’s “What If?” series of posts has been well worth reading. Here’s one recent example, an excellent think piece on an organizational model for a group of small artist collectives. Of course, as Michael Kaiser points out, mergers are never easy.

In the Tank

• The same weekend that the Kansas Arts Commission went under, Florida’s governor vetoed state funding for public broadcasting. Meanwhile, Mid-America Arts Alliance director Mary Kennedy McCabe weighs in on Kansas.
• The IRS has announced that 275,000 nonprofits have officially lost their tax-exempt status today, due to a failure to file required forms for three years in a row. This officially reduces the number of nonprofits in this country by 17%. View the full list here, and check to see if any arts organizations in your community have been affected.
• Under continued financial pressure, including a $5 million current-year deficit, NYC Opera is leaving Lincoln Center for a new home – what home that is, no one knows. It’s also laying off 11 employees, and rumor has it that the budget will be reduced next year to $11 million.
• NYCO is leaving Lincoln Center just two years after a $107 million renovation to the theater in which it performs – a renovation that resulted in its being renamed the David H. Koch Theater. Yes, this is the same David H. Koch whose conservative advocacy group supported Governor Sam Brownback’s vendetta against the Kansas Arts Commission.
• This quote from one of the many stories about the NYCO’s recent challenges well illustrates the depressing conflict between commercial and aesthetic incentives at major institutions (emphasis mine):
  

  The [performers’ and stage managers’ union] delegates said they were proud to be part of the company. “Yet we are confused and troubled by the way management is programming the seasons,” they added, calling for productions of more familiar operas, like “Carmen,” “Madama Butterfly,” “La Bohème” and “La Traviata.” “George Steel’s artistic vision may be brilliant,” the union officials said, referring to the current general manager and artistic director, “but it doesn’t fill the seats.”

• NYCO is not the only company in New York suddenly looking for a home. After losing its bid to take over the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Arts at St. Ann’s is desperately seeking shelter.
• The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas is going on hiatus.
• Bye bye Florida Stage.
• Tony Kushner, of all people, reports that he doesn’t make his living as a playwright.

Orchestra R/Evolution Revisited

• Sarah Lutman reports from the League of American Orchestras conference.
• A new business model: investing in musical instruments.
• The Detroit Symphony visits the suburbs. And its President fails to take a pay cut.
• Very good thoughts on new music programming from Sam Bergman.

Overseas/North Country Report

• As much as we like to complain about our arts advocacy in the US, other countries haven’t figured it out either. You’ll notice some strikingly familiar language in this rant from England.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber has established a new arts funding program through his foundation. Good thing, since it looks like the city of London is cutting back on its culture funding.
• The Dutch government might make the renowned Netherlands Dans Theater perform in the Dutch suburbs rather than overseas.
• Rio de Janeiro doubles its culture budget.
• Ben Eltham reports on support for the arts in the 2011 federal budget in Australia.
• Shannon Litzenberger reports on capitalization discussions from a Canadian perspective.

Data Tells a Story

• Richard Florida investigates the relationship between corporate business taxes and economic competitiveness at the state level, and finds that there isn’t one. Remember, one of Florida’s main arguments in The Rise of the Creative Class was that economic development strategies aimed at drawing companies through lower taxes don’t work anymore. This analysis provides pretty compelling evidence that he’s right. [A note: I’ve criticized these kinds of cross-sectional comparisons in the past because they are not very good at proving causal relationships. But the topic at hand is a better fit for this method, since what’s being found is actually a lack of a relationship.]
• The UK is embarking on a national effort to measure happiness.
• Analyzing Google’s vast storehouse of published data.
• Amanda Alef looks at how arts majors fare financially relative to others.
• Looking at a barter economy experiment in the arts.

Give it Away, Give it Away Now

• On the heels of the Giving Pledge, Gates, Buffet & company are now spearheading a Hollywood Pledge. And the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has signed up 60 foundations for the “Foundation Pledge” (giving focused on underserved communities).
• These five simple questions represent a really great rubric for self-evaluation on the cheap.
• Adam Huttler offers a two–part analysis of what the L3C means for the arts.

Etc.

• The Future of Music Coalition joins a petition to stop the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
• Cool story featuring interviews of NYC buskers trying out for the great Music Under New York program.

EmcArts, a social enterprise and program agency for innovation in the arts, is seeking an entrepreneurial leader to develop the company’s newest area of work in Activating Innovation field-wide. EmcArts has pioneered programming to spur innovation in selected arts organizations across the country. Building on this success, and recognizing the increasing importance of organizational innovation, we are now launching an innovation web portal and online community, the first learning exchange for innovation in the arts on the web. Through this major initiative, we will extend learning and field dialogue about new organizational practices and innovation beyond our program participants to arts leaders and organizations nationally and internationally. We aim to move the dialogue about the vital importance of innovation to the center of discourse about the future of our field.

The portal is the initial program of our Activating Innovation initiative. It will be a fully interactive platform for sharing stories of arts organizations, making new connections among arts professionals, trustees and investors, stimulating new thinking and helping to solve the pressing issues of change that the arts field is confronting. Additional program areas in the AI initiative include knowledge development and learning projects for cohorts of grantees of major foundations (including The Doris Duke Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation), dissemination of learning via conferences and convenings (including the development of “Innovation Summits” produced by EmcArts) and building partnerships with funders and policy makers to actively support innovation programs and capacities. We’re seeking a strategic and intellectually curious leader to creatively shape and implement the programs and products of EmcArts’ Activating Innovation initiative. The Director will interact with today’s most progressive arts organizations and their leaders, will create and commission a wide range of compelling content and will contribute to thoughtful field discussions (online and face to face). Working hands-on across the full range of initiative activities, he or she will lead the translation of stories of organizational adaptive capacity and innovation in the arts into different modes of delivery (e.g. social media, video, audio and written profiles, blogposts, standard communications pieces, presentations, EmcArts produced conferences, etc.).

