POSITION: Advancement Director 

CLASSIFICATION: Year-Round, Full-Time 

STATUS: Exempt 

REPORTS TO: Managing Director, Operations & Advancement 

SUPERVISES: Assistant Advancement Director, Advancement Coordinator, seasonal advancement team, and various consultants 

COMPENSATION: $120,000 - $135,000, commensurate with experience 

LOCATION: Preference is for this individual to be Massachusetts or NYC-based. Position requires relocating to Williamstown, MA from June to August, during which housing is provided. 

HIRING TIMELINE: Applications to be accepted until the position is filled with a priority application deadline of January 16. Application review and interviews are to be conducted starting January 17 with an anticipated start date in February. 

The Opportunity:

For 70 summers in the Berkshire mountains, Williamstown Theatre Festival has attracted a mosaic of emerging and established artists to shape the theatre landscape at home and abroad. Williamstown is more than its hundreds of productions and stars—it’s a coming together of people and place, talent and town, star power and craft (and so much more). It is total alchemy.

It’s also due for a change. The American theatre no longer holds the same cultural relevance as it did 70 years ago. Rising production costs, shifting media landscapes, and altered attendance patterns threaten the sustainability of theatres across the country. A global racial reckoning has surfaced our industry’s exclusivity and bias. And a national labor movement has challenged the industry to examine its way of working. Just as creative industries continually transform the world through innovative thinking, we’re on a mission to transform theatre-making and theatre-going.

Over the next five years, we will reinvent our festival model as an expansive expression of theatre. One that connects nature, belonging, culture, industry, and community—through strategic partnerships, year-round global programming, and new creative development opportunities.

Williamstown’s Advancement Director will be a crucial participant in catalyzing this evolution. Together with co-Managing Directors Raphael Picciarelli and Kit Ingui, alongside a dedicated staff and board, we will break barriers between artist and audience and reawaken the company’s legacy as a vanguard of American theatre and culture. 

Job Summary:

The Williamstown Theatre Festival is seeking a collaborative and strategic Advancement Director to lead the fundraising and development efforts for a 70+ year old nonprofit organization in a period of exciting growth and transformation. 

Reporting to the Managing Director, Operations & Advancement, this position is responsible for creating and facilitating the strategies necessary to connect and engage with new and longtime supporters of Williamstown Theatre Festival, for securing financial support from individual and institutional donors, and for managing the day-to-day operations of the advancement department. This role works closely with colleagues from across the organization to ensure the institution’s storytelling is compelling and consistently reflective of the Festival’s mission, vision and values. 

Duties include: 

Development of Advancement Strategies 

• Develop and implement advancement strategies for Williamstown’s ?nancial, artistic, and operational efforts that align with its values, including:
  • Reimagine how Williamstown Theatre Festival communicates its story in the philanthropic community.
  • Organize, direct, and participate in building strategies to engage new and returning individual and major gift supporters.
  • Supervise Williamstown’s applications for institutional funding: corporate, foundation, and government grants and sponsorships, and more.
  • Generate new efforts and enhance existing ones to activate the Managing Directors, other staff members, and/or trustees in fundraising strategies.
  • Serve as the staff leader of all capital campaigns.
  • Lead and collaborate on special events.
• Co-lead the development and implementation of broader revenue strategies in support of the new business model of the organization in collaboration with the Managing Directors and key senior leaders, including:
  • Brand, institutional, and commercial partnerships,
  • Direct-to-market revenue and subscription strategies for new forms of content and media produced by the Festival, and
  • Licensing opportunities for content and new media.

Relationship Management

• Cultivate new relationships:
  • Scout for and supervise research of prospective patrons (individuals, foundations, corporations, government agencies and officials, and any potential “outside of the box” revenue sources).
  • Strategize around the search, development, and maintenance of new synergistic community relationships with the specific goal of increasing philanthropic investment over time.
  • Build upon our local business investment including local sourcing of materials and vendor partnerships.
• Maintain relationships with current supporters through active stewardship:
  • Oversee the maintenance and creation of patron bene?ts programs and stewardship events.
  • Ensure the ful?llment of obligations imposed by corporate, foundation, and government grants.
  • Serve as liaison between donors and the artistic process to communicate progress of productions and artistic endeavors.
  • Organize and lead trustees and other volunteers in fundraising and ambassador roles.
• Serve as an ambassador for Williamstown Theatre Festival locally, regionally, and nationally.

Team Building and Internal Communication 

• Exercise a leadership role internally and externally
  • Actively collaborate with senior-level staff on programming and season planning. 
  • Work in close partnership with the Marketing Director to devise a clear communication strategy that grows the patron base by telling the story of Williamstown’s evolution.
  • Support various board committees as requested by the MD.
• Manage an effective advancement team:
  • Recruit, train, and lead an advancement team that currently consists of a year-round Assistant Advancement Director, Advancement Coordinator, summer seasonal assistants, and an external campaign consultant. 
  • Manage the performance of and inspire a results-driven environment for the advancement team. 
• Effectively delegate, actively initiate, and personally complete projects.
• Report regularly to the MDs, senior staff, and Board on fundraising results and projections.
• Embrace other team building and internal communication responsibilities as needed. 

