Event Date: 02.25.2021
Time: 2:30-5pm
Part of Mass Cultural Council’s Recover, Rebuild, Renew Series
Nonprofit leadership can be stressful and isolating. It is often our own peers who can best help us find a way forward. Participants in this two-part workshop will hear from a diverse group of nonprofit Executive Directors of arts organizations across Massachusetts as they reflect honestly about ways they are navigating the difficult waters we are all swimming in. Participants will then have the opportunity to ask questions of panelists in a large group discussion. Following the discussion, participants will be given tools to reflect on their own “pain points” in order to choose an affinity group for session two. Session two will consist of a combination of facilitated affinity groups, sharing of leadership frameworks and individual goal setting. Each leader will leave the workshop with an “accountability partner” from the training who they will be encouraged to maintain contact with for support and further guidance.
This is a two-part online session that combines panel presentation, individual work, learning of new frameworks and facilitated small group and pair discussion. This session is for Executive Directors (and similar leaders, including Managing Directors) only, with a limit of 50. Please register by February 23, 5PM to allow for peer matching.
Outcomes: At the end of this session, participants will be able to identify strategies to address professional stressors and recognize opportunities for growth, verbalize the “pain points” of their own work as it is now, identify an area of growth to improve their own approach to leadership, and leverage connections in the field who provide professional support and accountability.
Consulting Firm: EA Strategic Partners, Boston, MA
Content Experts: Anita Morson-Matra & Eryn Johnson
Anita Morson-Matra is an Independent Consultant with 15 years of experience in organizational leadership and nonprofit management. Anita is invested in working with organizations and leadership professionals that work across sectors to empower communities. As a consultant, Anita helps organizations to build internal leadership, strengthen local partnerships, engage stakeholders, build coalitions, identify advocacy areas and become sustainable. Her recent/current clients include the Roxbury Cultural District, Now + There, and the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts. Anita served as the Interim Executive Director of the Franklin Park Coalition (FPC) in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Highlights of her work with FPC include partnerships with the City of Boston Parks Department, Franklin Park Art Grove, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Public Health Commission. While serving as the Management Consultant with the Roxbury Cultural District (RCD), the organization was invited to join The Boston Foundation’s Place Leadership Network in 2019. Anita has served on the City of Malden’s Walkability Committee, the Board of the Boston Cyclists Union, the Board of the Franklin Park Coalition, and the Board of Girls on the Run.
Anita has a certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from the Institute of Nonprofit Practice at Tufts University. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Psychology, completed graduate coursework in Educational Psychology at New York University and is currently finishing a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University.
Eryn Johnson is an Independent Consultant with close to 25 years of experience as a leader of nonprofit arts agencies in the Greater Boston area. As a consultant, Eryn helps organizations to develop values based programs, staff supports and fundraising strategies. Her recent/current clients include the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Eryn served for thirteen years as the Executive Director of the Community Art Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts – home to the Do It Your Damn Self!! National Youth Film Festival (the oldest youth curated film festival in the country).
Eryn stewarded the Community Art Center through dramatic program expansion resulting in both statewide and national recognition including being named the Citizen’s Bank Champion in Action in Community Art in 2018, receiving a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant in 2017 and being invited to join The Boston Foundation’s Place Leadership Network in 2019. Under her leadership, the Community Art Center started a public art program in 2011, which has completed 15+ installations since its inception including commissions from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alexandria Real Estate and the City of Cambridge. Eryn helped to develop the Youth Development in the Arts Youth Worker Training curriculum in 2010 in collaboration with the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Health Resources in Action and Lesley University. Since that time she has co-led in person and online trainings in Creative Youth Development locally and nationally. She was named a Creative Activist by ArtCorps in 2012, was a founding member of the Cambridge Non-Profit Coalition, served on the board of MASSCreative and served on the City of Cambridge Mayor’s Arts Task Force. Eryn received her Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Oberlin College and her Masters in Performance Studies from New York University.
Auto-generated captions will be provided. If you have additional questions or to request additional accommodations to ensure your participation, please contact Michael Ibrahim.
Note: This is a two-part series. Register for Part 2.
