About Cleveland Institute of Art
The Cleveland Institute of Art is a private, nonprofit college of art and design that has been the training ground for students for more than 140 years. The college was originally opened as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women in 1882.
CIA students have gone on to design international products. Their artwork has been exhibited in major museums and private collections around the world. Audiences and gamers have enjoyed their entertainment media for generations.
The Interactive Media Lab has been a goal at CIA since 2019 and is a key action item within our 2020–25 Strategic Plan. For those unfamiliar, the IML will combine CIA’s academic program and an incubator that builds business capacity using augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence within the context of arts and design. It will feature a state-of-the-art AR/VR/AI production studio used by students and startups, and it will serve as a hub for artist- and designer-driven content, discourse and development.
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New Position Design Fellow Opportunity
This project aims to analyze market trends, organizational needs, and financial constraints to design a sustainable staffing and compensation structure for a Business Development role at Cleveland Institute of Art’s new Interactive Media Lab. The goal is to align talent acquisition, retention, and cost efficiency with long-term revenue-generating activities in the Interactive Media Lab.
With the IML being CIA’s enterprise campus, it is crucial for the school’s long-term business planning to diversify its revenue streams. By laying the foundation for a Business Development role, the BVU Fellow will setup CIA to best execute sales strategy, client relationship management, and marketing and outreach for the Interactive Media Lab to keep the facility operating in a sustainable manner for the foreseeable future.
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Key Responsibilities
The BVU Fellow is tasked with analyzing the Greater Cleveland market with the deliverables of providing Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) with a formal recommendation of how to structure a Business Development Role in support of CIA’s Interactive Media Lab (IML).
The IML, located in the new MidTown Collaboration Center, aims to serve academic, industry, and community constituencies. The Business Development role would have the primary focus of interfacing with the business community with focus on business-to-business revenue-generating activities and strategic partnerships. These services and offerings include space rental, equipment rental, membership and referral services, guided educational experiences and consulting projects to industry partners.
The incumbent will analyze the business-to-business market (especially around emerging technologies), the talent market and CIA’s constraints to provide a recommendation. In addition, the incumbent will explore the Business Development position’s structure as it relates to CIA’s creative enterprise ecosystem of campus stakeholders. We estimate the total engagement to be 40-50 hours in total (10-15 hours per week).
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Term: May 2025 – 50 hours
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Stipend: $1000
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Location: MidTown Collaboration Center and/or remote
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Qualifications: The ideal candidate will have professional experience in organizational design, marketing and outreach, sales, and client relationships management, and knowledge or interest in creative media technology.
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Next Steps: To request application materials, please contact Amy Ammar (aammar@bvuvolunteers.org) or Elizabeth Voudouris (evoudouris@bvuvolunteers.org).
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The BVU Fellows program connects late-career professionals to projects that help nonprofit organizations build capacity, grow strategically, and make a more effective and sustainable impact on the community.