Board Search Open Call
We are seeking new board members who share our vision to build capacity for the next generation of justice and place-based designers for collective liberation. Apply by Monday, September 23rd at 11:59am PST.
Design Futures is looking for four new board members who are eager to bring new and different experiences, perspectives and skills to our organization. We are planning for one or more of the new board members to be a recent student alumni of the Design Futures Student Forum.
Our work focuses on building the skills, relationships and mindsets needed for students passionate about justice and place-based design to dismantle and redesign systems of oppression towards liberation and anti-racism. Most of our time is spent on our annual Student Forum, which brings together students and faculty from as many as 13 universities and practitioners in the field for 5 days of intensive learning and community building. We also host lighter programming throughout the year to support faculty and practitioners. Read our impact report here, and an example post-Forum yearbook here to get a feel for our work.
Design Futures has one half-time staff member who serves as the ED and 6 board members. After 12 successful years, we are moving into a new phase. Our focus and commitment is how to retool and amplify the work we do to both meet the needs of these current times and chart a visionary path for the future of this work. As we transition into this phase,we will re-examine our offerings and look to move towards greater resilience, financial sustainability and movement-alignment. It’s an exciting and important moment for the organization and our work; we are looking for additional passionate and engaged individuals to be partners with us in this process.
If you share our passion and vision for supporting students and the wider place-based design community in advancing this field, and you want to be part of an organization that is working hard to fully embody our values of care, justice, creativity, joy, and courage, we hope you will consider applying.
Click here to fill out the online application. The deadline is Monday, September 23rd at 11:59 am PT. See more instructions in "How to Fill Out and Submit Your Application" section below.
An Invitation
If you’re interested but maybe also a little unsure if you really have the qualifications to be a board member, let us assure you. You do not need a degree or a salary. We encourage current students who have experienced Design Futures to apply. And you will not be required to fundraise or donate your personal funds. What unites us is our dedication to collective liberation and dismantling systems of oppression using design and creativity, and working with communities most impacted to center their agency in shaping our future.
We are committed to enhancing the diversity of our board to better reflect the lived experience of the many communities our work seeks to design with and shift power towards. We value a broad range of skills and experiences and welcome individuals from all backgrounds.
We particularly encourage those who may bring perspectives that are currently underrepresented on our board to apply, including Black, brown and Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, people with poor or working class backgrounds, immigrants and formerly incarcerated people.
Additionally, we are prioritizing individuals with the following backgrounds, skills, and experience. We expect individual board members to have background or skills in one of these areas and not all!
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Philanthropy and/or fundraising expertise: While all members of the board will be involved in fundraising, we are seeking someone with 7 or more years of experience working in philanthropy or fundraising, who can help DF think critically about its short- and long-term fundraising strategies. We especially seek out those who have relationships to potential funders.
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Network Builders: As we grow, we see many opportunities for potentially transformative strategic partnerships with other like-minded organizations. We are seeking individuals with relationships to potential collaborators (e.g. university admin and faculty, practitioners, leaders in values-aligned networks) invested in furthering the design & justice education space.
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Design Futures Recent Alumni: We are looking for a recent alum of the Design Futures Forum to join the board! This person will have participated in the 5-day Forum as a student within the past 3 years and can be a current student or graduate.
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University Faculty: Our board seeks an additional university faculty member to help us be in touch with the evolving academic and bureaucratic realities of our membership. We are looking for a current university faculty who teaches and/or is involved in programs that support education at the intersection of design and justice. We are especially interested in faculty who have experienced the Forum before and have helped secure their university’s membership with Design Futures.
Some Board Member Basics
- Board members can live anywhere in the US.
- Design Futures does not compensate board members.
- Board members serve three-year terms.
- This is a working board. We seek individuals who have a deep passion for this work who have the capacity to think creatively and act proactively to grow the organization with the other Board members and ED. We are interested in individuals who can go beyond advising and take a hands-on role.
- The board meets four times a year for two-hour meetings and may meet more frequently with their committee or the ED.
- The board also meets in-person at the annual Student Forum, which often takes place in late May-early June. Board members are encouraged but not required to attend. Travel reimbursements are offered if we have the funds to do so.
- In past years, the board has also met during a 2-day winter Faculty Convening in-person. Since 2020, the Faculty Convening has gone remote and has been reduced to an optional training workshop. It may return to its former in-person format in 2025, in which case Board members will be encouraged to join but not required.
Board Member Responsibilities
- Attend four 2-hour board meetings per year
- Time commitment is approximately two to three hours a month. Hours may be lower than this range in mid summer to fall, and higher than this range in the winter and spring.
- Participate actively in one or two board committees, which vary in their time commitment. Committees include Executive (compliance, finances, strategy), Outreach (relationship building, fundraising, membership recruitment), and Programs (curriculum development). They may meet every other month in the winter and spring, when the Forum approaches. Currently, most of the work happening outside of the all-board meetings happens via signing up for tasks on an individual basis rather than through committee work.
- Hands-on role in fundraising via direct outreach, design of materials, donation, etc. Board members are not not required to donate.
- Participate in sharing the open call (Request for Proposals) for speakers and facilitators for our programing.
- Participate in recruiting universities to the Forum through calls with university representatives, email encouragement, and when applicable, engagement with people in your network.
- We will review all applications and respond to all applicants.
- Finalists participate in an interview (virtual, 45 minutes).
- We anticipate the following schedule for this process:
- Applications due: Monday, September 23rd at 11:59 am Pacific
- Interviews: Mid October
- Final decisions made: Early November
- Onboarding Session: December
The deadline to apply is September 23rd at 11:59 am PT.
How to Fill Out and Submit Your Application
Please fill out the application below and submit it using the Google Form here.
Application must be received by Monday, September 23rd at 11:59 am PST
If you require accommodations or need to submit the application in a different format, please reach out to Design Futures at designfuturesforum@gmail.com. We will do our best to accommodate your needs within reason of our capacity.
Thank you for your interest in joining the board of Design Futures.