May 21
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Aug 19
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San Francisco, CA 94112
Are you a passionate changemaker? Do you thrive in collaborative spaces and enjoy fighting for equity in the arts? Are you excited to grow as a leader and be at the forefront of arts education work that is dedicated to inclusion and anti-racism? Performing Arts Workshop (the "Workshop") is looking for dynamic individuals to join our Board of Directors. New additions to the board will be willing to roll up their sleeves to uplift the Workshop’s mission and lend their voice to help us shift the common concept of how traditional Board of Directors function. Our Story Performing Arts Workshop is a Bay Area, BIPOC-led nonprofit organization established in 1965 to equalize access to arts and arts education and help young people develop critical thinking, creative expression, Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL), media literacy, and essential life skills. Today, the Workshop brings sequential arts instruction grounded in inquiry and reflection to 1500-4200 students ages 3-18 each year. Our nationally recognized artists conduct semester and year-long residencies in world dance, music, spoken word poetry, theater, visual, and media arts. To advance equity in education, we prioritize working with communities-especially BIPOC and queer students, system-impacted students, low-income students, and San Francisco’s District 11 students-who often have fewer arts education resources available to them. The Workshop’s success in youth development-based arts education has been recognized by UNESCO, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts and has been featured in Youth Today magazine and IssueLab, an online journal for research on promising social practices. The Workshop has been honored four times by the California State Senate and Assembly and twice by the City of San Francisco for its work with youth. Traditional Board Purpose The Workshop’s Board of Directors is the custodian of this extraordinary institution and has the ultimate responsibility for its well-being and effectiveness. As a Board member, you are an essential and important link to the community and expected to exercise your specific skills on behalf of the Workshop. By committing to serve on the Board, you would execute the stewardship, governance, and fiduciary responsibility of a board member and work in good faith with the staff and other board members toward The Workshop’s collective mission and vision of what we believe this board could be. We act together, not as individual members. Challenging Conventions Taking the Board to the Next Level Performing Arts Workshop has been a pillar of equity-centered arts education in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost six decades, and we’re not stopping there. Over the last 4 years, we have begun a positive transformation to challenge traditional models of how nonprofits and boards operate. In 2022, we onboarded two co-executive directors to lead the organization-two women of color rooted in the communities that Performing Arts Workshop works for-all through a power-sharing and anti-racist approach. We are on the cutting edge of implementing equity and inclusion practices at every level of the organization, and we understand that the traditional structure of boards and nonprofits in the U.S. makes it difficult to implement strategies that we believe would support this effort. Many organizations attempt to diversify their boards, but the reality is that the nature of boards can be very restrictive (i.e., the financial expectations and the amount of unpaid work that it requires to sit on a board). This is why we are in the midst of an intentional overhaul of our organization’s board of directors, re-assessing the board’s structure, recruiting new board members to help guide this work alongside us, and creating an experience that is receptive to the needs of the people that we want on it. We are not yet where we want to be. We are excitedly working toward arriving. As we challenge the structure of traditional boards, we want to continue to root our programming in serving Black and Brown young people, LGBTQ+ youth, within and beyond the District 11 Excelsior neighborhood where the Workshop resides. With this in mind, we are looking for new members who represent the communities we work for-including young people, alums, neighbors, artists, organizers, administrators, and others passionate about our goals-those who can help us build a new model for how boards can better serve their organizations. New members can expect to share their input and be heard from the start of their board service. As the Workshop evolves, we are excited for more changemakers to join us to help uplift our work, evolve our collective voice as leaders in this space, and take our board to the next level. Profile of Board Members In recent years, the Workshop has begun a metamorphosis, slowly transforming into a better version of ourselves. We’d love for the next batch of board members to add to the vibrant mix that makes us an organization of the people. "A justice imagination is resistance at work. In a time period when folks laugh at us for believing justice is possible, those with a justice imagination find it within their hearts to imagine anyhow. That is our hope for you, that you might come away from this devotional with a desire to imagine a better world despite the pain of the moment." - Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes and Andrew Wilkes, "Psalms for Black Lives" (2022) Who are we looking for? Skills & Qualities Ideal candidates will possess the following skills and qualities: ● Passionate about youth arts education and the Workshop’s mission ● Energized by amplifying the Workshop’s impact and bringing in and activating allies in support of purpose-driven work ● Deeply committed to upholding and advancing anti-racist and equity-centered practices ● Experience with change management - planning and implementing organizational changes ● Financial, legal, mediation, HR, marketing, fundraising, employment law, corporate networking, venue and event management, strategic planning, or board experience ● Excited by the potential to transform how traditional non-profit boards operate ● An engaged and deeply rooted advocate for their communities ● Sound knowledge in their respective fields ● A team player who enjoys building, collaborating with, and finding creative solutions alongside others with kindness, humility, and grace ● Comfort experimenting, learning from failure, and navigating the unknown ● A strong communicator that is clear, timely, and aware of their impact ● Accountable to seeing through long-term commitments ● Resident and/or familiarity of San Francisco’s District 11 a plus Role The role of the Workshop’s Board of Directors is to provide advice, council, and strategic thinking to the Workshop as a whole. In this key moment of change, we are looking for dedicated thought-partners