Become a Vision Quest Member
Volunteer Position Description
Mark DeGarmo Dance (AKA Dynamic Forms, Inc.) is a New York City-based nonprofit dance organization founded in 1987 with a social justice and equity mission that has produced over 100 original dances and 28 international tours with government and corporate backing involving cultural diplomacy and exchange across 13 countries. Our choice of the schools where we bring our educational programs, and the audiences with whom we share our choreographic work, has always been driven by an anti-racism stance. MDD’s mission integrates education, performance, and intercultural community through dance. President Barack Obama commended Mark DeGarmo Dance for its contributions to our “communities and the nation.” The National Endowment for the Arts deemed MDD’s public elementary school education programs “a national model.” Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer declared November 17, 2017 as “Mark DeGarmo Dance Day in Manhattan.”
We seek Volunteer Members for our Vision Quest Strategic Planning Task Force to begin in fall 2023. Members will bring a variety of new perspectives to MDD’s strategic planning for its next decade of development. These new approaches are especially valuable during COVID-19 and this unprecedented era’s risks, challenges and opportunities. We seek to diversify and develop new revenue streams via new and existing programs and collaborative opportunities. We want to leverage our 35-year history, including our artist-driven archive-in-development and our local, national, and international contacts and networks.
Responsibilities:
● Convene via Zoom every 3 weeks for 4 to 5 months with intervening team assignments.
● Brainstorm and imagine external/environmental and internal/organizational factors to support MDD and its mission, activities, and sustainable growth.
● Create a strategic planning statement (the what) and marketing and business plan outlines (the how).
● Make recommendations to the Board by its February 2023 monthly meeting.
● Strengthen our public image as one that always has been and always will be driven by our mission to foment racial, economic, educational, professional, and cultural equity.
Key Skills and Attributes (across our transdisciplinary task force):
● Entrepreneurial innovation and invention.
● Fundraising and fund development.
● Systems analysis and strategic planning.
● Information and communication technologies.
● Knowledge of, or experience with, how online teaching and learning are developing during COVID.
● Elementary educational product and program development.
● Innovative business planning, including not-for-profit, and development of collaborative and mutually beneficial models and opportunities.
● Knowledge of markets, strategic multi-platform marketing, promo, and advertising.
● New local, regional, national, and international client development and sales.
● Operations’ innovations and improvements.
● Succession and sustainability planning.
● Resource analysis and development including monetization of existing cultural assets.
● Public and private strategic partnerships.
Qualifications:
● 3-15 years experience in a similar or related position.
● Transdisciplinary knowledge and understanding.
● Creativity and creative process practice across field(s) and domain(s).
● Qualitative or quantitative data analysis experience.
● Ease with theory and practice in chosen field(s).
● Operations, management, and strategic experience.
● Computer information technology knowledge across platforms and programs.
● Combined local, national, and international experiences and accomplishments a plus.
Compensation:
This is a volunteer position with networking opportunities; and the opportunity for high impact.
Application Instructions:
The opportunity will remain open until filled. Qualified candidates should email cover letter and résumé (1-2 pp.) or cv (4 pp.) to: search@markdegarmodance.org
MARK DEGARMO DANCE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, national origin, marital status, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, personal appearance, family responsibilities, political affiliation, or enrollment in a college, university, technical school, or adult education.
All inquiries are kept confidential.
About Mark DeGarmo Dance
Mark DeGarmo Dance has been a resident organization in MDD Studio Theater 310 at The Clemente Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side since 2001. MDD has gained highly competitive grants from government, corporate, and foundation sources, and individuals of high net worth. Leslie and Daniel Ziff donated $925,000 from 2012 to 2016. Mark DeGarmo Dance annually reaches over 2,200,000 individuals across all outreach and up to five NYC public schools with over 3,000 economically challenged students.
MDD’s “Partnerships in Literacy through Dance and Creativity©” is an interdisciplinary evidence-based embodied-cognition educational intervention studied by Johns Hopkins University. JHU research found that MDD’s students with the benefit of the 16-lesson program saw their state reading scores rise by a “statistically significant” amount. 95% of Partnerships’ classroom teachers wanted the MDD program to return the following school year. MDD’s program has focused for 18 years on New York City BIPOC pre-kindergarten to grade 5 public school students living under the U.S. poverty line in communities of color that are disenfranchised and under-resourced in dance and arts education. Focus over the past five years has included English language learners and students with disabilities.
Mark B. DeGarmo, Ph.D., is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and researcher, and Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of MDD. His work has been recognized with honors and awards from the Fulbright Scholar Program, The U.S. Department of State, and The White House. He earned a Ph.D. from Union Institute & University grounded in Arts and Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies and a B.F.A. in Dance from The Juilliard School.