Program Director, American Arts

The Henry Luce Foundation seeks a Program Director to lead our American Arts grantmaking portfolio.

About the Henry Luce Foundation

The Henry Luce Foundation, established in 1936, is a private, nonprofit organization that seeks to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative scholarship, cultivating leadership, and fostering international understanding. With a focus on American art, Asia, theology, higher education, and public policy, the Foundation supports collaborative, community-engaged research and community-led solutions to the complex challenges that have created deep divisions and inequities in our society. 

About the American Art Program

Over the last 43 years, the Luce Foundation’s American Art Program has awarded more than $240 million in grants to museums and art organizations in all fifty states, in support of exhibitions, publications, collections, and scholarly training. The Program has enabled the field to expand the definition of American art and to develop ethical approaches to collecting and exhibiting art. Over the last decade, the Program has devoted particular attention to art created by Indigenous, African American, LGBTQ+, and AAPI makers. It provided critical assistance to institutions during the COVID shutdown. And the Program encouraged learning across museums, helping to build a community of practice related to social justice.

Program Director Duties and Responsibilities

Working in partnership with the Vice-President for Programs, the Program Director, American Art, is responsible for the overall direction of the program, its grantmaking, and assessment of its effectiveness. The Program Director develops program goals and strategies, identifies benchmarks, and tracks progress towards grantmaking goals. They also invite and assess proposals, design and launch special initiatives, represent the Foundation within the field of American art, and maintain deep awareness of trends and challenges within the field.

Currently, the American Art program awards more than $8 million annually in three broad categories:

Responsive Grants which support a wide range of art museum projects that reconsider and reinvigorate collections through partnerships with diverse collaborators and communities;

Exhibition Competition supporting scholarly loan exhibitions that contribute significantly to the study and understanding of art of the United States, including all facets of Native American art.

Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art supporting scholarly training in Art History through dissertation fellowships annually to doctoral candidates at colleges and universities in the United States.

Throughout the grantmaking cycle, the Program Director identifies potential grantee partners, recommends grants, and cultivates and maintains relationships with grantees and potential grantees. Specifically, the Program Director:

• Designs and implements initiatives, RFPs, invitational competitions, and other strategies to elicit proposals that advance the program’s goals.

• Works closely with applicants and grantees as they develop, carry out, and evaluate projects.

• Selects proposals to be recommended for grants.

• Assesses the effectiveness of grantmaking strategies.

• Actively seeks to make connections among grantees and to connect grantees to resources they may need in order to carry out their work more effectively.

• Travels in order to deepen knowledge of the field, develop and maintain relationships, and explore new work and new partnerships.

• Communicates about the Program and its work to the Foundation’s Board, field leaders, and the public, including by writing, making public presentations, and contributing to the Foundation’s communications channels.

 Candidate Qualifications and Background

The ideal candidate has significant work experience in museums, visual arts organizations, galleries, and/or higher education, as a curator, researcher, educator, and/or executive director. They should have academic and/or practical expertise in the field of American visual art and, ideally, hold an advanced degree (master’s or doctoral level) in a relevant field (e.g., art history, fine arts, museum studies, curatorial studies, etc.). Experience in philanthropy is not required but practical experience as an organizational or project manager, fundraiser, or other kind of administrator is crucial, as it will help to demonstrate the candidate understands the challenges the grantees face.

This position is based in our office in NYC; candidates are expected to travel within the US and internationally. 

The Henry Luce Foundation is an equal employment opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.