Development Manager

Chicago Artists Coalition helps people connect with opportunities including calls for artists, jobs, and available studio space

Desired Start:
January 2025

WHO WE ARE

SkyART is a permanent fixture in the vibrant cultural landscape of Chicago's South Side. Founded in 2001 with a mission to provide youth with an accessible, safe place to participate in quality visual arts programs at no cost, SkyART continues to fulfill its mission in South Chicago and surrounding neighborhoods, reaching young people through a rich variety of programs. In 2020, SkyART announced the expansion to Chicago’s West Side.

Driving its mission is a deep understanding of the transformative power of art and its capacity to enhance intellectual, emotional, and social development. SkyART is a foundation from which creativity grows and individuals flourish. Participants are invited into a world of imaginative possibilities and connections that go beyond the individual, to positively impact all of the communities where we work and the city as a whole.

With art at the center of everything we do, SkyART provides free, safe, open spaces where young people are empowered and connections are made.

Our work is guided by these core concepts:

• Accessibility – we remove barriers – promoting participation in our programs, connection with other institutions and communities, and access to the broader world.
• Responsiveness – we innovate – adapting programs to the evolving context within which we work, fostering civic engagement, cultural democracy, and social wellbeing.
• Totality – we are committed to reaching the whole person – recognizing that every participant has a unique life experience characterized by their own needs, assets, and interests.
• Stability – we are a consistent presence – the “third place” after home and school, where participants develop meaningful relationships and experience a feeling of extended family.

WHAT WE DO

Through interdisciplinary, process-based projects, skill-building workshops, and large-scale collaborations, SkyART encourages critical thinking and inspires creative expression for youth ages 3 to 24. In 2020 SkyART also began offering Art Therapy for Chicago youth. Using an artist-in-residence model, Teaching Artists and Art Therapists work side by side with participants, in an atmosphere of mutual esteem and shared curiosity, through our dynamic and experimental methodology, the SkyWAY.

Our programs include after-school and Saturday programs at our studios; classroom and after-school programs at partnering schools, and programs ranging from one-day workshops to multi-week courses offered in coordination with organizations such as city parks and libraries, as well as other non-profit program partners.

HOW YOU CONTRIBUTE

The Development Manager identifies, develops and stewards relationships and subsequent fundraising activities with corporations, government agencies, foundations, and other funding institutions. The Development Manager works with the Director of Development, Executive Director, program staff, and Board of Directors to create, lead, implement and evaluate successful fundraising strategies from institutional funders. The Development Manager, working with a development staff of three, thinks creatively to develop new and innovative ways to fundraise.

The Development Manager is committed to the goals of SkyART and can articulate the vision and mission.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership and Strategy (10%)

• Hiring, training, supervising, and developing employees to meet organizational needs
• Represent SkyART internally and externally to raise the agency’s profile and create fundraising opportunities.
• Actively promote the agency’s mission, vision and values.
• Participate in strategic and annual work planning.
• Stay abreast of relevant changes in the philanthropic sector and communicate to senior staff.
• Contribute to a positive and collaborative work environment through regular team meetings, check-ins, and cross-functional planning with other departments

• Co-create long-term growth strategies for institutional giving.
• Keep abreast of programmatic needs and new program developments and outcomes…