Chicago Cultural Alliance Job Announcement Operations Specialist (Full-Time/Hybrid)
Position: Operations Specialist Salary range: $45,000 to $50,000/year + benefits Reports to: Executive Director Type: Full-time, 40 hrs/week. *Note: This is a hybrid position (2 days/week in-office; 3 days/week remote). How to apply: If interested, please send a cover letter and resume to info@chicagoculturalalliance.org with “Operations Specialist” as the subject. Only complete applications will be considered. Applications can be addressed to Mónica Félix (Executive Director). Process: We will accept applications until the position is filled. 1st interview: 30-min Zoom call; 2nd interview: in person in office.
About Us
The Chicago Cultural Alliance’s mission is to connect, promote, and support centers of cultural heritage for a more inclusive Chicago. We are an active consortium of over 40 cultural heritage museums, centers, and historical societies that span 28 neighborhoods and 7 suburbs in the Chicagoland area and represent over 30 different cultures from around the world. Our programs include the annual Activating Heritage conference, World Dumpling Fest, Journey Chicago, knowledge sharing opportunities, and support services. Learn more about our mission, programs, and members at https://www.chicagoculturalalliance.org/
About the Position
The Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA) is seeking a full-time Operations Specialist. This role is essential to ensuring that the CCA team is meeting project deadlines while enforcing practices that reinforce organization and efficiency standards. The ideal candidate is someone with an eye for detail and the ability to adapt to the various needs of a nonprofit environment. We are seeking applicants who will embrace operations and administration with an understanding that this role is central to our organization’s ability to support centers of cultural heritage efficiently and with the greatest impact.
The ideal candidate should expect to commit a minimum of 3 years to this role. This role is not a good fit for anyone preparing to transition to graduate school or transition to another professional role. We encourage applications from serious candidates looking to join a team of dedicated nonprofit professionals who are passionate about advocating for Chicago’s cultural institutions and fostering a deeper sense of cross-cultural understanding through our work.
Click to read the full job announcement and instructions on how to apply:
Luci Creative is a full-service design studio that creates immersive environments for museums, corporate environments, and children’s interactive spaces. Working on large and small projects alike, the team at Luci expertly grow exhibit ideas from concept to completion. Guest speakers Rebecca Husk and Rachel Strack will highlight some of Luci’s recent exhibit project and discuss ways a professional exhibit design firm can partner with libraries and archives on projects.
RSVP by Friday, October 21st. Organizers will send registrants Zoom information shortly before the program.
Many of you may remember that the Chicago Cultural Alliance and our Members were invited to provide input on the city’s We Will Chicago plan, a comprehensive citywide plan to encourage economic growth, address systemic inequality, and increase neighborhood livability over the next ten years. It is the first citywide plan since 1966. After gathering input from community leaders like all of you, the City has now released a draft of the plan for community feedback before they finalize the plan.
You can read a draft of the plan here. Our input is especially important for the Arts & Culture Pillar, which is the first section (after the introduction).
Then you can provide input at this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ArtsCultureWWC. (You can also go right to this survey if you’d like! It summarizes the Arts & Culture Pillar’s goals.) The city has asked for feedback from the community before November 1.
You also have the option to attend one of four We Will Chicago Informational Zoom Meetings coming up:
The Peace School invites all our Members to attend or participate on Monday, September 19th at 11:45 for Peace Day, an uplifting intercultural celebration to build peace in Chicago and the World!
Resource Table form. https://forms.gle/vJ97214hCZyMQjkn7 Please complete this form if you want to have Resource Table space for your organization. Deadline is September 12th. Feel free to share this form with peacebuilding/community service/cultural organizations that might be interested.
Arts Midwest is proud to be part of Welcoming Week, a global event taking place September 9-18! Together, neighbors of all backgrounds can work to build strong connections, create inclusive places, and achieve collective prosperity.
Attend a Webinar on Welcoming & the Arts
Wednesday, September 14 | 3 – 4 PM CT
Art is an essential tool for sustaining and strengthening welcoming work. Join Welcoming America, Students Rebuild, and Arts Midwest for a webinar discussion. We’ll explore how art, culture, and creativity can transform, deepen, and enrich immigrant inclusion work.
