The Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library seeks proposals from experienced facilitators to guide the Center in formulating a strategic vision plan for our organization.

Project Description

The selected facilitator will spearhead, facilitate, and project manage a process which we expect to last approximately six months beginning in late Fall 2024. The objective of the process is to create a succinct but visionary plan for the Center’s next major chapter, focusing on the period 2025–2030. This work will include facilitating meetings, providing critical feedback, and ensuring the alignment and consensus of all constituencies with the strategic direction and vision.

We seek a facilitator who is skilled at guiding and structuring conversations, and the facilitator need not be a domain expert in topics related to maps and geography. A familiarity with the Boston area and similar institutions in the region is desirable.

Qualifications

The ideal facilitator will possess the following qualifications:

• Experience working with small to medium-sized nonprofit institutions, specifically those operating within the cultural sector, as well as with public institutions like libraries and schools. This should include a history of assisting these organizations in strategic planning and vision setting.
• A proven track record in effectively facilitating conversations amongst diverse constituencies, including internal teams, board members, major and minor partner institutions, community members, and funders.
• Demonstrated success in managing and delivering similar strategic planning processes.
• An ability to pose critical and productive questions from an outside perspective that will sharpen and refine existing ideas relating to vision and strategy amongst the Center’s own internal team.
• An ability to work with statistical and demographic information as a basis for structuring and informing questions.

About the Leventhal Center

The Leventhal Map & Education Center is an independent, self-governing nonprofit organization in a long-term strategic relationship with the Boston Public Library. The Center stewards a quarter million geographic objects in the Library’s collections, and works to make them freely available to the public for research, interpretation, and engagement. Our collections range from fifteenth-century atlases to modern-day geospatial data sets. The Center creates original exhibitions hosted in its gallery space at the Central Library in Copley Square and promotes education on topics that explore the relationship between people and places.

To Submit a Proposal

We invite interested facilitators to submit detailed proposals that include the following:

• An overview of your approach to the project, including your methodology for facilitating strategic planning and vision setting.
• A comprehensive description of your experience with similar projects, ideally with case studies or examples of your work in the cultural sector or with similar organizations.
• Evidence of your ability to facilitate conversations amongst diverse groups, showcasing your skills in achieving consensus and sharpening alignment.
• A proposed project timeline and budget, detailing how you plan to deliver the project within the stipulated timeframe and outlining your pricing structure.

Proposals should be formatted as a PDF document of no more than 5 pages. Links to publicly available web materials are appropriate where needed for supplemental information.

Submit online by August 29

Timeline

• Proposals are to be submitted no later than August 29, 2024.
• The successful facilitator will be notified of their selection by September 17.
• The planning process will run roughly mid to late fall 2024 through late spring 2025.