PORT ANGELES — Needed: A bundle of energy to propel a music and arts extravaganza from adolescence into young adulthood.
That’s how Anna Manildi, executive director of the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, describes her successor’s job.
Manildi is heading into her 10th festival this May 28-31, and has decided this is it.
“I’m not retiring. I’m moving on,” Manildi said Friday in an interview at her downtown Port Angeles office.
Manildi, 60, took the wheel of the Memorial Day weekend cavalcade of concerts, food and art in 2001, when it was a 7-year-old event.
Time for a change
“I got to take it through its teenage years,” she said, adding that it’s time for change, in her life and in that of the festival’s life.
A switch in leadership is a natural progression, to Manildi, who’s had a long career working with nonprofits.
“I have a wonderful sense of accomplishment,” she said.
At the same time, booking and orchestrating the festival — six stages, 60 acts, 145 concerts plus the street fair — can get stressful.
“I like putting puzzles together,” said Manildi, who’s worked at the Seattle public radio station KUOW-FM and at the Olympic Park Institute.
Now she’s had her fill of being the big boss of an arts festival.
“What’s stressful is being in charge of a whole organization . . . one thing I’m looking forward to is not having every single decision set at my feet,” she said, adding that she will be happy to work for someone else who’s in the executive director seat.
Then there’s the furious fundraising.
Fundraising
The Juan de Fuca Festival’s annual budget is about $220,000, including some $30,000 in in-kind donations of labor, advertising and other services.
When Manildi isn’t talking to musicians about their needs, planning how to transform the Vern Burton Community Center, Port Angeles City Council Chambers and four other venues into music halls or buying insurance to cover myriad unknowns, she’s applying for grants and working with sponsors such as First Federal and the Washington State Arts Commission.
The recession has cut into support from some real estate companies and car dealers, Manildi said, so she’s redoubled her efforts to keep the festival at the level people have come to expect.
When it all comes together, though, this job is a joy.
“I just love being at the festival, seeing people sitting on the grass, listening to music, with smiles on their faces,” Manildi said.
And when she lands a great band – one that might have charged a lot more but decides to come see about Port Angeles’ reputation as a place of warm welcome — she’s over the moon.
Highlights this year
For this year’s festival, she’s got Moira Smiley and Voco, “a great vocal and instrumental group from California,” coming up, and the Bobs, a beloved a cappella group, among other acts.
Last year she brought the Senate, a Seattle band that turned into the talk of the festival; several times she’s brought Harry Manx, a singer-songwriter who’s developed a cult following here.
Manildi likes to watch people going into a venue, not knowing what they’re about to hear, and then come out, their faces lit up in discovery.
That happens every year, and it’s “very satisfying,” she said.
With the festival eight weeks away, Manildi is hard at it, scarcely looking at the clock, working weekends — and not thinking about what she wants to do after she leaves this job in June.
She has faith that once she closes the door on Juan de Fuca, a new opportunity will appear. That’s happened before, time and again.
“My job history is about seven years [at each position]. I’ve got one more career change to go,” she said.
The advertisement for her successor, in the Peninsula Daily News classified ads and on the festival Web site, www.JFFA.org under the “About JFFA” link, notes that the position is part-time to start.
Manildi said the summer and early fall months aren’t nearly as busy as the months closer to the festival, so the new executive director would focus on fundraising at first.
He or she will work with Carol Pope, the festival’s part-time education director and marketing assistant. The executive director will probably go to full time by early 2011, Manildi predicted.
The salary and benefits will be negotiated with the successful candidate, said festival board vice president Laura Brogden.
The board decided not to set a pay range, she said, adding that it will be commensurate with the new chief’s education and experience.
The job ad calls for a bachelor of arts degree or “equivalent experience in nonprofit management, event planning, and music production,” with “excellent fundraising skills necessary.”
“It’s an exciting, challenging, creative job,” Manildi said. “Trying to keep your organization vibrant, alive and relevant — all of that is very fun.”
Running a nonprofit music and art festival doesn’t put you in an upper-income bracket, she added, but “you make up for [it] by knowing you’re serving your community, and knowing you’re doing something that makes people happy.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
