Our annual Activating Heritage conference for arts and culture professionals is starting soon, March 21-25. We’re excited to share with you everything we’ve got in store this year. Read below to learn a little more about Activating Heritage. We hope you’ll join us!
What Is the Activating Heritage conference?
Activating Heritage is an annual conference developed and delivered by the Alliance, in cooperation with Partners and Core Members. The conference connects our Members and other arts & culture workers from across the Chicago region with meaningful, capacity-building presentations and workshops facilitated by a host of scholars and leaders in the field. By reviewing best practices in financial management, marketing and communications, grant writing, collections practices, and other topics, the Alliance strengthens our members’ capacity to fulfill their significant and unique missions.
Guests at a past Activating Heritage.
What can we expect from this year’s Activating Heritage?
The conference theme this year is “The Stories We Tell.” Sessions on topics from budgeting to oral history management will all connect back to the power of narratives and storytelling.
The first day’s events on Monday, March 21 will take place in-person at DANK Haus German American Cultural Center. We’ll kick off with a Plenary Session panel with Emmy-winning reporter Adriana Cardona-Maguigad and Media Burn Executive Director Sarah Chapman in discussion on the power of narratives, moderated by award-winning storyteller Ada Cheng. We’ll follow that with a presentation of the Alliance’s Outstanding Community Award Leader nominations. Then a Networking Brunch will start at 12pm, with food from Blue Sky Bakery.
All sessions from Tuesday through Friday will be hosted online, available to join live via Zoom or to watch via a secure livestream. We have a wide range of speakers lined up to share their insights and expertise, including:
Christena Gunther, Founder and President, Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium
Carlos Hevia, Director of Business Development, Multilingual Connections
Latham Zearfoss, Cultural Liaison for the Cultural Asset Mapping Project
And lots more
Who should come to Activating Heritage?
Museum workers, curators, artists, educators, nonprofit professionals, humanities students, historians, cultural heritage workers. Anyone who loves culture and believes it is worth preserving and sharing may find the conference valuable and is welcome to attend!
Sounds great! Where do I register?
Hooray! We’ll see you there!
Register online at ActivatingHeritage.org or click the button below. General Registration is $35, Partner Members are $25, Core Members are $20, and Students are $12.
The Chicago Cultural Alliance is committed to economic equity and inclusion. If you are in need of financial support for admission expenses, please email [email protected].
We’re less than 2 weeks away from the start of our annual Activating Heritage conference! The Alliance organizes the conference based on the feedback provided by you, our Members, telling us what topics and panels you’d like to see. We hope you’ll find the sessions and workshops we have planned useful!
The first day of the conference will take place in person at DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, 4740 N Western Ave, from 10am-1pm. We’ll have a Plenary Session panel, our Outstanding Community Leader Award nomination presentations, and a Networking Brunch with tables from visiting sponsors.
All events from Tuesday March 22 through Friday March 25 are virtual, available to join via Zoom or to watch via livestream. Videos will be available for some of the sessions if you miss them but not all due to privacy restrictions from some of our speakers.
Core Member staff, board members and volunteers can register for $20. Partner Members can register for $25. We are committed to economic equity and inclusion. If you are in need of financial support for admission expenses, please email [email protected].
Calling all Core Members! Every year we have the chance to celebrate and honor the leaders among us who have gone above and beyond to promote, support, preserve, and champion their cultures and their institutions. Outstanding Community Leaders are nominated by Core Members, and voted on by Core Members. Tell us who deserves to be celebrated!
An Outstanding Community Leader Award can be used to generate a press release (I’m happy to help with that!), to spur excitement with your own organization’s donor network, to use in your year-end fundraising efforts, to promote your credentials when applying for grants, and so on!
HOW TO NOMINATE A LEADER
The nomination application must be sent as a Word or Google Doc to Abby Foss at [email protected] no later than 11:59pm CST on Friday, March 4.
Your application should include a short biography of your nominee (max 100 words), and an explanation of how they are an example of an Outstanding Community Leader for your community or your organization (max 1000 words).
Examples of their work could include how they:
1. Help shape a more genuine and encompassing representation of his/her community
2. Bring more visibility to the community by adapting to changing neighborhood and city demographics
3. Embrace the values of inclusion and tolerance in making a more culturally vibrant city
4. Pioneer new ideas and experimental practices
5. Exemplify being an empathetic & understanding leader towards ALL people
Use any of the above in your narrative, but most importantly just speak from the heart on why this person is an important leader who goes above and beyond for their community!
Please read the full details of what to include in the application here.
WHAT COMES NEXT
You will be asked to present a short presentation (5 minutes max) on your nominee at the in-person Activating Heritage event on Monday, March 21 at DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, 4740 N Western Ave. If you cannot attend this event but want to nominate someone, please let us know and we will read a short presentation in your place.
Short bios of all nominees will also be emailed to all Core Members of the Alliance, so everyone who could not attend in-person will also have the opportunity to learn about the nominees.
After the presentations and the bios have been shared, all Core Members will have the chance to vote for an Outstanding Community Leader via a Google form. Voting will be open from March 21-25. Results will be announced in the MemberWire newsletter on April 1, and we can celebrate together at the Virtual Town Hall on April 1 at 3pm!
