Community Programs Coordinator

Reports to Director of Folklife and Community Collaborations

Sandy Spring Museum

Sandy Spring Museum (SSM) is a private, independently-operated museum located between Washington, DC and Baltimore. The museum advances social equity by connecting people to Montgomery County’s diverse cultural heritage. Originally established as a history museum, we now focus on creating collaborative programs with community members, that educate and celebrate our region’s rich cultural heritage. The Museum is also the state-designated Regional Folklife Center. Our goal is to become a key place for the community to have shared and inspiring experience of the region’s cultural heritage and build social cohesion and equity in the process. During the past 9 years, the museum’s budget and staff have tripled in size. We seek to continue this trajectory by hiring a Community Programs Coordinator with a passion for working with communities, producing folklife-related programs, and who brings energy, enthusiasm, and an entrepreneurial approach to their work.

Job Description:

The successful Community Programs Coordinator will lead the administration, planning, and logistics of all public programs at SSM while maintaining a commitment to our mission of equity and cultural heritage by:

1. working with community partners to bring their ideas to fruition,
2. identifying and cultivating community partnerships to support Museum’s work and to sustain area’s traditions
3. envisioning dynamic ways to present, educate, and support the region’s traditions
4. building awareness of the Museum’s services,

Primary responsibilities:

Vision

• Help execute Sandy Spring Museum’s vision of increasing equity through cultural heritage engagements so that anyone in the community feels comfortable submitting an idea for a program, exhibit, event, etc. and that public programs become a primary driver of Museum’s reputation as the premiere site for cultural heritage in region.

Programming

• Oversee the creation of community-driven exhibits, programs, events and workshops in tandem with partners, staff and interns.
• Work directly with community partners to assess program ideas and create a plan for successful execution using the Museum’s resources to their fullest extent.
• Work collaboratively with community partners, execute ideas from start to finish, documenting in writing the arrangement with each community partner.
• Coordinate internal museum programs (those not co-created with the community), such as the monthly speaker series, and virtual transcribe-a-thons.
• Serve as the program team member for large special events like the annual Strawberry Festival.

Community Collaboration

• Plan and execute strategies for increasing depth and breadth of relationships between community members and Museum

Visit https://www.sandyspringmuseum.org/get-involved/opportunities/ for more information.