AIGA Colorado wants you to help shape our creative landscape

AIGA Colorado, the local chapter of the nation’s oldest and largest professional association for design, is currently seeking nominations for its open board positions.
Join in shaping this 100% volunteer-run organization that brings local programming to Colorado creatives. We’re looking for motivated volunteers to help us pursue AIGA’s mission to advance design as a professional craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force.

Self-nomination is permitted and encouraged.

Ready to lend a hand? Fill out this form, today.

The incoming volunteer board will play a pivotal role in shaping AIGA Colorado to be a leader within the Colorado design community and beyond. Serving on the board can enrich your personal and professional life, providing board members an opportunity to meet accomplished industry professionals and network with up-and-coming talent.

Board nominees need not be AIGA members at the time of nomination, but elected nominees are required to join and maintain their memberships for the duration of their terms. Chair positions must join at the Contributor level or higher for a 1-year term; President, Vice President and Director positions must be a Supporter level member or higher for a 2-year term. (For more information about membership levels, visit aiga​.org/​b​e​l​ong.) Each term begins in June and concludes in May.

This year, there are opportunities to rise to the top as we have several Director positions available. Or start as a Chair and learn the ropes. Check out your options for positions across the state. Whatever route you choose, you’ll be playing with a strong team of returning board members to gain leadership skills and connect with your peers on a whole new level.

Nominations close on April 9th. Interviews take place April 24-25.

Open Board Positions:

Executive

Administrative Chair

This important position is focused on helping the chapter deal with day-to-day tasks, such as organizing board meetings and assisting the President with their communication and sponsorship duties. You maintain the event calendar, our most important member benefit, coordinating with the VPs in ensure accurate dates.

Chapter Development

Vice President Chapter Development

You have a passion and talent for making design matter out in the world and aren’t shy to share our message with new audiences. You see the big picture of how AIGA is relevant in our community and strive for a more visible presence, helping our members be seen as professionals. You connect AIGA CO with other organizations — creative, business, and city focused. You work closely with the VP of programming to be sure events are promoted outside of the creative field. You are a lead organizer of the ArtStir partnership with Denver Pavilions. Basically, you love connecting with people who want to see the organization grow.

Sponsorship Director

You enjoy puzzles and process to help identify and engage potential sponsors for chapter events and initiatives. Network to find great fits to support an event or activity and coordinate with the event chairs. Revel in the process of relaying the benefits of supporting design and our organization.

Project Manager Chair (Chapter Development)

You make molehills out of mountains. This position will assist the VP and Directors with collecting and sorting out information for sponsorships, volunteers and membership. You’ll help manage local mini-boards and wrangle Basecamp for your team. You relish To Do lists and seeing it all come together in an organized success.

Education

RT Professional Grant Chair

You have the pleasure of rewarding our professional members with a chance to fund a special project or training. The Professional Grant, a $1500 fund, is available each year. You work with the Comm team to promote the grant and ask for submissions, manage the applications and board review, and award the check to the happy recipient.

Project Manager Chair (Education)

You make molehills out of mountains. This position will assist the VP and Directors with collecting and sorting out information to relay to the Comm team. You’ll help manage schedules for initiatives and wrangle Basecamp for your team. You relish To Do lists and seeing it all come together in an organized success.

Student Chapters Chair

You are the liaison between student chapter leaders and the board. You check in with groups regularly, promote board-initiated student events and opportunities (like the Scholarship), and offer advice assistance with planning and budgets. You coach leaders to create proposals to ask for board funding for special projects.

Communications

Communications Director, Content (co-director)

Your conviction is that that Content is King. You work closely with the VP and Communication Chairs to craft and execute our voice throughout our promotions. Your editorial plan populates the blog and weekly newsletter, DesignWire, with inspiration for our members. Along with eloquent messaging, you make sure it’s all going smoothly, with forms filled out and assets collected. You work with the Project Manager Chair to assign To Dos. You check in with your team, the event calendar, and VPs of Programming and Education frequently to make certain all their efforts are cohesive and targeted to our membership. You identify bottlenecks and assist Chairs with scheduling challenges.

Copywriter Chair

Designers love to talk, but often need help finding just the right words. This is where you come in. You refine ideas into something that makes a connection—and is grammatically correct. You review submitted content, provide feedback and strategic direction, and craft communications to connect with members through email promotions and social media (in tandem with our SM chairs). You are integral in producing content for our website and the communication that moves through our multi-channel messaging. You assist our Blog Chair with editing submitted content as well.

PR & Social Media Chairs

You can see the matrix between events, community, ideas, and promotion—all in under 140 characters. You find joy in a social media calendar for original content, know when to jump in to promote trends, and relish in Shares, Likes and Retweets. You coordinate with your co-chair and Directors to hit all the hotspots our members virtually congregate.  #aigaCO25

Web/Email Chair (co-chair)

HTML and CSS don’t phase you. You know what it takes to get content online and make the AIGA website work for you. You’re in charge of creating event registration, adding events and articles to the website, and sending out HTML emails. The lifeblood of our communications team lies with you—and your two peers. (Don’t worry, you won’t be alone in this.) .

Blog Chair

Help to weave the story of AIGA Colorado and our craft by soliciting or writing articles to highlight our events, and chronologize the creative experience. Work to create fresh content on our blog with your original stories, and tapping board and community members for submissions that highlight the who, what, where, when and why of design in a cohesive calendar of content.

