Chief Creative Officer (CCO) — Volunteer

Chief Creative Officer (CCO) — Volunteer

PromiseStudios | Creative Vision, Original Content & Studio Leadership

Organization: Mentor A Promise (MAP)

Division: PromiseStudios

Location: Remote with NYC-based collaboration and productions as needed

Type: Executive Volunteer Leadership Role

Commitment: Approximately 5–10 hours per week

Minimum Commitment: 6-month commitment required

Reports To: Executive Director (CEO)

Leads: PromiseStudios

Direct Leadership: Creative Directors, Creative Development, Creative Production, Post-Production, Studio Operations, and other senior PromiseStudios leaders

Works Closely With: Executive Team and leadership across PromisePages, PromiseBrands, PromiseVoice, PromiseStack, PromiseRise, PromisePrograms, PromiseBridge, and other MAP divisions

About Mentor A Promise

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit supporting children and youth ages 5–18 experiencing housing instability through mentorship, education, literacy, social-emotional learning, creative expression, career development, storytelling, and community-centered opportunity.

Through PromiseStudios, MAP is building a multidisciplinary creative studio where filmmakers, animators, photographers, composers, sound designers, editors, producers, and other artists can create original work with artistic ambition and social purpose.

About PromiseStudios

PromiseStudios is MAP's creative production studio and home for disciplines including:

• Film and original cinema
• Animation
• Photography and visual storytelling
• Motion design
• Visual effects
• Music and scoring
• Sound and audio
• Post-production
• Creative development
• Original media and emerging creative formats

PromiseStudios exists to create work worth experiencing—not simply content to fill channels.

We want to develop original stories, characters, worlds, films, animation, images, music, and intellectual propertycapable of reaching audiences while remaining grounded in MAP's mission and values.

Role Overview

Mentor A Promise is seeking an exceptional Chief Creative Officer (CCO) to lead PromiseStudios and shape its long-term creative identity.

The CCO is the senior creative executive responsible for answering:

What should PromiseStudios create—and what should distinguish our work from everything else competing for people's attention?

This leader will establish the studio-wide creative vision, develop its senior creative leadership, oversee the portfolio of original projects, protect quality, strengthen creative culture, and help build PromiseStudios into a disciplined and ambitious multidisciplinary studio.

The CCO is not expected to personally direct every film, animation, photograph, score, or production.

PromiseStudios is intentionally structured around specialized creative leadership.

The Creative Director of Animation leads animation.

The Creative Director of Photography & Visual Storytelling leads photography.

Film leadership leads cinema.

Music and Sound leadership leads its discipline.

Other Creative Directors lead their respective areas.

The CCO's responsibility is larger:

Build the studio in which exceptional Creative Directors—and the artists they lead—can do exceptional work.

Key Responsibilities

Studio-Wide Creative Vision

• Establish the overall creative vision and artistic identity of PromiseStudios.
• Define studio-wide principles for storytelling, originality, quality, experimentation, and audience experience.
• Set an ambitious creative standard across disciplines without forcing every discipline into the same aesthetic.
• Determine, with appropriate leadership, which creative opportunities best support the studio's long-term direction.
• Protect PromiseStudios from becoming driven solely by volume, trends, or disconnected projects.
• Continually ask whether the studio's work is distinctive, meaningful, and worthy of the audiences we hope to reach.

Lead the Creative Leadership Team

Directly develop and support senior PromiseStudios leaders, including:

• Creative Director of Animation
• Creative Director of Film & Original Cinema
• Creative Director of Photography & Visual Storytelling
• Creative Director of Motion Design & VFX
• Creative Director of Music & Sound
• Director of Creative Development
• Senior Director of Creative Production
• Director of Post-Production
• Director of Studio Operations
• Additional discipline leaders as PromiseStudios evolves

The CCO should establish a PromiseStudios Creative Leadership Council where senior creative and production leaders review projects, surface challenges, coordinate resources, and strengthen the studio together.

Develop Creative Directors

A major measure of the CCO's effectiveness will be the quality of leadership beneath them.

The CCO will:

• Recruit exceptional Creative Directors and senior creative talent.
• Mentor Creative Directors.
• Help leaders strengthen their artistic judgment and leadership capabilities.
• Establish clear decision rights between disciplines.
• Give senior creatives meaningful autonomy.
• Challenge teams when work does not meet PromiseStudios standards.
• Resolve significant cross-disciplinary creative disagreements.
• Identify emerging creative leaders.
• Build succession and leadership depth throughout the studio.

The strongest CCO will not become the person through whom every creative decision must pass.

They will build leaders capable of making extraordinary decisions themselves.

Original Content & Intellectual Property

Lead the development of a long-term portfolio of PromiseStudios Originals.