Colleen McGaughey (she/her) is the director of development at the National Public Housing Museum, where she leads the strategic direction of the museum’s fundraising efforts with a focus on creative and community-centric approaches.
Mario Longoni
Board Member
Mario Longoni is a cultural anthropologist (“Lead Environmental Social Scientist”) in the Keller Science Action Center at the Field Museum. For over 20 years, he has worked with individuals and organizations to surface and activate cultural and natural assets (specific strengths and characteristics) to help communities meet the challenges they face.
Rob Fojtik
Board Member
Rob Fojtik is Vice President for Neighborhood Strategy at Choose Chicago, the city’s official tourism and convention promotion bureau. In this capacity, Rob oversees efforts to promote and support Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods to visitors from near and far. Programs include the award-winning Neighborhood Content Creator program that leverages resident-made digital content, and Chicago Alfresco, a $2.5 million placemaking initiative created in partnership with the Chicago Department of Transportation to transform public spaces into community plazas for outdoor enjoyment.
Before coming to Choose Chicago, Rob was a Senior Advisor to Mayor Lightfoot on economic development and international relations at City Hall, as well as LGTBQ+ affairs and the expanded outdoor dining program. In this role, he also worked to recommend and place over 150 civic leaders and residents onto City boards and commissions. Prior to government service in the Lightfoot administration, Rob ran her winning campaign in the crowded 2019 Chicago mayoral race as Chief of Staff. In past lives, Rob has worked as a public affairs manager for a Fortune 500 company downtown; had misadventures in management consulting, art sales, and personal cheffing; and spent time in Washington DC working for former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Rob also served a one-year appointment at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence as a policy advisor on Central and Eastern Europe. In this role, he was part of the NSC’s interagency process to develop a comprehensive sanctions regime on Russia as a consequence of its 2014 invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
After receiving his BA in Slavic Languages and Literature at Northwestern University, Rob lived and worked in the Czech Republic teaching English and tending bar before moving to Washington, D.C. to pursue a MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CERES). He enjoys cooking, learning foreign languages, hiking with his partner and their dog, and visiting Chicago’s many neighborhoods.
Paul Durica
Board Member
Dr. Paul Durica is the Director of Exhibitions at the Chicago History Museums and worked in a similar capacity at The Newberry Library. From 2015-2020, he served as the Director of Programs and Exhibitions with Illinois Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Prior to that he drew upon his work as a writer, researcher, and teacher to produce a series of free and interactive talks, walks, and reenactments focused on narratives from Chicago’s past that resonate with its present.
These public history programs led to collaborations with cultural institutions in the city such as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago History Museum, Newberry Library, Chicago Architecture Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago Cultural Center among others.
Each program made use of both his original research and the skills of the arts organizations, community groups, local businesses, and publications that acted as my partners. Some of these programs, such as the full-scale reenactment of the Haymarket Affair in 2011, involved recruiting and directing over 300 volunteers and 1,000 participants.
To produce these programs successfully, he wrote grants; managed budgets; generated web content; worked closely with program partners of varying sizes and resources; and identified, engaged, and sustained a diverse multi-generational audience.
Lynessa Rico
Board Member
Dr. Lynessa M. Rico is the Associate Chair of the Business Psychology Department at the The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Chicago campus. She is also a business mentor at 1871.
Lynessa is a results-driven Strategic Consultant with over 25 years of experience enabling leaders to meet strategic business objectives by identifying and aligning business growth opportunities with strategic direction of culturally diverse organizations. By leveraging her strategic experience in identifying and impacting business growth opportunities and maximizing profits in retail firms and higher education institutions, Lynessa leads workshops focused on the creative mindset, women’s entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and the value and application of design thinking within entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Her services also include consulting with and educating leadership on emotional intelligence, the power of design thinking and the creative mindset, and leadership styles to support inclusive, creative workplaces. She has presented to leadership and innovation teams in small, mid-size, and Fortune 500 companies.
Lynessa received her undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Management from Wichita State University. She then went on to earn a master’s degree in Business Administration from Wichita State University with a focus in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. After earning her master’s degree, Lynessa received her doctorate in Business Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology where she successfully completed her dissertation titled, “The Relationship Between Personality Types and Color Preference for Color Combinations.” Her current research interests include women’s entrepreneurship, design thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and entrepreneurship self-efficacy.
Outside of work and research, Lynessa enjoys mentoring start-ups and judging pitch competitions. Lynessa currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with her four cats. She is an avid long-distance runner, having completed 5 full marathons (and counting), and enjoys watching musical theater.
Briana Thomas
Board Member
Briana Thomas is the Museum Associate at the Abrahamic Center for Cultural Education (a core member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance). She wears many hats including developing exhibition content, facilitating community programs (children and adults), liaising with visitor artists, and other responsibilities. Her previous experience in the nonprofit space includes her tenure as the Financial Empowerment Coordinator at AMERICORPS Sharing Life Center as well as engaging with the public at the Dallas Arboretum. Her past professional experience has remained rooted in marginalized communities. It is their needs,discourse and histories that she has routinely been tasked with protecting and showcasing in the face of poor infrastructure, and willing ignorance. Creating safe spaces is an ancestral practice she has inherited.
