Afropop Worldwide

The music that Afropop Worldwide covers is a wellspring of American and world culture, and no other organization I know does so well in helping it reach the listeners it deserves —Jon Pareles, chief pop music critic, New York Times Afropop Worldwide is a pioneer in the “world music” movement, illuminating the richness and diversity of African and African diasporic cultures, while archiving and fortifying its work on its robust website. It is simply a treat for the ears, and it deserves much support for its ongoing and new projects. —Dr. Jeffrey Jones, director, Peabody Awards OVERVIEW: The mission of our Peabody Award-winning Afropop Worldwide public radio series and website (afropop.org) is to promote understanding and enjoyment of the contemporary musical cultures of Africa and the African diaspora. Hosted by broadcast veteran Georges Collinet from Cameroon, the weekly series is distributed by PRI to 95 stations in the U.S. We also have active online listening community around the world. We introduce listeners to brilliant, world-class musicians, exploring their art in its cultural context. We’ve taken listeners on radio journeys to over 30 countries through our groundbreaking field work--from Mali to Madagascar, Congo to Cuba, Egypt to Spain, and more. We believe that we are satisfying deeply felt desires by Americans and others to connect to the world, using music to tell stories going far beyond the media’s steady coverage of conflict and calamity in Africa. Station program directors continually tell us that no other American media source tells stories of African-derived culture with such depth of research, range of reporting, and consistent entertainment value. Hip Deep, our NEH funded sub-series, focuses on more historical topics. http://afropop.org/hipdeep A high priority is to keep developing a younger, Web-oriented audience by publishing unique content daily on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, e-newsletter, YouTube, Tumblr and Instagram. We have created a prototype for Web-based education experiences focused on the history of samba in Brazil (www.afropop.org/sambastory). Another high priority is to raise funds to digitize and organize our unique archive of recorded material gathered over 30 years of field work and to make it broadly available to the American public. We receive major long-term support from the NEH and NEA. We also receive support from PRI stations, board members and other major donors, family foundations, and website advertising. We have a track record of support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Merck, BET and others. More information at afropop.org. JOB DESCRIPTION—GRANT WRITER: We are looking for a dynamic development professional with 3-5 or more years of successful experience. This is a half time position. It is primarily a grant writer position, focusing on mainstream foundations as well as new foundations launched by technology moguls and others. Significant research is done in-house to assist the grant writer. Important opportunities for corporate and major donor support will arise, and successful candidate will be competent in these areas too, but the main focus is the foundation world. The areas of foundation focus are the media, the arts, cross-cultural understanding, education, archive preservation and development. Ideally, the successful candidate will have a strong connection with our mission and our work. The Grant Writer works closely with the Executive Producer in setting fundraising strategies and goals. The Grant Writer and Exec. Producer work with Afropop’s Board of Directors to help mobilize members to maximize the fullest potential of their networks to support the organization. Successful candidate has superb writing and communication skills. Must be highly detailed and extremely well organized. Candidate must be a strong self-starter and be able to work independently. Must have good planning skills to meet deadlines and to help accomplish organizational goals. Afropop Worldwide was founded in 1986 by Sean Barlow. We've been based in Brooklyn since 1989. We're located in Sunset Park, a five-minute walk from the N, D, R trains. Salary is commensurate with experience. (Individuals based in New York City metro area preferred but all welcome to apply.) TO APPLY: Send cover letter and resume to: Sean Barlow, Executive Producer Afropop Worldwide 220 36th St., Unit 58 Brooklyn, New York 11232. info@afropop.org