Cool Classics!, an Award-Winning Arts & Humanities Educational Nonprofit, is Seeking Board Members!

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Cool Classics! is seeking individuals interested in bringing their professional skills to an engaged working Board of Directors that wants to expand its unique programs. We are looking for candidates with experience in business, fundraising, law, marketing and publicity.

General Description:

Cool Classics! is a nationally recognized, award-winning after-school program that uses book-based, arts-integrated, diversity-driven curricula to improve literacy, teach critical-thinking skills and introduce students in under-served communities to the arts and humanities. Committed to improving literacy and being a vehicle for creating readers and critical thinkers, Cool Classics!’ goal is to expand participants’ sense of the arts, cultures and humanities by helping to engage each child as an avid reader, analytic thinker and thoughtful citizen.

Cool Classics! was honored as one of 12 winners of the 2017 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award recognizes the country’s best creative youth development programs for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to generate a wide range of positive outcomes.

Since 2006 we have been introducing elementary school children to the world of ideas in ways that engage them. We hold our students to the highest academic standards and provide them with the tools for success.

Various measures indicate that the majority of children who participate in Cool Classics! achieve:

• Increased enthusiasm for reading and improved reading skills
• Better reading comprehension and analysis
• Mastery of vocabulary and literary terms
• Improved critical-thinking skills
• Expanded understanding of: Literature, Humanities, Art, Dance, Drama, Music and Poetry
• Ability to link the arts and ideas to their own lives
• Improved social-emotional skills and behavior at school and at home
• Improved scores on standardized tests

The video on our website at coolclassicschicago.org briefly describes our work. Our website offers more information about our programs and outcomes, galleries of our children's art and photos of their activities as well as an archive of our enewsletters.

A job description is below:

Title: Member, Board of Directors

Role: To conduct the business of Cool Classics!; to raise funds to finance the organization and its programs; to bring professional skills; to be an advocate for the organization and to monitor organizational performance

Term: Three years of active membership, as dictated by the Cool Classics! bylaws

Responsibilities & Powers of the Board:

1. Bring professional expertise to the organization
2. Establish policies and procedures
3. Secure funds required for current expenses, as well as expansion plans as approved on by the Board
4. Ensure financial affairs of agency are responsibly conducted
5. Develop and implement a solid strategic plan

Specific Duties of a Member of the Board of Directors:

1. Attend meetings regularly and on time
2. Become well-informed about activities of the organization
3. Contribute knowledge and express points of view based on experience
4. Consider other points of view, make constructive suggestions and help the Board make group decisions reflecting the thinking of the total group
5. Become a financial supporter of the agency at an appropriate level
6. Assume leadership in agency fundraising efforts
7. Assume leadership role as appropriate
8. Represent the agency proudly and positively at community events with other organizations and with private individuals
9. Avoid conflict of interest