It’s good to be Board.

AIGA DC is looking for members of the creative community who want to help guide our local chapter by serving on the Board of Directors!

AIGA DC is run by an all-volunteer board. We are a motivated, passionate group of working creative professionals who want to help shape and give back to the creative community in DMV.

You can nominate yourself or someone else through Sunday, April 19 Monday, April 20!.

All nominees who want to be considered for a board position must attend the virtual nomination session on Tuesday, April 28.

Why should I join the Board?

Being on the AIGA DC Board of Directors is a unique opportunity, both professionally and personally. Serving on the board is a chance to:

• Learn new skills like event planning and public speaking
• Develop leadership and project management experience
• Make connections in the larger creative community

Board members also have a lot of fun — it’s a chance to make new friends with other people who are passionate about the kind of work we do.

Board members also attend all AIGA DC events for free — so that’s a bonus.

Who are we looking for?

New members of the AIGA DC Board are trained for their specific roles at our mandatory local board retreat in the summer, and receive guidance throughout the year from more senior board members. So what we’re looking for is people with valuable soft skills — teamwork, communication, flexibility, patience, time management, and motivation.

Board members do not need to be designers, but should have an interest in supporting the creative community. Past board members have been writers, engineers, development or fundraising specialists, project managers, and business owners.

It’s important to our chapter that the AIGA DC Board of Directors be diverse and represent the DC design community. We aim to have a Board with diversity in industry, age, gender, professional experience, race, background, education, income, physical ability and more. However, nominees are not required to offer this information.

What are the commitments of serving on the Board?

All board members are ambassadors for AIGA DC to the creative community, so we follow professional guidelines as well as chapter by-laws.

Joining the AIGA DC Board of Directors is a two-year commitment. You can also serve for longer than that (and many do). At the end of each year, board members can decide if they want to keep their current role, or move to another open position.

All board members must:

• Be (or become) members of AIGA in good standing at the Supporting level or above.
• Attend required planning retreats and monthly board meetings
• Be responsive on Slack and email (Slack is our main communications platform)

Other commitments vary depending on the role.

What are the open roles?

For 2020-2021 we are looking for up to 12 new board members across a variety of roles.

This year we are looking to fill two Director-level roles. Directors are part of the AIGA DC executive team, and have direct reports from other members of the Board. 

Operations Director & Treasurer 

Are you a DesignOps devotee? Have a passion for process, procedure, and protocol? Then you might be a great fit for our Operations Director. This role oversees the operations team who works with our sponsors, volunteers and community. They are responsible for providing monthly finance reports and proposing new ways for us to be more efficient with our time and resources.

Communications Director

Are you clear, concise, collaborative, and completely into making communications key? Please be our communications director! This role oversees the communications team who produce our social media and weekly emails, and serves as editor-in-chief to make sure our words are all the good ones.

Programming Team

Programming Coordinators are the lifeblood of the programming team, conceiving of, planning, and executing events throughout the year on topics that are top of mind for our community.

The DotGovDesign Chair has a focus on design as a force for good in the government, creating programming about civic design and for the designers inside the government. This could include planning and executing a day-long conference.

The Awards Chair is focused on honoring the best of the best in the DMV — for 2020-2021, they would convene a committee to find our next AIGA DC Fellow.

The Digital Programming Chair sees programming as multi-channel and cross-platform. In an average month, this person might create a digital-only event — like #AMAs in our D&I Slack channel —  help extend other in-person programs to digital by offering live streaming or social media interviews, or develop a proposal for a whole new way for people to interact.

Communications Team

The Editor & Digital Content Chair is a comms team mainstay, helping make sure that all our content is in tip-top shape before it hits the eyeballs of the community. In an average week, this person will review our marketing emails and social posts, to ensure they’re error-free and reflect our tone and voice. They also plan and execute digital content, whether that be blog posts interviewing our major speakers or social media campaigns for topics of interest.

Operations Team

The Development & Sponsorships Chair forges the connections in the community that let us do all the other awesome things AIGA DC does. In an average month, this person will work with the executive team to secure a sponsorship for an event, develop long-term support partnerships for our chapter, and propose new ideas to ensure  that the sponsors get value for their ever-so-generous contributions.

The Volunteer Chair brings together our programming team with the wonderful members of the community who want to help out at events — taking in new volunteers, sending out opportunities, and making sure that the volunteers feel the love and appreciation we have for their efforts. In an average month, they will work with program leads to identify needs, send our recruiting emails, and put together volunteer coverage plans.

The Community Coordinator is the go-to person for our chapter members. In an average month, you may help an organization or individual with their membership, help a group attend a keynote event, and put together a survey to help get our community’s feedback..

You can let us know the role or roles you’d be interested in on the nomination form, but you don’t have to. You’ll have another chance to learn about the roles at the nomination session, and ultimately the nominating committee will assign roles according to the best fit among the new members of the board.

What’s the process to join the Board?

Nominations

You can nominate yourself or someone else by filling out the nomination form.

If you want to nominate someone else, we just ask for their name and contact information, and a short statement about why you think they’d make a good board member.

If you are nominated by someone else, we’ll follow up with you to see if you accept the nomination.

To nominate yourself or accept a nomination, we’ll ask you a few more questions about your experience and interests, and then ask you to share:

• A copy of your resume
• A short writing sample – a draft of an email asking someone you admire to speak at an AIGA DC event! You can make up whatever logistics you like – time, date, location, other speakers, etc.

Interviews

The committee will review the nomination forms, and invite selected nominees to a required virtual nomination session in the evening on Tuesday, April 28.

During the session you’ll learn more about the board and the open roles, and have a group interview with members of the nominating committee, which is made up of members of the current AIGA DC Board of Directors, one advisory board member and one member-at-large.

Selection

After the session, the committee will review all the nominations and recommend new board members. Per our chapter bylaws, the committee will take into account the professional diversity of the membership and the need to represent the interests of the entire chapter membership.

If you have any questions, please email us at talktous@dc.aiga.org.