Executive Director

Founded in the 1960s, the Henry L. Ferguson Museum and Land Trust (HLFM/LT) is an anchor institution in the Fishers Island community. Its mission is to preserve our shared history and conserve the Island’s natural habitats.

The Museum and Land Trust are in an important period of growth and professionalization. For a couple of decades, the Museum had a single employee, the Museum Director. In the past decade, the work of the Museum and Land Trust has expanded, as has its staff accordingly. Currently the Museum has 4 full-time employees and 3 part-time employees, all of whom work on various programmatic areas of the organization. As its programs, staffing, community engagement, and organizational complexity have expanded both in the physical Museum and across the lands entrusted to us to manage, the Board has determined that the institution requires a full-time Executive Director to provide consistent, hands-on leadership across its twin pillars. The new Executive Director will oversee the Museum’s growing programs and partnerships and the increasingly complex operations and administrative duties that have arisen from this growth.

The Executive Director will serve as the chief executive and administrative leader of the Museum and Land Trust. The ED will strengthen the systems, staff structure, financial management, and organizational practices needed for sustainable growth while preserving the institution’s mission, character, and valued community relationships. This position calls for a leader who can think strategically, manage the details of a small organization, and bring the Museum and Land Trust together as one coordinated institution.

The HLFM/LT seeks an individual who thrives on challenge, is curious, a community builder with a sense of humor.

Required Experience and Capabilities:

• Leadership experience in a nonprofit or mission-driven organization, with responsibility for management and operations.
• Ability to build, supervise, develop, and retain a strong staff team.
• Developing and managing budgets and financial statements.
• Fundraising, donor relations, grants, and other forms of nonprofit resource development.
• Written and oral communication skills.
• Managing competing priorities.

Particularly Valuable Experience:

• Leadership in a community-based organization, or other institution with related educational, cultural, or stewardship responsibilities.
• Leading an organization through growth.
• Working in a community where personal presence and discretion are essential.

The successful candidate need not be a museum professional or conservation scientist. The Museum seeks an experienced nonprofit leader who can work effectively with professionals in these fields, understand and value their expertise, and provide the leadership necessary to succeed.

Compensation: $110,000 – $150,000, depending on experience, plus benefits, and Museum-provided housing.

Tagged as: Advocacy/Communications