Work with Creative Development and discipline leaders to identify opportunities for:

• Original short films
• Animated films
• Documentary storytelling
• Original characters
• Original worlds
• Series concepts
• Experimental media
• Music and sound projects
• Visual storytelling projects
• Cross-media storytelling
• Adaptations developed with PromisePages
• Emerging creative formats

Help determine which ideas should be:

Explored → Developed → Tested → Produced → Expanded

Not every good idea should become a production.

The CCO must have the judgment to determine which ideas deserve MAP's limited creative resources.

Creative Development & Greenlighting

Partner with Creative Development, Production, Executive Leadership, and relevant stakeholders to establish a disciplined development process.

Evaluate projects based on:

• Story
• Originality
• Artistic potential
• Audience
• Mission alignment
• Production feasibility
• Required resources
• Risk
• Intellectual-property potential
• Strategic value

Help create meaningful development checkpoints so weak concepts can be improved, reworked, paused, or discontinued before consuming substantial production resources.

Creative ambition should be encouraged.

Undisciplined production should not be.

Creative Quality

Establish appropriate review processes for major PromiseStudios productions.

The CCO should know when executive creative involvement is necessary—and when to trust the Creative Director responsible for the project.

Provide high-level feedback concerning:

• Story
• Character
• Emotional impact
• Visual language
• Originality
• Audience
• Tone
• Creative coherence
• Artistic quality
• Studio standards

Feedback should make the work stronger without stripping the project leader of creative ownership.

Build the PromiseStudios Culture

Create an environment where talented people want to contribute their best work.

Build a culture that values:

Imagination.

Craft.

Curiosity.

Preparation.

Experimentation.

Candor.

Collaboration.

Respect.

Accountability.

Dignity.

Creative critique should be rigorous without becoming destructive.

Artists should be able to disagree.

Leaders should be able to change their minds.

Junior creatives should be able to contribute excellent ideas.

Failure during experimentation should produce learning.

High standards should coexist with humanity.

Production & Operational Partnership

Work closely with the Senior Director of Creative Production and Director of Studio Operations.

The distinction should remain clear:

CCO: Owns studio-wide creative vision and portfolio.

Creative Directors: Own discipline-specific artistic direction.

Creative Production: Owns execution of productions.

Studio Operations: Owns shared studio infrastructure, systems, assets, resources, and operational support.

The CCO must respect production realities while ensuring logistical limitations do not automatically become creative limitations.

When resources are constrained, the question becomes:

How can we make the idea stronger within the reality we have?

Cross-Division Creative Collaboration

PromiseStudios should serve as MAP's center of excellence for professional creative-media production while collaborating across the organization.

The CCO may partner with:

• PromisePages on adaptations and story development
• PromiseBrands on campaigns requiring professional creative production
• PromiseVoice on high-level storytelling and media initiatives
• PromiseRise on creative career exposure and talent development
• PromisePrograms on appropriate youth-centered storytelling
• PromiseStack on technology-enabled creative experiences
• PromiseBridge on creative partnerships and external opportunities

Cross-divisional collaboration should create alignment without blurring ownership or decision rights.

Audience & Creative Impact

Great creative work requires an audience.

Partner with appropriate MAP leaders to consider:

• Who the work is for
• Why they should care
• Where they will encounter it
• How projects can reach appropriate audiences
• Festivals and screenings
• Digital distribution
• Publishing and adaptation opportunities
• Partnerships
• Audience development
• Long-term creative value

The CCO should understand audience without allowing algorithms or trends to become the studio's creative director.

Youth-Centered & Ethical Storytelling

PromiseStudios may tell stories connected to children, families, communities, and housing instability.

The CCO is responsible for championing a creative culture that recognizes:

A person's hardship is not their entire identity.

Stories should make room for:

• Joy
• Humor
• Friendship
• Curiosity
• Adventure
• Creativity
• Fear
• Complexity
• Imagination
• Ambition
• Love
• Possibility

The CCO will work with appropriate MAP leadership to ensure productions involving youth, families, likenesses, voices, lived experiences, or youth-created intellectual property receive appropriate safeguarding, privacy, consent, attribution, ownership, and organizational review.

Children are not marketing assets.

Their experiences should never be exploited simply because hardship can produce emotionally powerful storytelling.

Build the Studio

The CCO is joining MAP not simply to inherit a creative organization.

They are helping build one.

This includes:

• Defining the PromiseStudios organizational structure
• Recruiting senior creative leadership
• Establishing departments
• Developing creative standards
• Building production pipelines
• Creating development and greenlight processes
• Establishing creative review systems
• Building cross-disciplinary collaboration
• Developing emerging leaders
• Strengthening the creative talent pipeline
• Helping establish a long-term portfolio strategy

The goal is not to build the largest creative organization.

It is to build one capable of producing consistently exceptional work.

