Arts & Culture Support Specialist (Executive Support Specialist 2) (Limited Duration)
Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency, is currently hiring an Arts & Culture Support Specialist (Executive Support Specialist 2) (Limited Duration).
The Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust work to ensure that creativity, culture, and artistic expression remain essential, accessible, and celebrated throughout Oregon. We are seeking a forward-thinking, digitally proficient professional who brings equal passion for cultural vitality and high-quality administrative excellence. If you believe in the power of the arts to strengthen communities and you take pride in helping organizations operate at their best, we invite you to consider this role.
As our Arts & Culture Support Specialist you will play a pivotal role at the center of our work. This position blends meaningful public service with high-impact executive support: coordinating leadership calendars, preparing board and committee materials, managing meeting logistics, tracking deadlines, and ensuring clear, timely communication across the division. Your ability to keep complex administrative systems running smoothly will directly support statewide initiatives, grantmaking programs, public meetings, and partnerships that enrich Oregon's cultural landscape.
Note: We are committed to fostering a supportive work environment that promotes work-life balance and flexibility. This is a hybrid position that may have the ability to work from home, with the expectation of an occasional in-office presence as needed to support business operations.
This is a Limited Duration position and is currently approved through June 30, 2027. This recruitment will be used to establish a list of qualified candidates to fill the current positions and may be used to fill future vacancies.
Here's what you will do:
- Provide executive administrative support to the Director and Senior Manager, including calendar management, scheduling, meeting preparation, and routine communications.
- Coordinate Arts Commission and Cultural Trust board and committee meetings: prepare agendas, assemble and distribute meeting packets, handle logistics (room reservations, Zoom links, technology setup), take, finalize, and distribute minutes.
- Maintain organized administrative systems including electronic filing, shared drive hygiene, meeting archives, templates, and standard operating procedures.
- Prepare correspondence, edit documents, proofread public materials, and support the formatting of reports and presentations.
- Manage shared inboxes; triage messages, draft responses, and route inquiries to appropriate staff.
- Manage administrative workflows that support the overall functioning of the division, including scheduling, document routing, and internal deadline tracking.
- Track tasks, deliverables, and meeting follow-up; maintain internal communications routes for the team.
- Draft, edit, proofread, and distribute internal and external communications: announcements, email newsletters, program updates, meeting notices, and board communications
- Maintain and regularly update all public-facing website content, including guidelines, deadlines, application links, staff directories, commission materials, and project reports.
- Provide professional and timely customer service to applicants, grantees, donors, community members, and the general public: answer questions, resolve basic process issues, and route technical or program-specific questions to staff.
Minimum Qualifications: One year of experience performing administrative duties in support of agency projects or programs. Qualifying experience would involve data collection and analysis; project evaluation and/or analysis; interpretation and application of laws, rules, and regulations; or similar experience.
Requested Skills:
- Strong digital communications proficiency - Updating websites through content management systems, maintaining digital assets, and preparing clear, accessible materials using tools such as Canva, Adobe Creative Suite, and PowerPoint.
- Detail orientation and communication accuracy - Editorial skills, including proofreading, document formatting, and quality assurance for public-facing materials such as announcements, newsletters, board communications, and meeting notices.
- Commitment to supporting Oregon's arts and cultural ecosystem – Experience providing administrative support or similar in an arts, culture, nonprofit, or government program setting.
- Experience in coordinating information, tracking deliverables, maintaining communication pathways, and stepping in to support colleagues during high-volume periods.
- Use of organizational systems for clear administrative structures, including shared drives, meeting archives, schedules, workflows, and standard operating procedures.
- Experience answering questions, resolving basic issues, and routing inquiries appropriately with accuracy and tact when interacting with applicants, grantees, community partners, board members, and the public.
- Demonstrated experience in managing and prioritizing multiple tasks, maintain momentum on follow-ups, and ensuring seamless preparation for meetings, events, and communications.
We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet every one of our requested skills listed.
Business Oregon is the economic development agency for the state of Oregon. We have about 200 people on our team, and we work with communities and businesses. We use our programs and expertise to help businesses grow, so they can in turn add jobs, diversify the economy, and increase Oregon prosperity. We work with communities to enhance and expand infrastructure and community safety with projects such as water/wastewater systems, seismic rehabilitation for schools, or rural broadband development. This also sets the stage for future business development. Our mission is to invest in Oregon's businesses, communities, and people to promote a globally competitive, diverse, and inclusive economy, all carried out with an agency strategic plan.
Through a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility we can advance towards our vision of prosperity for all. As the state of Oregon's economic development agency, Business Oregon advances socio-economic justice by applying an equity lens to our programs, partnerships, and investments, ensuring that our decision-making and resource allocation reflect the needs of all Oregonians. By embedding diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility into our agency's culture and practices, we work to expand access, dismantle barriers, and promote equitable economic opportunities across the state.
The Oregon Arts Commission provides leadership, funding and arts programs through its grants, special initiatives and services. Nine commissioners, appointed by the Governor, determine arts needs and establish policies for public support of the arts. The Arts Commission became part of the Oregon Business Development Department (Business Oregon) in 1993, in recognition of the expanding role the arts play in the broader social, economic and educational arenas of Oregon communities. In 2003, the Oregon legislature moved the operations of the Oregon Cultural Trust to the Arts Commission, streamlining operations and making use of the Commission's expertise in grant making, arts and cultural information and community cultural development.
The Arts Commission is supported with general funds appropriated by the Oregon legislature and with federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as funds from the Oregon Cultural Trust.
How to Apply
Please Note: Applications must be submitted no later than 1:59 PM PDT/PST on May 26, 2026.
Complete the following required steps:
- Fill out the application. If you are a current State of Oregon employee, you must apply through your employee Workday account through the Jobs Hub.
- Attach your current resume and cover letter. Your cover letter should clearly demonstrate how your experience and training relates to the qualities that are listed under the "requested skills" section above.
- Your cover letter must be limited to no more than two (2) pages.
- Generic cover letters that do not address the qualities that you have under the "requested skills" section may receive lower scores than those that addressed the requested skills.
- Clearly demonstrate in your resume and cover letter how you meet all the minimum qualifications and requested skills listed above.
- Failure to submit the required resume and cover letter may remove your application from consideration.
- Complete the questionnaire. After you submit your application, please go to your Workday inbox and respond to the public records request authorization, and gender identity questionnaire.
- Answer the checkbox-style questions in the questionnaire. This screen will come after you submit your application, which completes the process. If you are a current State of Oregon employee, the tasks will come to your Workday inbox.
- Warning – Workday will timeout after 15 minutes of inactivity and will not save your application progress unless you use the "save for later" function. If you need to take a break, please be sure to click the save for later button to save your progress. You will find your unfinished application in your Workday inbox.
Veterans, Disabled Veterans & State Servicemembers
- Eligible veterans and Oregon National Guard servicemembers (current and former) who meet the qualifications of the position will be awarded candidate preference. For more information, please visit Veterans Resources. Be sure to submit your documentation prior to the close date of this posting to have the preference considered. Click on the