MUSEUM DIRECTOR

ByalaSearch LLC is pleased to announce that our firm has been retained by Broadway Housing Communities (BHC) and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling to identify candidates for the position of Museum Director.

About the Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling

The Sugar Hill Museum is the cultural capstone of the Sugar Hill development, a mixed-use 191,000 square-foot building at St. Nicholas Avenue and 155th Street in Upper Manhattan developed by BHC with $82 million in capital funding from public and private sources and designed by internationally acclaimed architect Sir David Adjaye, OBE. It combines BHC’s key tenets of housing stability, educational opportunity and cultural engagement as essential elements to the creation of thriving communities. Designed to advance justice and community revitalization through an investment in the cultural arts, the Sugar Hill Museum is a 16,400 square foot vibrant space for innovative intergenerational cultural arts programming, civic and community engagement, and global citizenship. The target audience is children ages three to eight years and their families. Though temporarily closed due to COVID, the Sugar Hill Museum, opened in October 2015, has welcomed nearly 100,000 visitors with 70% residing in the neighboring communities of Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx and others coming from all five NYC boroughs, 34 states and abroad. It has three main galleries – The Legacy Gallery, The Salon and The Living Room – as well as a studio art making lab for visitors and a studio for the artist-in-residence.

THE MISSION
The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling provides the culturally rich neighborhood with a space where children and their families grow and learn about Sugar Hill, and about the world at large, through intergenerational dialogue with artists, art and storytelling.
Designed to nurture the curiosity and creative spirit of three- to eight-year-old children, the Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling provides opportunities to grow as both author and audience, as children engage with the work of accomplished artists and storytellers, and create and share their own.

ABOUT BROADWAY HOUSING COMMUNITIES
Broadway Housing Communities (BHC) is a community-based nonprofit found in 1983, nationally recognized for pioneering high-impact approaches to the challenges of inequality.

ABOUT SUGAR HILL CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF ART & STORYTELLING
and homelessness in the underserved communities of West Harlem and Washington Heights. Deep poverty and homelessness continue to be enduring manifestations of contemporary racism and inequality in NYC. BHC has developed seven, and continues to own and manage five, deeply affordable and supportive residential properties, two onsite tuition-free high quality preschools for 150 children and families, and two community art galleries. The Sugar Hill development, BHC’s most ambitious and recent initiative, represents a bold step toward fulfillment of BHC’s core beliefs. It represents a model of progressive urban reform of best practices and lessons learned from a dedicated community orientation across four decades. In addition to the Sugar Hill Museum, the model includes 124 deeply affordable apartments and the Sugar Hill Museum Preschool. This Preschool is grounded by an arts-infused Reggio Emilia-inspired curriculum, and its young students access the Museum weekly, making art a natural part of their everyday lives. BHC is nurturing the natural creative intelligence of these children, who will become the poets, engineers, artists, art lovers and leaders of the community and their own futures.

PRIMARY FUNCTION
Reporting to the BHC Board Museum Committee and BHC’s Executive Director, the Museum Director will be a proven fundraiser who will oversee curatorial, education, and public programs for the nearly $2 million organization. The Museum Director will serve as the primary spokesperson for the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, under the auspices of Broadway Housing Communities (BHC), to advance its mission of providing world-class cultural exhibitions and experiences in the culturally-rich Sugar Hill neighborhood to visitors from around the world, including local children and their families through inter-generational dialog with artists, art and storytelling.
Through contemporary art exhibitions, the Sugar Hill Museum actively addresses the cognitive development of three- to eight-year-old children, approaching art and storytelling as vehicles to nurture the language, literacy, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that lead to the long-term academic and personal success that is vital to all youth. The Museum is also co-located with the Sugar Hill Museum Preschool, serving up to 150 children from birth to age five.
The Sugar Hill Museum Director will provide vision and leadership; hire and inspire a team, responsible for communications and marketing, curatorial, storytelling, education, community engagement and audience engagement. The Museum Director will increase the profile of the Museum as a global cultural force and as a local resource. BHC staff will provide support to the Museum Director in overseeing operation for fiscal management, Development, Human Resources, facilities and IT.

Specific Responsibilities in the following areas include but are not limited to:
LEADERSHIP AND VISION
 Create a multi-year strategic program plan and establish metrics against the plan, keeping in mind the organization’s key stakeholders: children and families, staff, funders, partner organizations, media, etc.
 Determine staffing needs and hire and lead a team of full- and part-time staff in the areas of Curatorial, Storytelling, Education, Community Engagement, Audience Engagement, Marketing and Development.
 Drive a collaborative team culture of quality and innovation committed to social justice.
 Provide direction on the programmatic calendar in collaboration with the Sugar Hill Museum Preschool.
 Ensure clarity of organizational priorities and accountability.
 Work in partnership with BHC staff on fundraising, education, operations, finance, HR and IT.