This position works closely with the President and the Managing Director to advance the vision and goals for the Activating Innovation initiative, and with the company team and associates as a whole. The Director will lead a documentation and communications team that includes EmcArts’ Online Cultural Producer and Technology Solutions Manager, as well as contracted specialists – writer/editor, videographer, audio producer, designer, bloggers – to implement the devised strategies.

(Visit the link for more info. Deadline: April 5, 2011)

Program Analyst, National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is seeking a survey methologist and statistical analyst in its Office of Research & Analysis, who will be responsible for designing and implementing large-population surveys to investigate the value and impact of the arts in America and for conducting complex statistical analyses of the resulting data. The person will also oversee the office’s efforts to integrate fresh data sources from the academic, government, nonprofit, and commercial sectors. The ideal candidate will be skilled in the use of statistical analysis software (SPSS, STATA, or SAS) and software to assist mapping and network cluster analysis. Knowledge of large, national data sets including geographic, demographic, and economic variables (e.g. U.S. Census data) is essential, as the person may be tasked to merge data from multiple sources for the purpose of presentation and reporting.(Visit the link for more info. Deadline: April 1, 2011)

Program Assistant for Program and Nonprofit Investments, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone

UMEZ is a private, not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to revitalize Upper Manhattan’s economy through business, institutional and workforce development investments.  Significant resources are allocated through the Cultural Industry Investment Fund (CIIF), which engages in community building through a cultural and economic lens and a marketing of place that repositions Upper Manhattan as one of New York’s primary cultural districts.  CIIF investments assist cultural organizations with capacity building, organizational development, and sustainability enhancement.  UMEZ’s Board of Directors includes local and city-wide leaders and is chaired by Mario Baez.

(Visit the link for more info.)

Online Cultural Producer | EmcArts

EmcArts is seeking support to launch and maintain a new, highly interactive web portal and online community to extend learning about new organizational practices and innovation among arts leaders and organizations nationally and internationally. The portal will be a fully interactive platform for sharing stories of arts organizations, new connections among arts professionals, trustees and investors, stimulating new thinking and helping to solve the pressing issues of change that the arts field is confronting.

We’re seeking an entrepreneurial and intellectually curious Cultural Producer to engage with today’s most exciting arts leaders, create compelling social media content and contribute to thoughtful field discussions. The Cultural Producer will be a key team member in shaping the creative design and user experience of this web community.

Duties of the position include:

• Lead development and launch of the web portal, including the design of its architecture, its content and functionality, and building an online community of contributors;
• Liaise with project managers, facilitators, consultants and key contributors to the project;
• Oversee progress and ensure overall quality of outputs;
• Upon launch, maintain interactive communications on a continual basis, through active engagement, contribution and participation in discussions;
• Develop the “voice” of the portal and its online identity;
• Proactively facilitate field-related discussions and contribute expertise;
• Create and contribute content (blogs, webinars, videos, etc.) on an ongoing basis; and
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Necessary skills include:

• Advanced knowledge of the arts and cultural field is a must. If you’re interested in organizational development and innovation, that’s a plus;
• Knowledge of graphic design software, website usability design and HTML (we’re not looking for a programmer, but someone who can resize a photo or look at code to diagnose a problem);
• Familiarity with desktop video editing and production;
• Experience with content management systems, web industry trends and tools;
• Strong writing and editing skills, with a talent for rapid and effective outputs in communication;
• Capacity to be a visual thinker, who is able to translate concepts into images; and
• Ability to be a communicator and connector, who relates ideas and concepts in different ways to different audiences.

This part-time (20-30 hours/week) position will be based in our Central Harlem offices in New York City. Success in creating a site that is lively and attracts consistent traffic and substantial dialogue around innovation would likely lead to an expansion of this position. The planned start date for this position is on or after January 3, 2011.

If you are a digital media pro known for your innovative work in stimulating online interactions, and our mission and this opportunity excite your passions, we want to hear from you.

Please send: 1. resume and 2. cover letter, including selected links, and recommendations and testimonials for your work. We’d love to hear about the impact you’ve had on the communities you’ve worked with.

Send application materials to: Colleen J. Ross, Manager of Partnership Strategies.

No inquiries or phone calls, please.

More info: http://www.emcarts.org/index.cfm?returnid=17415&newsid=1529&pagepath=News&id=17425

Google Policy Fellowship | Future of Music Coalition

We’re looking for students who are passionate about technology, and want to spend the summer diving headfirst into Internet policy. Students from all majors and degree programs who possess the following qualities are encouraged to apply:

* Demonstrated or stated commitment to Internet and technology policy
* Excellent academic record, professional/extracurricular/volunteer activities, subject matter expertise
* First-rate analytical, communications, research, and writing skills
* Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and efficiently, and to work smartly and resourcefully in a fast-paced environment

Fellows will receive a stipend of $7,500 for 10 weeks during the summer of 2011 (June-August). Exact dates of the fellowship will be worked out by the fellow and host organization.

Applications for 2011 fellowship positions are now open, and consist of the following:

* Statement of interest: Provide us with an essay outlining your qualifications for and interest in the program, including relevant academic, professional and extracurricular experiences. As part of this essay, explain what you hope to gain from participation in the program, as well as your interest in your top two host organization choices (750 words max).
* Resume/CV
* Three references
* Personal information, including student status, work eligibility status, and education history
* Preferences for two hosts (hopefully FMC is one of them! But yes you can work for anyone on the list)

More info: http://www.google.com/policyfellowship/ | http://www.futureofmusic.org