HEATHER HARTLEY

E-mail: heather.hartley@gmail.com

PROFILE

Heather Hartley is the Founder and President of Hartley Communications, offering project development and consultancy services to numerous small to mid-sized non-profit organizations. Heather worked as an arts administration professional and as an artist in Chicago for the last two decades, and relocated to the Asheville, NC area in June 2019.

 Career highlights include serving as Executive Director of Audience Architects (2012-2019), a non-profit t dance service organization that provided over 250 member companies with marketing, audience development, and fundraising services. Heather led Audience Architects through seven years of consistent growth and expansion, doubling the size and diversity of the organization’s Board of Directors, doubling membership, and tripling the organization’s operating budget. She also served as senior staff member for two of Chicago’s most respected performing arts organizations: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (director of marketing and communications, 2004-2007) and Columba College Chicago (marketing director, 1998-2004). With a passion for non-profits in mind and strategic skills under her belt, Heather launched Hartley Communications in 2007. Areas of specialization included branding, event planning, and audience research and development. Her client roster has included a variety of organizations with budgets ranging from under $50,000 to $6.5 million. Recent clients include developing a business plan for a student summer arts festival at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC, and an audience research project to analyze the feasibility of creating a dance service organization in Bentonville, AR, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

 Heather excels as a public speaker and has spoken on numerous panels, served as Emcee at the 3,500 seat Auditorium Theatre’s Movement in Motion Benefit, and has guest lectured for Columbia College Chicago, Steppenwolf Theater, the Arts & Business Council of Chicago, and the National Arts Marketing Annual Conference. She served as an advisor on the City of Chicago Cultural Tourism Commission, and was a member of the Actors Fund National Advisory Council. For four consecutive annual issues, New City Magazine named Heather as one of the “Top 50 Players” leading Chicago’s cultural scene.

 A native of Boone, NC, Heather received a BFA in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a MA degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College Chicago. She is thrilled to have returned to the North Carolina Blue Ridge mountains with her husband, Phil Reynolds, and their floppy-eared dog, Thelma. In 2018, she and Phil co-founded Trillium Arts, a non-profit artist residency center just outside of Asheville, NC.

~ Complete Resume and References Available Upon Request ~