Instructional Designer-Volunteer Role

About Us:

The Donovan’s Venom is a 501c3 nonprofit organization focused on curating universal accessibility to fine arts and music education for all. We are passionately dedicated to ensuring that everyone, regardless of financial circumstances, has access to high-quality music education, performance opportunities, and fine art. We aim to inspire, empower, and uplift communities by fostering a love for music and the arts through our commitment to education, inclusivity, diversity, and social impact, which drives us to expand our reach continually and enrich the lives of those we serve

Instructional Designer

Position Summary

Our Instructional Designer will play a key role in designing engaging, accessible, and effective learning experiences that support The Donovan’s Venom’s programs, products, and educational initiatives.

This is an exciting volunteer opportunity for someone who enjoys both creating learning experiences and building the systems behind them. The Instructional Designer will partner with subject matter experts, learning leaders, product teams, and other stakeholders to transform complex information into clear, engaging, learner-centered experiences.

In addition to developing courses and learning materials, this role will help establish instructional design standards, templates, processes, tools, and best practices as the organization continues to build and scale its learning capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop engaging learning experiences, including eLearning courses, instructor-led training, virtual learning, microlearning, videos, job aids, guides, assessments, and other educational materials.
• Apply instructional design methodologies such as ADDIE, SAM, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and adult learning principles to learning solutions.
• Conduct learning needs and audience analyses to identify learning objectives, knowledge gaps, and appropriate instructional approaches.
• Translate complex concepts and subject matter into clear, accessible, and engaging learning experiences.
• Partner with subject matter experts to gather, organize, validate, and transform content into effective instructional materials.
• Develop learning objectives, storyboards, course outlines, scripts, assessments, activities, and facilitator materials.
• Help build and maintain the organization’s instructional design framework, standards, templates, processes, and development guidelines.
• Establish consistent approaches for course design, content development, assessment, accessibility, and quality assurance.
• Collaborate with Curriculum & Learning, Learning Experience, Product, UX/UI, Creative, Technology, and other teams to ensure cohesive learning experiences.
• Develop assessments and knowledge checks that measure learner understanding and achievement of learning objectives.
• Incorporate multimedia, interactivity, storytelling, scenarios, simulations, and other techniques to strengthen learner engagement.
• Review and improve existing learning content for clarity, effectiveness, accessibility, consistency, and learner experience.
• Support the implementation and administration of learning content within learning platforms or Learning Management Systems (LMS).
• Apply accessibility and inclusive-design principles, including relevant WCAG accessibility standards, to digital learning experiences.
• Gather learner feedback and performance data to evaluate learning effectiveness and recommend improvements.
• Stay current on instructional design trends, learning technologies, AI-enabled learning tools, and emerging approaches to digital education.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Instructional Design, Education, Learning Sciences, Educational Technology, Communications, or a related field preferred; equivalent practical experience considered.
• 3+ years of experience in instructional design, learning experience design, curriculum development, eLearning development, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience designing and developing digital and/or instructor-led learning experiences.
• Strong understanding of instructional design methodologies and adult learning principles.
• Experience developing learning objectives, storyboards, assessments, facilitator guides, and learner materials.
• Experience working collaboratively with subject matter experts and cross-functional teams.
• Familiarity with eLearning authoring and learning technologies such as Articulate 360, Rise, Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Canva, LMS platforms, or similar tools.
• Understanding of accessibility and inclusive learning design practices.
• Strong writing, editing, communication, and content-organization skills.
• Ability to manage multiple learning projects and priorities in a collaborative, evolving environment.
• Strong attention to detail with a commitment to quality and consistency.
• Portfolio or examples of instructional design, curriculum, eLearning, or related learning work preferred.

What Makes This Opportunity Unique

This role offers the opportunity to do more than develop courses. You will help shape how learning is designed and delivered across the organization. You will have the opportunity to build instructional design practices, introduce new approaches and technologies, collaborate across disciplines, and create learning experiences that can grow alongside The Donovan’s Venom and the communities it serves.

Disclaimer

This is a volunteer position and does not constitute employment. Responsibilities may evolve based on organizational needs.

As a 100% volunteer-led U.S. nonprofit organization, we may engage volunteers located outside the United States. International volunteer participation is subject to applicable U.S. sanctions and export-control requirements, data privacy and information-security requirements, background screening where appropriate, and confirmation that the volunteer’s country and assigned responsibilities have been approved by the organization.