PROGRAM
 In close partnership with Sugar Hill Museum’s Boards, BHC Executive Director and Chief Education Officer, shape and drive programmatic strategy and approach.
 Ensure adherence to the mission of bringing contemporary art and literary traditions to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
 Working with the Chief Education Officer of BHC, integrate the feedback of Education and Housing Directors into the Museum programming.

OPERATIONS
 Refine and implement metrics to measure and ensure program effectiveness and to inform programmatic decision-making.
 Working closely with Finance Director of BHC, provide sound fiscal leadership and fiduciary oversight, including managing budgets and overseeing internal controls.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS
 Clearly and consistently articulate the mission of the Sugar Hill Museum and its relationship to its various communities and constituencies.
 Work with the Museum Committee of the Board of BHC and the Museum’s Board of Directors to ensure clear and consistent articulation of the mission of the Museum and its relationship to its various communities and constituencies.
 Engage and partner with Sugar Hill Museum Boards on donor pipeline and donor expansion.

 Work in partnership with Development to craft and execute a dynamic and creative marketing, digital, and PR strategy to increase awareness and visibility of the Museum to its donors and the community.

 Working with the Development team, BHC Executive Director and the Board of Directors, sustain and grow private fundraising against goals, by strategically cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding five, six and seven-figure gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations.
 Set goals for earned revenue, including membership, space rental and retail shop; measure team performance against those goals.
 Ensure that the expectations of funders, partners, constituents, clients and other stakeholders are consistently met.
 Build trust with the Museum Committee of the Board and work together to set expectations.
 Meet regularly with Museum Board Committee to review progress against strategic plan, and solicit support from the Board when needed to help overcome key issues.
 Establish new and strengthen existing relationships with community partners, cultural institutions, artists and others to widen opportunities for programming and impact, including modeling social justice work by partnering with other cultural institutions.

Ideal Skills and Experience:
 Minimum of eight years leadership experience in a nonprofit, government, or philanthropic organization, overseeing multiple programs or contracts ideally at a museum or arts organization targeting underserved communities.
 Experience working with children and families and a preferred background in education or arts.
 Leadership in curatorial, arts education, programming or administration.
 Experience with fundraising as well as resource and network building.
 Comprehensive working knowledge of program planning, organizational building and structure, budgeting, administrative operations and fundraising.
 Experience creating a multi-year strategic plan and establishing a framework to measure progress against strategic plan.
 Demonstrated ability to analyze and compile complex data for planning and reporting.
 Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, with the ability to represent the organization externally across a wide range of stakeholders and constituencies.
 Demonstrated commitment to the values of diversity, inclusiveness and empowerment.
 Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree a plus.

Critical Competencies for Success
 A seasoned, experienced leader with demonstrated experience building and managing a high-performing team.
 A proven fundraiser and strong relationship builder with the ability to find common ground, build consensus and strengthen collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including balancing community and audience.
 History of raising the profile of an organization in both the cultural and local community spheres.
 Previous experience in cultural programming or contemporary art curating.

Metrics for Success
 Collaborate with Museum Board and BHC to raise and sustain $2 million funding stream from private sources and from earned income.
 Increase presence in the community, as measured by increased visitorship online or in-person as well as raise visibility through social media and other media coverage.
 Hire staff to execute on mission and hold them accountable.
 Maintain curatorial and programmatic excellence.

Other Characteristics
First and foremost, The Sugar Hill Museum seeks a passionate and visionary leader, committed to social justice, with curatorial experience and the presence to lead and enable the Museum to stake its claim to its global cultural impact as well as its community impact, especially in the lives of children and families.
The Museum Director will shape the Sugar Hill Museum’s institutional identity internally and externally, take the organization to the next level in impact and visibility, and in concert with the staff, ensure that the organization is fiscally and administratively sound. The Museum Director will be a leader who can articulate with clarity the Museum’s mission to external audiences and design an organizational structure to successfully support the sustainability of the Museum.
The Museum Director will have a passion for the cultural activist mission of the Sugar Hill Museum and the ability to communicate that passion to others. The placement will also have a strong interest in building relationships and engaging with the local community.

Kindly send nominations or expressions of interest to:
Lisa Byala
Principal
ByalaSearch LLC
shcmasmd@byalasearch.com
T: (212) 547–9536
www.byalasearch.com