Managing Director Denniston Hill

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Denniston Hill was established in 2004, when artists Julie Mehretu, Lawrence Chua, and Paul Pfeiffer transformed a 150-year-old farmhouse and its surrounded 200+ acres of rolling farmland, wetlands, and protected forests (ancestrally known as the Lenapehoking) into an interdisciplinary arts organization guided by the principle that creative and critical voices are essential in shaping a more just and equitable society. In 2008, they formalized as a 501c3 whose core objectives are to offer a place where fellow queer and BIPOC creators see themselves mirrored back in the heart of an organization, and to ensure that the voices of the most vulnerable, risk‑taking artists continue to be heard.

Today, nearly 20 years in continuous operation, Denniston Hill’s residency program has welcomed artists from around the world to live, work, build new ideas, and better understand our shared human conditions, together. Our campus is a place of collective refuge for so many people who experience ongoing precarity in their lives, art‑making, and activism.

We embrace a set of interdependent values that shape our organization and our programs, which we invite you to read in more detail on our website, linked here.

As Denniston Hill continues its transition from an artist‑led “startup” to an artist‑founder organization, our visions for the future of the organization are rooted in expanding our role as a catalyst for social change through artistic practice. We plan to grow beyond our current identity as a residency program to become a multifaceted platform for civic engagement, ecological stewardship, and artistic innovation.

Current and future programs include curated residencies that support important pillars of justice work (human rights, food, and the climate crisis) created in collaboration with mission‑aligned organizations; a print publication shaped as a refuge for writers and public intellectuals; and campus renovations led by artists and architects to ensure that disabled artists can participate in our residencies, and which will set a new standard for accessibility in artist residencies worldwide.

Denniston Hill is on view now in the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, bringing our work to a global audience and highlighting the impact of artist‑founder organizations across the field.

Over the past five years, Denniston Hill has built the infrastructure needed for this roadmap. We have hired our first full‑time Executive Director, established a headquarters in Manhattan, engaged consultants for finance and human resources, stabilized the residency program with a full‑time Residency Manager, a revamped campus operations team, a fixed residency season calendar, IT backend and program management software, campus building upgrades, and more.

We’ve expanded our fundraising capacity with fresh initiatives, including an annual gala, cultivation events, individual giving circles, and a for‑profit partnership with Antica Terra winery. Internally, our organization’s growth focuses on an expanded Board of Trustees and governance structure; establishing 3 new full‑time, salaried staff positions (for a total of 5 full‑time, salaried staff members); launching a strategic plan (2027) and an endowment campaign (2028).

As we step into this next exciting chapter of our journey, Denniston Hill aims to serve as a model for how artist‑led organizations can evolve and scale while maintaining their core values and mission.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Denniston Hill seeks a Managing Director to serve as a senior organizational leader and strategic partner to the Executive Director. The Managing Director translates vision into action, aligning the pieces required to support the people and processes that bring Denniston Hill’s mission to life. This role is designed to expand organizational capacity by reducing bottlenecks at the executive level and ensuring that strategic priorities move efficiently across the organization.

The Managing Director aligns staff, consultants, systems, and communications so that the organization operates with greater clarity, cohesion, and momentum. The Managing Director holds…