Art Projects Manager

Hopeful Futures is a small but growing grass roots not-for-profit community interest company. Our mission is to create opportunities for autistic people, those with learning disabilities and their families to thrive in local communities. We do this in a variety of ways, one of which being through our Art Projects!

We’re looking for a manager to lead on our two brand new Art Projects: Art Group and Art Hub. This is an exciting and varied role for someone who is creative, has a genuine passion for working with people and who has good project management skills.

The right candidate will have experience of taking original art, creating it into sellable products e.g prints, putting onto cards, mugs, tea towels (to name a few possibilities!) and successfully marketing for sale and/or they will hold a relevant degree with the ability to demonstrate that they have the skills to do this. 

This role is full time (37.5 hours Monday - Friday), we would consider part time pro rata (4 days / 30 hours per week) if the right candidate preferred this.

About the Projects

Art School: Background Information to the Art Projects

We ran a Community Art School for adult artists with learning disabilities for two years from 2022 – 2024 thanks to funding from the National Lottery. Over the course of the project we worked with over 40 artists with learning disabilities & autism. Art School was a non-directive art group, a place where neurodiverse adults met to create art that was important to them and reflected who they are as individuals. Neurodiverse people can feel pressure to ‘mask’ who they truly are to fit into society’s accepted norms. We wanted to offer a space where neurodiverse adults could authentically express themselves. This group was led by an autistic art facilitator.

Art Group

We have started a new weekly Art Group in partnership with the charity East London Textile Arts (ELTA). This is a mixed ability group where artists with and without learning disabilities from ELTA and Hopeful Futures come together to work on heritage themed projects for exhibition. You will be responsible for the overall management for the Hopeful Futures part of this group.

Art Hub

Our new Art Hub is all about ‘our work is valuable to our community’. You will be responsible for the running of two weekly art hub sessions at Rosetta Arts in Westham where seven artists with a learning disability at each session will create their own pieces of work through the guidance and support of a qualified art tutor. You will be responsible for helping each artist to develop their work into sellable products and raising their profiles as individual artists.

General information for Applicants

We look for staff who share our value base of LIGHT: Love, Integrity, Gentleness, High expectations and Time. It is important for our Art Projects Manager to be creative, proactive, to have a genuine passion for working with people, positive in attitude, with good project management & creative skills.

We are particularly passionate about creating a diverse workforce and particularly encourage applications from candidates of the global majority.

Please note, all job offers are subject to a satisfactory DBS check and references.

Benefits of Working at Hopeful Futures CIC

• We provide high quality training & a robust induction process to settle you into your role
• Enhanced maternity & adoption leave scheme
• 28 days annual leave increasing by 1 day for each year of continuous service (up to 33 days)
• An additional day off for your birthday
• We are a recognised disability confident employer
• We have an Enhanced Employee Assistance Programme with access to free counselling and other wellbeing services
• Ability to join the Blue Light Card Scheme which provides members with thousands of amazing discounts online and on the high street across categories such as holidays, cars, days out, fashion, gifts, insurance, phones and many more