Careers at RFCUNYJob Openings

Background

The Creative Arts Team (CAT) at the City University of New York uses the power of drama to creatively engage people in their own learning and lives, with a focus on fostering skills in communication, critical thinking, and social and academic literacy. Over the past 42 years, CAT has worked across New York City’s five boroughs with more than one million youth who reflect the City's economic, ethnic, and cultural diversity. CAT's professional Actor-Teachers combine the key components of drama -- character, collaboration, story, and the dynamic relationship between actor and audience -- to create one-of-a-kind interactive learning experiences for young people to acquire concrete skills they can reapply in their own lives. CAT resides within the Office of Academic Affairs at The City University of New York (CUNY) and collaborates with a wide range of professionals and programs that strengthen the educational experience of future and current college students. In addition, the CUNY Master of Arts in Applied Theatre was developed by CAT and is offered by the CUNY School of Professional Studies in partnership with CAT.

The Position

CAT is seeking an Executive Director ("ED") to help shape the organization’s future and to provide strategic direction, oversight, and overall management of this field-defining organization. The ED will successfully lead CAT into its next phase of growth and development.

With the support of the Senior Management Team, the ED will work to set fundraising targets, organizational priorities, and develop and articulate CAT’s vision going forward, translating its mission into programs and outcomes that positively impact the participants and organizations we serve and the fields of arts in education and applied theatre.

The ED must be a sophisticated relationship-builder who is able to work effectively with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders, including the University Dean for Strategic Initiatives (to whom the ED reports) and other CUNY departments, CAT’s Advisory Council, members of the senior leadership team, senior program staff, and a very diverse set of clients, donors and prospects. The new ED will work to strengthen the Advisory Council, as well as the board of CAT Inc., a 501 (c) 3 fundraising instrument for CAT.

Specific Responsibilities

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

• Serve as the company’s lead executive officer, ensuring ongoing programmatic excellence, rigorous program evaluation, and consistent quality of finance and administration, fundraising, communications, and systems; create timelines and deploy resources needed to achieve strategic goals
• Develop and monitor strategic goals and objectives to ensure appropriate, organizationally effective and timely accomplishment of CAT' s mission
• Lead, coach, develop and retain CAT’s senior management team, including program, budget, and administrative staff to ensure responsible fiscal management, high quality program delivery, effective development and communications strategies, efficient operations and compliance with CAT’s contracts
• Oversee artistic and educational programming; support a specialist team of ten program, project and associate directors who supervise the implementation of all of CAT’s work (the leadership of this team is currently under review); guarantee the quality of program work, its educational value, and its delivery consistent with CAT’s pedagogy; appropriately train and evaluate staff; connect CAT’s work to ongoing trends and implement best practices from the field; and facilitate the creation of new programs

FUNDRAISING & COMMUNICATION 

• Serve as the primary public face of CAT, working to enhance CAT’s profile and role as a leader in the field at various forums and in communications; raise funds and increase earned income; and advance partnerships within CUNY and across the public and private sector
• Actively engage and energize CAT’s advisory council, CAT Inc.’s 501 (c) 3 board, volunteers, event committees, alumni, partnering organizations and funders
• In coordination with strategic planning, maintain and expand fundraising and revenue-generating activities to support CAT’s mission, programs and staff
• Deepen and refine all aspects of communications, from web presence to external relations with the goal of creating a stronger, more recognized organizational profile; to communicate program results; and position CAT as a leader in the field