Volunteer: Landscape Analysis of Distributed Governance and Cultural Programming Models

About the role

Climate House is exploring a new organizational architecture for developing cultural programs through a network of partner institutions, artists, and other participants. We are particularly interested in models where a group of participants can help establish a shared agenda or set of priorities, which can then be developed into programs, commissions, and other responses over time. We are also interested in how a membership or support structure might provide economic infrastructure for that network—so that participation is not only a form of affiliation, but can help sustain the partners and work itself.

For this Phase 1 research project, we are looking for a researcher to map existing models in the art and cultural world that combine some or all of these functions:

• collective or distributed agenda-setting;
• shared or distributed cultural programming;
• membership, pooled support, or other mechanisms that financially sustain participating partners or the collective work.

This is a landscape-analysis project, not a strategy or implementation project. A subsequent Phase 2 will use the findings to explore what could be adapted for Climate House and how such a model might be phased. The deliverable will be a focused landscape analysis of approximately 8–12 strong precedents, primarily sourced from the contemporary art and cultural sector but also referencing giving circle and multi-member organizing models.

Responsibilities

The research should prioritize models that illuminate the relationship between:

• Collective agenda-setting: How do participating organizations, artists, members, communities, or other stakeholders influence what the institution or network works on?
• Distributed programming: How does an agenda become a program? Who commissions, produces, hosts, or implements the resulting work, and how are responsibilities distributed?
• Economic support infrastructure: How does money move through the model? How are membership contributions, pooled resources, sponsorship, grants, earned revenue, or other forms of support used to sustain the network and/or participating partners?

For each precedent, the research should capture:

• relevant organizational structure;
• participants;
• governance/decision-making mechanisms;
• programming process;
• financial/support mechanisms;
• relationship between the central organization and its partners.

The analysis should identify:

• distinct model types or patterns;
• meaningful differences between approaches;
• mechanisms that recur across successful models;
• examples where governance, programming, and economic support are intentionally connected.

The final output should be a research map and comparative framework, not a recommendation for Climate House. Phase 2 will build from this landscape to assess potential fit, determine what a first-phase Climate House model could look like, and develop a phased organizational strategy.

Climate House US ("Climate House") Mission

Climate House is a creative think tank using the arts to illustrate actionable pathways forward—and bring them to life.

Mythos Embodied Climate

Climate change is not the abstract, technical issue it’s often framed to be—but a universal, ambient one experienced through our bodies and daily lives. CH communicates using universal sensory language, to reintegrate our understanding of climate change as real in the felt sense, and as a core defining issue shaping everything around us.

Universal Sensory Language

By speaking this universal language of the senses, we can communicate in a language everyone speaks and understands. This helps reframe climate as an everyone issue—providing an opportunity for the general public to reclaim their agency in understanding it and engaging with its solutions creatively, collaboratively, and meaningfully.

Culture-First

Culture is the fabric of daily life. CH uses a broad suite of cultural tools to meet people where they are, designing programming that is audience-tailored and culture-first, recognizing this as the carrier oil for engaging with more complex topics.

Show-not-tell

Because seeing is believing, we design programs that show, not tell. All of our programs are seared with a blueprint, grounding solutions on the experiential plane, allowing our audience to feel solutions that are so actionable, they can taste them.