Crosshatch (was) Hiring!
But we’ve filled the positions and will announce the new employees soon! We’re keeping this post up because it still has lots of great information about our hiring process and our organization. If you want to be notified about the next round of hiring, sign up for our newsletter!
If you’ve ever wanted to work as part of the Crosshatch Team, this might be your chance. We are seeking to fill two new positions: Communications Director and Development + Special Projects Director.
Quick links: webinar / Q&A / FORM FOR QUESTIONS
DEVELOPMENT & SPecial projects job description
communications job description
About Crosshatch
Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology, a locally-based but nationally recognized non-profit organization, is seeking two talented and committed individuals to help us grow our movement. The mission of Crosshatch is to build strong communities through the intersection of art, farming, ecology and economy. Our work is grounded in place, dedicated to collaboration, interested in small-scale interventions that prototype new solutions, and, most importantly, committed to supporting the artists, farmers, makers, cultural workers and other community members who are the lifeblood of our community. If this has your eyes shining, read on.
We’re a small staff that’s ready to grow. We have no central office and we all work from home. That said, events and in-person meetings, as well as a commitment to our local community, require that staff live in the 10-county area (give or take) of northwest Lower Michigan. We have periodic deadlines and occasional event-driven or calendar-driven demands, but we celebrate a flexible schedule. We are a family-friendly organization that loves our work but recognizes that life is much broader than even the best job. We invest in staff training and professional development in the hopes we can keep great staff around for the long haul, even as their skills and interests evolve.
Hiring Process
Our hiring process is unique (but based on a model developed by our friends at Strong Towns), so please read all of the following carefully. Do not contact us about these positions, or send us a resume, except when specifically instructed to—doing so will disqualify you from consideration. We strive to ensure that our process is as open as possible.
We welcome all applicants, regardless of background, experience, awards, and degrees, and will judge you only on the skills you demonstrate during the application process. We will not even ask your name, let alone for your resume and background, until we are ready to interview you.
If you think one of these positions might be a good fit for you, we strongly encourage you to apply.
First, we invite you to review the job descriptions, and then submit any questions anonymously through this form. Questions will be answered both in a webinar (archived here) and on a FAQ posted on our website. Our job postings are transparent about wages and benefits. Ask away!
We will conduct three rounds of discernment. During the first round, we will invite all interested applicants to fill out a questionnaire. The link to the questionnaire is located at the bottom of each job description. This should take around 90 minutes to complete, and is designed to directly mirror the daily work of each position. The work you perform for the first round is based around past or invented projects—we want to see your skills at work, not steal your labor. Nothing you submit will be used for anything other than helping us select the best candidate.
We will review each submission and then invite a select number of applicants to submit a rouond 2 questionnaire. This should take no more than 20 minutes to complete. We will review each submission and then invite a very small number of applicants to submit a resume (no cover letter needed) and participate in an interview (by Zoom or in-person, depending on factors including COVID-safety).
We then will make a formal job offer to one applicant for each position.
Job Descriptions
Development and Special Projects Director
Starting salary exactly $50,100.00
We are looking for someone with skills in both project management and fundraising, able to dive deep into our largest and most complex projects and move them forward. Such a person will be adept at communicating well with those that support our mission (from our year-end donors to local family foundations and federal grantmakers), as well as with local officials, and will be unafraid of making “the ask.” Most importantly, we are looking for someone with the skills to chart a path through the labyrinth: to organize information, tasks, messages, timelines, resources, and stakeholders, in pursuit of a few key projects, including Hatchquarters: our most audacious (and engaging) goal.
Interested in development work but inexperienced? We’ll invest in formal fundraising training for an applicant who shines brightly otherwise. You should be highly self-motivated, but know that this work will be strongly supported by the co-directors and program staff.
Read more about the Development and Special Projects position here.
Communications Director
Starting salary exactly $45,925.00
We have so much to say, and until now, so little capacity to say it. This position changes that. Our first full-time communications director will develop and implement a full-spectrum communications plan, including written, visual and audio content of all kinds. You, ideal candidate, are a gifted writer, able to shift voices depending on your audience, to move from rough ideas to finished content quickly, to speak from the Crosshatch perspective, and to help other team members shape their ideas into compelling prose. You also have a talent for marketing, able to develop strategies for using our limited time and resources to connect to our true fans both locally and around the world. Add to that some solid technical capacity around multi-media production, and an ability to step in front of the camera or microphone with poise, and you’re the person we’ve been waiting for.