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I am a Development Associate for The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. We are a non-collecting, contemporary art museum, and my job is essentially to get funding through foundation, corporation, and government grants and individual donations. I do a lot of grant writing.

Weekly duties include maintaining a database of donors, which contains people who have contributed money or any kind of donations to the museum. I also have to contact potential funders to inquire about grant deadlines and keep our calendar up to date regarding funding for different parts of the year, specific exhibitions, concerts, lectures, talks, etc.

The main difficulties I find revolve around finding a match. A way to describe my job is match making—finding the perfect donor. I have to match someone who wants to give us money for a project and someone that we want to work with through the donor process. It's that searching process that can be frustrating.

Also, sometimes we won't have exhibitions and education programming in place in time to meet certain grant deadlines, so there's this constant pressure for the curators to identify specific projects, so that we on the development side can start getting funding for those programs as soon as possible.

Recently we had an art opening for a Czech artist, and it was her first Midwest solo exhibition. We recently installed her work in the museum, and held a big opening reception. We served wine, and lots of artists and art lovers came to see the show. The artist discussed her past work as well as answered questions and a dinner followed with board members and University affiliates. We often specialize in introducing Chicago to contemporary artists who may not necessarily be on the Midwest radar.

I guess it would be a balance between the administration and the creative process. For every art museum, there's always a fine line between creative programming and administration. Administration and development make it possible for us to turn people on to new artists, music, ideas and thoughts. Our atmosphere has that ambitious, creative spirit tempered with the reality of logistics.

I pretty much spend all day, every day at my desk, typically in front of the computer. The University of Chicago has the student life center, equipped with coffee shops and a number of lunch places. There are also other museums around campus and lectures that I sometimes check out after work. Within the University of Chicago there is a lot going on, so it's nice working within that environment.

The two curators spend a lot of their time out in the field, in artist's studios and working on national and international projects. They are always looking for new artists and organizing exhibitions, as well as keeping in contact with staff at other museums to make those exhibitions happen. Their work is a lot more about travel and meetings.

I majored in Art History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I've always been attracted to the kind of lifestyle that combines the scholarly and intellectual with travel and new thoughts and ideas, which is part of the greater art world. As an undergrad, I worked as an assistant preparator at the Krannert Art Museum at the University. I'm still currently in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago getting my Masters in Art History; I've finished the first draft of my thesis. Ideally, I'd like to graduate this spring.

A curator conceives, plans, and executes exhibitions. A preparator works with the curator to physically install a show. The curator approaches preparators at the museum with an idea about the show and the manner in which they want the art works installed, involving everything from lighting to painting, mudding, and building walls. Preparators deal with all the typical logistics involved in turning a show into reality.

Immediately after graduating in 2002, I took an internship working for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in 2003. I worked at an art institution started by the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, whose museum in New York was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I worked in Venice for about five months in different capacities; I did everything from menial tasks, like bag checking and ticket sales, to assisting the registrar of the museum. I also helped with the installation of new works into the museum. At the end of the internship, I was asked to stay on an extra month as assistant to the intern manager. I was then asked to work for the Venice Biennale, which is the oldest and most prestigious art fair in the world. I got to work at the United States Pavilion with artist Fred Wilson, which is staffed by Venice's Peggy Guggenheim Collection. I stayed until the end of summer in 2003.

I came back to Chicago in 2003 from Venice and worked a million odd jobs and had internships with the Onion magazine (in the advertising section) and New City magazine. I was very interested in journalism. In college, I worked for the Daily Illini, which is the student newspaper, and I did cartoons and illustrations. I was on the editorial board and I wrote a weekly opinions column. I wasn't sure whether I'd go into journalism and some sort of magazine publishing or an art history career. Throughout those odd jobs I got involved with the Chicago Public Schools, starting off as a substitute and eventually worked my way into a position as the trainer for the software system that allows teachers to manage student data online, and is now used by all of the high school and elementary Chicago public schools. I was doing that until this past summer.

Throughout the public schools project, I was also going to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in which I enrolled in 2005, pursuing my Masters in Art History. I was Gallery Assistant for Gallery 400 from 2005 until 2007, and helped with the administration of exhibitions for the At the Edge local contemporary art exhibition series. I was referred to a position that was opening up at The Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, and I eventually got the job.

I took this job to gain a substantial amount of experience and to firmly establish myself in the Chicago art museum world. I hope to become a successful development person, acquainting myself with the big Chicago donors and city, state, government and local foundations. The Renaissance Society has long been a favorite of mine in terms of Chicago institutions for its dedication to cutting edge art and its rigorous acumen for dedication to art and exhibitions.

For people that I have worked with here in Chicago and abroad, I find many have had these hodgepodge careers where often times they are artists on the side while they are working in an administrative capacity for a museum. For example, someone might go from a curator to a professor to a publisher or vice versa, as well as write or teach for a couple years and eventually return to being an artist. In this field, people pursue their interests as they come along, and they wear a lot of different hats, although some people who are very career-oriented start with development, and stick with that field all the way through.

I keep a regular schedule, commuting to work with my fiance, who works at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. I'm usually at my desk at 9:00 a.m. and I make coffee. Then I open the exhibition, which involves turning on all the lights, opening the doors, and displaying video works. I usually have a meeting at some point during the day to talk to my director and go over potential funders we might be able to pursue.

It's only my first year, but other responsibilities include running the annual campaign, which is where we ask our donors to fund us during a particular campaign drive. Also, I work on an annual project organizing a large benefit. It's a 400-plus person event with a large dinner and art auction. We ask artists and galleries to donate artwork, which we then auction off to the highest bidder. We then use the money for exhibitions throughout the year.

