The Executive
As Executive Director of Young Chicago Authors, Rebecca Hunter’s role within LTAB is to create a stable non-profit business minded organization that can present and produce the largest teen poetry festival in the universe. Basically Ms. Hunter is behind the scenes running the business to ensure that YCA and LTAB are sustainable.
A native from London in the UK, Ms. Hunter had experience working with non-profits in the cultural and education sector in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She arrived in Chicago eleven years ago partly due to its cultural hub perception and for being an innovative city in terms of arts education programs. As a five year vet at YCA, she was lucky to join an organization that had a breadth of programming, artistic vision and partnerships that allowed programs to be integrated into numerous schools throughout Chicagoland and also provide public programs for young people around the city.
Although YCA had some phenomenal programs, it was lacking operational infrastructure. Ms.Hunter helped to formalize executive leadership and the organization’s strategy and structure that has helped grow and sustain programming.
When she first joined YCA her goal was to create cash flow for operational costs. However, through her efforts of reaching out to previous stakeholders in the philanthropic community, she saw the budget stabilize and then almost double the second year. Each additional year has seen real incremental growth and now her vision is to see staff catch up with programming that is now in place. As LTAB receives more PR and media, more stakeholders come to the table willing to invest in the work that YCA is doing.
Ms. Hunter is constantly learning as the organization grows and she thinks about growth conservatively. She points out that she likes to pilot new initiatives before fully implementing them. It’s all about landing the right idea for the organization. She’s challenged not to rely on any one source of income, but to create different revenue streams to help sustain YCA just in case one source of revenue suddenly goes away. Another challenge she faces is to create and maintain organizational culture. She admits growth will be much more fun when those things are in place.
The LTAB festival doesn’t generate a ton of income, because it’s low barrier when it comes to getting people to attend. YCA does generate earned income through a fee for hire service for their artists. They advocate for their artists to be paid when asked to perform or conduct a workshop. A percentage of the fee is given to both the artist and the organization. It’s a great revenue stream for both established and emerging artists alike. Although the LTAB festival has become a scalable model she doesn’t see YCA expanding to other cities at this time. LTAB proves to be a better scalable model and provides more visibility for YCA, which allows her to build a more stable organization.
Because of YCA’s growth, they have outgrown their space. Excitement is in the air, but Ms. Hunter is focused on one thing. “Our goal is to find a new space because we don’t have enough room for all the participants that want to come. I hope within the next six months we’ll be able to move into a bigger building that will allow us to keep marketing and promoting our work.” Well done Rebecca…well done!