How to grow your creativity. 4 top impact roles to pivot into. And join the board of Scotland’s Zine Library

Opportunity Seeker highlights ways you can grow your career and personal impact. We’re here to open up opportunity so more of us can belong in spaces that need us.

Hello from a very fast moving Spanish train. I decided to keep heading south and chase the sun, rather than head back to Berlin. So this newsletter of opportunities is being crafted on the move. If you’re new here, you can find out more about me, read some back issues, or subscribe.

This week is a creativity special and we’re going to deep dive on…

• How to nurture your creativity

• 4 impact roles hiring right now 👀

• Why you should be thinking about Venice in 2024

• How to become a Creative Director

• And Netflix might need your storytelling skills… 🎬

With this issue’s chosen focus, here are some words from the king of physics (and general good sense) to get us going…

Pivot into impact…

Before we dive into the creative theme I wanted to share a few excellent impact roles that have gone live in the past week.

• Berlin/Remote: One of my favourite non profits is Give Directly, and I’m not alone — they’re one of the fastest growing charities in the USA. They have an innovate approach to charity marketing and operate more like a tech startup — they’re now looking for a Growth Manager to help them scale further. You’d be reporting into the excellent Harris Roberts, who’s also based in Berlin.

• London: The Royal Society is looking to hire a Project Manager to coordinate their Climate Action Awards for the next twelve months, the awards will recognise students, schools and universities who encourage climate action initiatives on campus. 

• London/Hybrid: Global Witness is a non profit that holds leaders and companies to account for the hypocrisy they might have at the core of their business when it comes to climate. They are recruiting for a Co-Director of Campaigns. FYI the compensation is good for London based non-profits, it’s also a chance to have substantial system-change impact.

• Remote US: Meanwhile across different parts of the US, Tent Partnership for Refugees is working to connect refugees directly with potential employers who can hire, train and mentor where needed. The non profit was founded by Hamdi Ulukaya, whose own migration story was instrumental in helping scale his multi-million dollar business, Chobani. Tent has got 300 companies onboard, but are looking for a Partnership Manager to grow that number.

How to become a Creative Director

• University of Arts London: This is one of the universities a lot of Creative Directors in the UK and EU have on their resume for their undergrad or MA, but UAL also offers a week long intensive in Creative Direction. The next online session is mid-December, or if you want to head to London it’s running in-person next March.

• D&AD: Not to be confused with Dungeons & Dragons, D&AD was set up by designers and art directors in 1962 to raise the creative standard in the industry. They have a Foundations of Creative Leadership course, and upcoming art direction masterclasses for January.

But maybe you’re ready to get going and jump into a Creative Director role right now. Here’s four global opportunities:

• New York/Savannah, Georgia: Want to work on campaigns and creative strategy for non profits? Catapult Design is a non profit agency working with clients like Change Labs and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They’re looking for a Creative Director who will report directly into the CEO, Angela Hariche. Ideally they want senior product or service design experience, so the position is perfect for those who want to pivot into creative leadership.

• San Francisco/Remote US: It’s one of the most popular communication services in the world, particularly for gamers and fan communities, and now Discord is looking for a Creative Director to lead its copywriting work and verbal strategy. It’s a senior role, that compensates with equity as well as a San Francisco friendly salary — ideally you’ll have worked in tech or agencies before.

• Amsterdam: One route to becoming a Creative Director is through verbal strategy and storytelling experience. Netflix is currently looking for a Creative Writing Strategist, ideally you’ll have several years under your belt of copywriting or entertainment journalism. They’re interested in multilingual candidates, particularly Arabic speakers who can work across EMEA.

• Berlin: Meanwhile, Highsnobiety is looking for both a Creative Director and Associate Creative Director in Berlin. They’re a global media and streetwear brand, so they’d prefer ad campaign and ad creative experience in the mix.

Ways to nurture your creativity

• Zines: This might be one of the coolest charity board roles I’ve seen in a while. In the beautiful (but wet) city of Glasgow there is a zine library, they’ve been running for several years and are now looking for a Chair of their board. Could this be you? 

• Unlocking creativity: Most of us have barriers of self doubt around our ability to be creative, but creativity is one of the most powerful ways to unlock challenges, and change behaviour patterns. This online course on Unlocking Creativity is run by IDEO. And if you really get into your creative flow, this course is part of their Advanced Design Thinking Certificate.

• Venice Biennale: Look, if Italy has been on your travel wish list, next year there’s an extra justification to go. The Venice Biennale is having it’s 60th international art exhibition, so it’s going to be a big one — have a look at what artists are attending on this list.

• Creative facilitation: Right through the beautiful county of Devon in the UK runs the River Dart, and a new school has been set up to build regenerative knowledge. Before the year wraps up, Dartington Trust are running a five day course focused on building your creative facilitation skills - it’s ideal for those working in the climate space or wanting to pivot into it.

Learning opportunities

This week we’ve talked a lot about creative career paths. One of the toughest things to crack is your portfolio — there’s the challenge of expanding it to show your range of skills, but also the challenge of how to present it to clients, employers or even art schools. Here are two courses you can do to get it into shape:

• School of Visual Art, NYC: The SVA NYC has a Masters in Brand taught by the incredible Debbie Millman, which is how I first learnt about them, but they also offer a 10 session online bootcamp to get your creative portfolio up to scratch.

• Miami Ad School: Want something more indepth? The Miami Ad School is well known for creative innovation, and run a two year portfolio programme for art direction or copywriting. Despite the name, there is also a European and Brazilian campus.

Next week

Next week we’ll heading back to tech with a bunch of opportunities for would-be founders, operators and even investors… got a role, learning opportunity or event you think belongs in this newsletter? Hit reply and share it with me.

Signing off from a train, halfway across Spain… 🚂

P.S. Got a spare second and feeling generous of heart?

This week I’ve already mentioned Give Directly, who are hiring a Growth Manager. The brainchild of Harvard and MIT economists, they tackle extreme poverty by giving direct cash transfers, rather than providing food, digging wells or funding school scholarships.

Give Directly are focused on effective altruism and are tech focused, using things like satellite imagery to identify households who still have grass roofs (a key poverty indicator) and provide a universal basic income to them over a longer time period to create an actual chance of shifting out of poverty. They’ve also done a number of research studies to test the impact of direct cash transfers and see if it encourages people to stop working (spoiler, it doesn’t).

Want to know more before deciding if it make sense to give? One thing I love is that they share real, unedited updates from those who have benefited from the programme, giving you an insight into where the money is actually going.