I just take breaks when I need them, usually when I can't look at the computer screen anymore. It's flexible, though. If I bring my lunch, I sometimes just eat at my desk. We usually get 15-minute breaks twice a day, plus lunch. It just depends on how busy it is.

On a yearly basis, there's a lot of variety, however on a day-to-day basis, there's less. For example, for the next couple of months, I'll constantly be working on getting funding for fiscal year 2009, which begins July 1. Later in the spring, I'll be working on the annual campaign drive.

All of our openings for our exhibitions are held on Sundays, with five a year, and I attend all of them because it's a great chance for me to see The Renaissance Society's board, donors, and friends and see the work in it's finished state. Other than the openings, I have the weekends to myself.

In my position, an entry-level position in the arts, it ranges from anywhere as low as $15,000 for part time positions to $25-40,000 for full-time positions.

I haven't had time; graduate school has been my other job. I could see myself pursuing something on the side, whether it be trying to publish my thesis or writing for an art magazine or other publications.

I put in about 40-45 hours a week. I could potentially work every single hour of the week, which would be exhausting, but my job is never really done.

Not right now, but perhaps in the future.

I get introduced to all the players in the Chicago art world. In the arts, your social life is very meshed with your professional life. If you don't represent yourself as an artist, you represent an institution, a school of thought or a particular movement in the arts. The two worlds are very much intertwined. For social events, a lot of times I'll be at other gallery openings or checking out shows at other art museums. It's what I'm interested in, so it's a great benefit.

Ideally, I'd like to retire earlier in life. I follow the typical advice, putting aside 10 percent so you're supposedly good to go by the age of 65. I do look forward to the day when I don't have to work. I would also get more involved in the programmatic side. I would like to eventually curate a show.

I love being around the people and ideas in the arts that I'm interested in on a daily basis. I think a nonprofit like The Renaissance Society serves an important role in the arts in Chicago. Also, the staff at The Renaissance Society is a particularly talented and visionary group of people—a small staff working together to put out an internationally acclaimed exhibition and education program is no small accomplishment. The Renaissance Society has been around since 1915, and has exhibited artists from nearly every major art movement since that time.

From a developmental standpoint, it's a challenge not knowing all the details of our upcoming programming so that I can help secure funding for those exhibitions. But I totally understand the complexities of scheduling and working with busy artists. Generally, I don't have a whole lot of frustrations.

You never know if you might enjoy doing something else better, but generally the rule of thumb is, you try it, and if you don't like it, you do something else. In this case, I've tried it and I want to continue with it. It's opening a lot of doors for me. I'm at the very beginning of my career, and I feel like I'm where I need to be in terms of my career goals.

I think it's growing. I think in general, people are becoming more interested in the arts, which is evidenced by larger and bigger art fairs, and more galleries and museums. There is also a lot of leverage by governments around the world for art as a kind of cultural capital. For example, if you have a festival or art museum, it's more likely you'll get tourists and money. So in general, you'll see governments leveraging these kinds of art institutions. Chicago is a big town for the arts, although not as big as New York or Los Angeles, but it still has a decent scene. A prime example is Millennium Park: you see a band shell by Frank Gehry; a sculpture by Anish Kapoor, known as "the bean"; and a fountain area by Jaume Plensa. Chicago is recognizing big name artists and displaying their works in very accessible public spaces.

It's had a tremendous effect. For a non-collecting art museum such as this, our shows last two months and then they're gone, so in order to preserve their legacy, we've always had an active publishing tradition throughout the years. We publish monographs and catalogues to go with many exhibitions. Also, with the Internet, we can now put all that documentation up on our website. We've been around since 1915, and we have archives that date back that far. Now with digital video, you can see video recordings of educational events and artist's performances.

In a way, you could argue the Internet is one of the main drivers of globalization, in which case our online digital archive is very much a part of the movement. Someone can search for and find an artist who's shown with us in the past 93 years. Our web traffic numbers have skyrocketed in the past few years. It's increased our profile overall. We've even done some exhibitions addressing the topic of globalization.

It probably would have been nice if I had taken a class on orientation to the museum world. In graduate school, you learn all about theory, philosophy, and criticism, but you don't learn all the nuts and bolts of the industry. Of course, in the end it's supposed to be theory in school and practice in the real world, but some schools do a better job at bridging that gap than others.

Someone who is interested in the arts, of course. Someone who is a good writer. Somebody who's interested in new ideas, thoughts, and who's flexible in terms of their willingness to work in different capacities to be part of the art world. Someone who is resourceful and can do everything from preparation to administration and development. Having basic art historical knowledge acquired from classes and internships is essential.

Genuine curiosity about the art world, willingness to work hard, dedication to education, and problem solving skills.

In development, you need to have a comfortable knowledge of artists, specifically on the national level, a knowledge and active interest in art museum development. In addition, if someone wants the job I have, some sort of school internship with experience working with the development staff of a museum, assisting with something like creating a budget or writing a grant, is very important.

The career advice that I've found to be the most applicable came from the Boy Scouts: be prepared. It's all about having that level of preparedness, knowing enough about the topic or project at hand and using that knowledge in the work environment.

I love how everything changes - the newness of the artists' projects. I'm always curious about which artist the curator is going to pick for the new exhibition, how they will write about it, and what the exhibition will look like. I also love the project management aspect, being able to have an idea and to make it happen. Plus, given the history of the place, you feel privileged to help keep one of Chicago's important cultural institutions thriving.