GRANT OPPORTUNITY ($75,000): 2023 JOYCE AWARDS APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
Awarded annually, the Joyce Awards support the creation of new works by artists of color to foster more culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities. In 2023, The Joyce Foundation will grant six Joyce Awards across visual, performing, and multidisciplinary arts to support new collaborations between artists of color and leading arts, cultural, and community-based organizations in the Great Lakes. Each $75,000 grant enables the creation and presentation of a new work that engages and builds community, with at least $25,000 of each grant awarded directly to the commissioned artist, while the collaborating commissioning organization receives at most $50,000 to use towards compensation of staff time, production costs, materials, participant stipends, and other expenses.
The deadline for pre-registration is September 7, 2022, with Letters of Inquiry due on September 12, 2022 at 11:59pm CDT.
For more details, eligibility criteria and other FAQs, please visit the Joyce Foundation website at [https://www.joycefdn.org/joyce-awards] or email Culture Program Director Mia Khimm at mkhimm@joycefdn.org.
Who can apply?
Applications must be submitted by the commissioning organization, including questions for the artist. Applications must reflect a new collaborative commission between an artist of color and an arts or community-based organization located in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul. The artists can be living and practicing anywhere in the world, provided they are proposing a collaboration with an organization located in one of the above Great Lakes cities. Please see the full Eligibility Criteria & Guidelines and FAQs.
Joyce Award Eligibility
Artists
• Joyce Awards applications may be submitted by artists living and practicing
anywhere in the world, provided that they are proposing a collaboration with an
arts or community organization located in the metropolitan statistical areas of
one of six Great Lakes cities: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis,
Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul.
• There is no restriction in regard to art discipline or medium.
• Artists must be commissioned by an unrelated entity – no self-commissions or
commissions by an arts organization or company founded or run by the artist.
Commissioned artists may be related to the commissioning organization, currently
or in the past, in a time-limited capacity, such as a residency, teaching artist, or
board member.
• As Joyce Awards support the commission of new works, an artist’s proposed
project should not have moved past the ideation stage.
• Although works need to be new, collaborations between artists and
commissioning organizations need not be new. Joyce Foundation welcomes
applications from artists and organizations who have worked together before.
• However, artists who have received a Joyce Award in the past are not eligible
to apply again as a commissioned artist. In addition, organizations that have
received a Joyce Award in the past may re-apply if proposing a commission
with an artist who has never received a Joyce Award in the past.
• Hallmarks of past Joyce Award recipients include artists whose work:
• Demonstrates artistic excellence as well as new thinking or approaches
while being firmly grounded in the history and evolution of an art
form and the discourse which surrounds it;
• Is as artistically and intellectually relevant to the current moment and
historical legacies in the place of commission as it is rigorous;
• Engages with and is informed by the stories and concerns of
diverse communities, including communities of color;
• Creates opportunities for community access and learning from the
ideation stage through the culminating production; and
• Will have a culminating and tangible program, product or process.
Arts and Community-based Organizations
• Arts or community-based organizations located in the metropolitan statistical
area (MSA) of one of the six cities where Joyce Awards are made (i.e. Chicago,
Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul) may submit
an application.
• The most compelling applications have come from organizations that:
• Evidence the capacity to support an artist(s) through the
commission and presentation of an original art work;
• Are most likely to use the proposed project and collaboration with
the prospective artist to build upon and deepen connections with
surrounding communities, existing and potential institutional
partners and local civic leadership;
• Display the ability to harness additional funds as needed to ensure a
project’s completion within a 12- to 18-month timeframe (with projects
beginning no earlier than June 1, 2023); and
• Can design and execute a robust community learning, engagement
plan, and audience development strategy that will ensure the
community’s awareness of and access to the project from origination
through completion.
• Demonstrate a commitment to advancing racial equity in its work.
Rob Fojtik is Vice President for Neighborhood Strategy at Choose Chicago, the city’s official tourism and convention promotion bureau. In this capacity, Rob oversees efforts to promote and support Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods to visitors from near and far. Programs include the award-winning Neighborhood Content Creator program that leverages resident-made digital content, and Chicago Alfresco, a $2.5 million placemaking initiative created in partnership with the Chicago Department of Transportation to transform public spaces into community plazas for outdoor enjoyment.