who can maintain the following involvement: ● Attend all meetings of the board and relevant committees. This includes online quarterly board meetings, a fall and spring in-person retreat, and service on at least one online committee. ● Lend your sound knowledge as board members throughout the entirety of your three-year term, which is renewable for a second term. ● Represent and serve as an ambassador for the Workshop by acting as a spokesperson and communicating our mission, work, and values to your (and our) communities. ● The usual time commitment for board participation is 6-7 hours per month; however, this workload may increase at first as we recruit more board members and innovate our board structure. As the highest leadership body of the organization and to satisfy its fiduciary duties, the board is collectively responsible for these areas: ● Ensure adequate financial resources: Secure adequate resources for the organization to fulfill its mission. Approve and monitor the budget. Make a personal, annual contribution that is significant to you and commensurate with your financial ability. ● Identify potential allies and develop relationships that help support the mission and values of the organization. This may look like assisting in individual donor and corporate donor evaluation, cultivation, and solicitation processes. This may also look like bringing people together that are not donors or board members that have other ways they can help uplift our shared goals. ● Attend, support, and assist in fundraising for special events. Volunteer and attend the annual Student Showcase. ● Share resources and talents with the organization, including professional expertise and contacts for financial support and in-kind donations. ● Protect assets and provide proper financial oversight: Assist in developing the annual budget and ensuring that proper financial controls are in place. ● Build a competent board: Articulate prerequisites for candidates, orient new members, and periodically and comprehensively evaluate their own performance. ● Participate in the identification, recruitment, and development of board members, as well as advisory and committee members. Identify individuals for involvement with the Workshop to expand the demographic profile in terms of ethnic composition, age, profession, funding sources, and personal contacts, ensuring the Workshop is reflective of the communities it centers in its work and resourced to effectively accomplish its goals. ● Support ongoing change management on the board as we continue to innovate its structure, policies, and membership to create a more just, equitable, and effective body that meets the needs of the Workshop and innovates a replicable model that can better serve the field. ● Enhance the organization’s public standing: Articulate the organization’s mission, accomplishments, and goals to the public and garner support from the community through advocacy. ● Ensure legal and ethical integrity: Adherence to legal standards and ethical norms. Duty of Care: Commonly expressed as the duty of "care that an ordinarily prudent person would exercise in a like position and under similar circumstances." This means that a board member owes the duty to exercise reasonable care when they make a decision as a steward of the organization. Duty of Loyalty: A standard of faithfulness; a board member must give undivided allegiance when making decisions affecting the organization. This means that a board member can never use information obtained as a member for personal gain, but must act in the best interests of the organization. Duty of Obedience: Requires board members to be faithful to the organization’s mission. They are not permitted to act in a way that is inconsistent with the central goals of the organization. This duty requires board members to obey the law and the organization’s internal rules and regulations. Determine mission and purpose: Create and review a statement of mission and purpose that articulates the organization’s goals, means, and primary constituents served. Additional Responsibilities: ● Select the chief executive: Reach consensus on the ED(s)’ responsibilities and undertake a careful search to find the most qualified individual(s) for the position. ● Support and evaluate the chief executive: Ensure that the chief executive has the moral and professional support they need to further the goals of the organization. ● Ensure effective strategic planning: Actively participate in an overall planning process and assist in implementing and monitoring the plan’s goals. ● Monitor and strengthen programs and services: Determine which programs are consistent with the organization’s mission and monitor their effectiveness. ● Commitment to the mission and goals of the Workshop. Become familiar with the Workshop programs and attend at least one program/event each year. ● Ensure that the organization operates within its adopted by-laws. This includes recommending and approving all policies determining the purpose, governing principles, functions and activities of the organization, and overseeing their implementation. What the Workshop can do for you Just as we are looking for board members to inform and support a new model for board service, we are also committed to serving board members and supporting their personal and professional goals. Some benefits to joining the Workshop’s board include: ● Priority access to the Workshop’s new venue, the Geneva Power House, to host your own events and activities ● Free t-shirts and other swag from the Workshop ● Invaluable networking and relationship-building opportunities with board and staff members, which includes award-winning artists, educators, organizers, and leaders in their respective fields ● A strong resume-building experience ● A deep, hands-on understanding of the functions and possibilities of non-profit boards. You will gain on-the-ground experience of what typical processes, successes, and challenges of board service can entail, an essential skill for those interested in founding their own organizations, becoming Executive Directors, or taking on fundraising, volunteer management, or other leadership roles in their communities ● Participating in reshaping what boards look like outside the white, wealthy, retired membership norm. Help architect a model that supports the successful proliferation of young, Black, Brown, LGBTQIA+ boards rooted in anti-racist and equitable practices. ● Growth as an organizer and administrator working with an organization rooted in mission-driven work at the forefront of equity and anti-racist practices in Bay Area arts education organizations ● Shape San Francisco youth arts education from inside one of the city’s oldest dance, poetry, visual arts, and multi-media organizations ● Inform how the Workshop engages with the youth and families in its District 11 Excelsior neighborhood ● The opportunity to give back and pay it forward in one of the most invaluable volunteer roles an organization can offer
Date Posted: May 21, 2025