Executive Leadership Expectations

As a Chief at MAP, the Chief Creative Officer is expected to:

• Attend weekly Chiefs meetings prepared to contribute to organization-wide leadership and strategy.
• Meet weekly with the CEO to discuss priorities, challenges, opportunities, projects, and progress.
• Take ownership of PromiseStudios by setting direction, solving problems, and driving measurable progress.
• Maintain regular communication with Directors and direct reports.
• Establish clear priorities and accountability across the division.
• Follow through consistently on commitments.
• Recruit, develop, support, and retain talented volunteers.
• Build a healthy, collaborative, mission-driven creative culture.
• Collaborate effectively with other Chiefs and divisions.
• Surface significant risks or barriers early rather than allowing problems to grow.
• Model sound judgment, humility, integrity, accountability, and respect.
• Keep MAP's mission at the center of PromiseStudios' work.

Ideal Candidate

Strong candidates may have senior experience in:

• Creative direction
• Film or television
• Animation
• Media
• Entertainment
• Creative studios
• Advertising
• Production
• Digital media
• Original content
• Publishing or cross-media storytelling
• Creative agency leadership

The strongest candidates will demonstrate:

• Exceptional creative judgment
• A sophisticated understanding of storytelling
• Experience leading multidisciplinary creative teams
• Experience developing Creative Directors or senior creatives
• Ability to recognize exceptional ideas and talent
• Experience developing projects from concept through production
• Ability to provide clear, actionable creative feedback
• Strong understanding of production realities
• Ability to balance artistic ambition with organizational capacity
• Experience building teams, departments, or creative functions
• Strong communication and executive leadership
• Ability to manage disagreement without suppressing creative debate
• High standards combined with emotional intelligence
• Commitment to ethical and dignity-centered storytelling
• Alignment with MAP's mission

A strong portfolio, reel, body of work, or demonstrated record of creative leadership is expected.

What Success Looks Like

Within a successful PromiseStudios:

• Each creative discipline has strong leadership.
• Creative Directors understand their authority.
• Artists know where they belong.
• Original ideas move through a disciplined development process.
• Strong projects receive resources.
• Weak projects improve before production—or appropriately stop.
• Productions have clear creative ownership.
• Creative quality rises over time.
• Emerging artists become stronger.
• Emerging leaders receive opportunities.
• Departments collaborate without losing their identities.
• PromiseStudios develops recognizable creative standards.
• Original intellectual property begins to emerge.
• Audiences genuinely want to experience the work.
• The studio becomes less dependent on the CCO personally making every decision.

Most importantly:

PromiseStudios begins producing work that could only have come from PromiseStudios.

Why This Role Matters

Anyone can create more content.

That is not the ambition.

The ambition is to create stories worth telling, worlds worth entering, characters worth caring about, images worth remembering, and work capable of remaining meaningful after the screen goes dark.

Doing that consistently requires more than talented artists.

It requires creative leadership.

Someone must protect the standard.

Someone must see connections between disciplines.

Someone must recognize extraordinary ideas early.

Someone must know when an idea needs more development.

Someone must develop the leaders who will develop the artists.

And someone must keep asking:

Is this merely finished—or is it exceptional?

That is the responsibility of the Chief Creative Officer.

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week
• Minimum 6-month commitment required
• Remote with NYC-based collaboration and productions as needed
• Weekly Chiefs meeting participation
• Weekly meetings with the CEO
• Regular PromiseStudios leadership meetings and creative reviews
• Consistent communication and follow-through
• Active development of PromiseStudios leadership
• Completion of applicable MAP onboarding and organizational requirements

What You'll Gain

• C-suite creative leadership experience within a growing nonprofit organization
• Opportunity to build a multidisciplinary creative studio from the ground up
• Direct partnership with MAP's CEO and Executive Team
• Opportunity to develop original intellectual property and PromiseStudios Originals
• Leadership across film, animation, photography, music, sound, motion design, post-production, and emerging media
• Opportunity to recruit and develop Creative Directors and other senior creative talent
• Experience building creative-development, production, and studio systems
• Opportunity to shape the long-term identity and creative legacy of PromiseStudios
• Professional references and letters of recommendation
• Meaningful opportunity to use extraordinary creative work in service of an extraordinary mission

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply directly through Idealist and submit:

• Resume or CV
• Cover letter
• Portfolio, reel, website, or representative body of creative work
• Examples of creative teams, departments, productions, or initiatives you have led

Applicants should describe their philosophy of creative leadership, including how they maintain exceptional standards while giving Creative Directors and artists meaningful ownership of their work.

This is a volunteer, unpaid executive leadership position with Mentor A Promise.

At this time, volunteer opportunities are limited to individuals based in the United States due to legal, safeguarding, data-privacy, compliance, and programmatic requirements.

Don't come to PromiseStudios simply to approve the work. Build the people, culture, standards, and creative institution capable of making work no one else could make.