Before coming to Choose Chicago, Rob was a Senior Advisor to Mayor Lightfoot on economic development and international relations at City Hall, as well as LGTBQ+ affairs and the expanded outdoor dining program. In this role, he also worked to recommend and place over 150 civic leaders and residents onto City boards and commissions. Prior to government service in the Lightfoot administration, Rob ran her winning campaign in the crowded 2019 Chicago mayoral race as Chief of Staff. In past lives, Rob has worked as a public affairs manager for a Fortune 500 company downtown; had misadventures in management consulting, art sales, and personal cheffing; and spent time in Washington DC working for former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Rob also served a one-year appointment at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence as a policy advisor on Central and Eastern Europe. In this role, he was part of the NSC’s interagency process to develop a comprehensive sanctions regime on Russia as a consequence of its 2014 invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
After receiving his BA in Slavic Languages and Literature at Northwestern University, Rob lived and worked in the Czech Republic teaching English and tending bar before moving to Washington, D.C. to pursue a MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CERES). He enjoys cooking, learning foreign languages, hiking with his partner and their dog, and visiting Chicago’s many neighborhoods.
Paul Durica
Board Member
Dr. Paul Durica is the Director of Exhibitions at the Chicago History Museums and worked in a similar capacity at The Newberry Library. From 2015-2020, he served as the Director of Programs and Exhibitions with Illinois Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Prior to that he drew upon his work as a writer, researcher, and teacher to produce a series of free and interactive talks, walks, and reenactments focused on narratives from Chicago’s past that resonate with its present.
These public history programs led to collaborations with cultural institutions in the city such as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago History Museum, Newberry Library, Chicago Architecture Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago Cultural Center among others.
Each program made use of both his original research and the skills of the arts organizations, community groups, local businesses, and publications that acted as my partners. Some of these programs, such as the full-scale reenactment of the Haymarket Affair in 2011, involved recruiting and directing over 300 volunteers and 1,000 participants.
To produce these programs successfully, he wrote grants; managed budgets; generated web content; worked closely with program partners of varying sizes and resources; and identified, engaged, and sustained a diverse multi-generational audience.
Lynessa Rico
Board Member
Dr. Lynessa M. Rico is the Associate Chair of the Business Psychology Department at the The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Chicago campus. She is also a business mentor at 1871.
Lynessa is a results-driven Strategic Consultant with over 25 years of experience enabling leaders to meet strategic business objectives by identifying and aligning business growth opportunities with strategic direction of culturally diverse organizations. By leveraging her strategic experience in identifying and impacting business growth opportunities and maximizing profits in retail firms and higher education institutions, Lynessa leads workshops focused on the creative mindset, women’s entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and the value and application of design thinking within entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Her services also include consulting with and educating leadership on emotional intelligence, the power of design thinking and the creative mindset, and leadership styles to support inclusive, creative workplaces. She has presented to leadership and innovation teams in small, mid-size, and Fortune 500 companies.
Lynessa received her undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Management from Wichita State University. She then went on to earn a master’s degree in Business Administration from Wichita State University with a focus in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. After earning her master’s degree, Lynessa received her doctorate in Business Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology where she successfully completed her dissertation titled, “The Relationship Between Personality Types and Color Preference for Color Combinations.” Her current research interests include women’s entrepreneurship, design thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and entrepreneurship self-efficacy.
Outside of work and research, Lynessa enjoys mentoring start-ups and judging pitch competitions. Lynessa currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with her four cats. She is an avid long-distance runner, having completed 5 full marathons (and counting), and enjoys watching musical theater.
Briana Thomas
Board Member
Briana Thomas is the Museum Associate at the Abrahamic Center for Cultural Education (a core member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance). She wears many hats including developing exhibition content, facilitating community programs (children and adults), liaising with visitor artists, and other responsibilities. Her previous experience in the nonprofit space includes her tenure as the Financial Empowerment Coordinator at AMERICORPS Sharing Life Center as well as engaging with the public at the Dallas Arboretum. Her past professional experience has remained rooted in marginalized communities. It is their needs,discourse and histories that she has routinely been tasked with protecting and showcasing in the face of poor infrastructure, and willing ignorance. Creating safe spaces is an ancestral practice she has inherited.