Branding Chair

Design is what you love and really all you want to do. Lucky for you, design is in high demand! You and your co-chair will shape the look of the AIGA Colorado brand. You’ll design promotional graphics for our speaker series, work­shops, and other events and initiatives we host every year. Your designs will populate the website and DesignWire, our weekly email news. This is your oppor­tu­nity to do the design you really want to do—with input from your team of designers. Who’s the client now?

Programming

Programming Director (co-director) Professional Development

You oversee a team of dynamic and focused Chairs that are dedicated to programming for professional development, assisting them with executing their events. You evaluate event topics with the Chairs and your VP, with big-picture chapter goals in mind that appeal to members in all stages of their careers. You check in with Chairs on budgets and schedules, making sure they work with the Communications team effectively and have volunteers for events.

Upskill: Workshop Chair

Increasing our technical skills is key to keeping up with rapid changes in technology. Your job would be to host three to four workshop events throughout the season that are designed to help our members hone their craft. You determine the topics—anything you can imagine that our members would like to learn. (Recent topics have included Adobe workshops, typography, and interactive design.)

Welcome Wagon Chair

There are 80,000 people a year moving to Denver and Boulder each year—and you are one of them. You want to get out and explore your new town, and get to know people while doing it. You determine the outing, be it art, culture, exploring in the mountains, or a baseball game. If you build it, they will come.

Project Manager Chair (Programming)

You make molehills out of mountains. This position will assist the VP and Directors with collecting and sorting out information to relay to the Communications team. You’ll help manage schedules for executing events and promoting them and wrangle Basecamp for your team. You relish To Do lists and seeing it all come together in an organized success.

Speaker Series Chair   

You’re a design junkie and follow hot topics and design leaders through websites, blogs, and podcasts. The speaker series is the bread and but­ter of our chap­ter. Learning from out­side cre­atives is one of the most reward­ing expe­ri­ences any designer can have. You would brainstorm with the VP, Directors and President about who you want to bring to Colorado for the season. Then you invite them, orga­nize their visit, transport them from the airport (getting valuable one-on-one time), and prep them for their presentation. You also provide assets and cool facts to the Comm team to heavily promote their talk in DesignWire and on social media. You work­ with the Denver Art Museum on details and logistics, request volunteers, and take the speaker to dinner after the presentation with other board members. This is a rare chance to work directly with almost any national cre­ative you would like.

Proven Chair

Proven is the Professional Development Series geared toward seasoned design professionals looking to refine and redefine their practice. With design con­stantly evolv­ing it can be tricky to remain rel­e­vant, cre­ative and prof­itable. Your job would be to host three to four panel discussions (luncheons) throughout the season that are designed to help our more established members tackle the challenges of a constantly changing landscape. You determine the topics with the VP and Director of Programming (Pro Dev)—anything you can imagine seasoned pros need to learn. (Recent topics have included business secrets for designers, interactive design, and optimizing workflow.)

Film Event Chair

You’ve camped out in the back row of the independent theaters since you were a teenager. For this position, you’d manage our partnership with the Sie Film Center. You’d create a program for the season that includes piggybacking onto their Design & Architecture film series and host two special events of our own — maybe it’s a signature film on design topics or a series of shorts. You decide. Fly your theater geek flag high and take our film series to the next level.

Design for Good Chair

You’re a goodie two shoes when it comes to the power of design. You realize that even one designer can make an big impact to further a cause. Every day, design­ers are cre­at­ing bet­ter com­mu­ni­ties by work­ing with non­prof­its and cit­i­zen groups to improve the human expe­ri­ence.

This season, AIGA CO would like you to champion a program to help small nonprofts with tiny marketing budgets get on the map. You will create tandem pairs of an emerging designer + established professional to team up with a local nonprofit to solve a communications problem (identity crisis, awareness challenge, etc.) and provide them with a solid plan to continue the momentum. You’d work with your VP, Director and President Emeritus to create the program.

Read more about AIGA’s Design For Good initiative athttp://colorado.aiga.org/2011/10/aiga-launches-design-for-good-to-support-socially-engaged-designers/

Boulder and Northern Colorado Mini-Boards

Membership Chair

You’re motto is “the more the merrier.” You love meeting new people and preaching the design gospel. You use a strategic, well-planned campaign or a personal one-on-one to convert friends to members, either way, numbers are up. AIGA is a membership-based organization and this position is dedicated to being an ambassador for the chapter. You would help to run an annual membership drive with the Membership Director, host a couple of events a year, and communicate the benefits of being a member at our events while working with your local team.

Volunteer Chair

You know how to rally the troops better than a loud-mouth Colonel, securing manpower for AIGA events, programs, and initiatives. And you’re great with a Google doc to keep it all organized. You support the Programming and Education teams to help staff their events. Since AIGA CO is 100% volunteer run, it’s critical to have a solid base of people to call upon. You serve as an ambassador for the chapter, encouraging member participation at the local level, and help with initiatives with the Volunteer Director while working with your local team.

Sponsorship Chair

Network and engage potential sponsors for local events and initiatives and relay the benefits of supporting design and our organization. Work with the Sponsorship Director to create a process for sponsorship support while working with your local team.

Programming Chairs

Your job would be to direct and develop events throughout the season in your local area that are designed to help our members hone their craft, network and be inspired. Work with your local field co-chairs in securing locations and promotion for events. Each Chair runs one event. Examples are our tried and true monthly events like Buzz and AIGA CO Drink & Draw, as well as special events, like a film screening or panel discussion—you pick the formats and topics that appeal to your community.

Volunteers

You’d like to get more involved, but aren’t ready to dive in head first. You enjoy com­ing to events and want to help out, learn more about AIGA, and con­nect with members.