Key Traits and Characteristics: 

As the organization enters a new chapter, the Advancement Director will be a visionary leader, providing focused and strategic leadership that is grounded in collaboration, rigor, curiosity, and joy. They will exhibit a learner’s mindset, with a healthy disregard for the status quo, a penchant for experimentation, and a relentless curiosity. They will be an organized project manager with a robust understanding of organizational culture and change management. They will effectively communicate, both internally and externally, with a directness that aligns stakeholders and achieves desired outcomes. They will be a storyteller, thinking creatively about how we build journeys for all of our stakeholders with experiences and activations that connect to our programming and surprise and delight.

Other expectations include: 

? Embrace the Festival’s commitment to EDIA and Anti-racism by actively participating in and encouraging behaviors among staff members that exemplify respect; interrupting microaggressions and other behaviors that hinder our EDIA and Anti-racism efforts; engaging in the diversification of the workforce; and demonstrating a degree of cultural competency that encourages healthy relationships with all company members. 

? An essential function of this job is in-person work in Williamstown, MA for the months of June, July, and August. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• 5+ years of senior development experience, preferably with a company that has undergone transformation (significant change) and/or growth 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to craft and deliver clear, accurate, and engaging messaging, whether for advancement purposes or in the regular course of business 
• Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to collaborate and facilitate conversations with a variety of stakeholders, including funders, individual donors, vendors, board members, and staff 
• Previous experience leading a team, fostering a cooperative work environment, and positively influencing others to perform their jobs effectively 
• Ability to think strategically, generate new ideas, handle multiple projects simultaneously, set priorities, execute goals and objectives, and meet financial goals and deadlines 
• High aptitude for relationship cultivation and stewardship
• Proficiency in G Suite software (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc)
• Ability to learn new technologies
• Ability to manage multiple projects at once 
• Experience interacting with artists in a close capacity 
• Ability to manage confidential information and use discretion when handling specific tasks 

Compensation & Benefits Package: 

Compensation range is $120,000 - $135,000, commensurate with experience. Benefits package includes 25 days of flexible time off; 10 office holidays, plus one week in August at the conclusion of the summer season and the days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day; health and dental insurance with employer contribution; option to contribute to 403(b) with generous company match after 1 year of employment; and summer season housing provided. 

TO APPLY: Please submit a resume and cover letter through our employment portal (Paylocity) outlining how your background and experience sets you up for success in this position and what you would hope to bring to this role. We appreciate the value of myriad life and work experiences, and we recognize that many paths might adequately prepare someone for this role. We encourage anyone who believes they would be a good fit to apply. 

About Williamstown Theatre Festival 

Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theater artists together for 70 years to create a thrilling summer festival of world premiere work alongside fresh, new revivals. New plays and musicals commissioned, developed, and produced at the Festival fill theaters around the world. In recent years, WTF has been represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, The Rose Tattoo, Grand Horizons, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Soldier, and Lempicka, among others. Cost of Living, which premiered at WTF, received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Learn more at wtfestival.org. 

Working and Living in Williamstown 

Williamstown Theatre Festival’s season takes place on the beautiful campus of Williams College in Williamstown, MA with backdrops of the Berkshire, Green, and Taconic mountain ranges. Williamstown, MA (estimated pop. 7,813) is located in Berkshire County (estimated pop. 128,657) in Western Massachusetts and is an hour’s drive from Albany, NY and 30 minutes from Pittsfield, MA. 

The Williams College campus and the 62’ Center for Theatre & Dance are within walking distance of Spring Street, which has several restaurants with dine-in and takeout options, a coffee shop, an ice cream shop, a movie theater, and several stores. The nearest grocery store is a 10-minute drive from campus and not within walking distance. Having a personal vehicle does provide more flexibility in grocery-shopping and expands dining and activities options. For those who bring vehicles, parking is free at designated locations on Williams campus with a parking pass. For a list of all the things to do and see in Williamstown and the Northern Berkshires, visit DestinationWilliamstown.org. 

All staff are provided housing free of charge on campus at Williams College. Housing is dorm-style with private bedrooms and shared common areas, including bathroom and kitchen. Williams College housing is not air-conditioned. Weather ranges from evenings on the cooler side but can also be quite warm with temperatures in the 90s with high humidity. 

We acknowledge that Williamstown Theatre Festival is a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) located in a county that is 91% white, according to the US Census Bureau. We are actively engaged in the work of becoming a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive institution that not only welcomes BIPOC artists and staff but nurtures an environment that allows everyone to thrive. More specific actions on these efforts can be found in our Progress Report on our website: https://wtfestival.org/work-learn/. 

Williamstown Theatre Festival is committed to telling diverse stories and to fostering an inclusive environment both onstage and off. We are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates. We believe that opportunity, access, resources, and rewards should be available to and for the benefit of all. Therefore, WTF is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants shall be afforded equal employment opportunities without discrimination because of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, sex/gender (including pregnancy and gender identity), disability, military status, veteran status, marital status, familial status, ancestry, genetics, or any other class or characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. Candidates from populations underrepresented in the theatre field are strongly encouraged to apply.