JACQUELINE MARKS

New York City is home to an extraordinary abundance of arts and culture, but access to those experiences is not equally shared. In partnership with New York City Public Schools, this project builds on an established, curriculum-integrated cultural fieldwork model in one elementary school to explore how more children can access the remarkable cultural institutions around them, expanding both opportunity and their sense of what is possible. Landscape research, partnership development, and philanthropic strategy are helping shape a path toward broader implementation across more schools.

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EARLY CHILDHOOD

Building an exceptional preschool without making income the price of admission.

On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I built and led a progressive early childhood center at Educational Alliance around the belief that family income should not determine the quality of a child’s education or who they learn alongside. Designed to reflect the diverse neighborhood around it, the school brought children and families across racial, linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds into one learning community. Making that vision possible required braiding Head Start, New York City Department of Education funding, philanthropy, and tuition into a financial model in which public and private resources worked together to expand access while strengthening the school as a whole.

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COMMUNITY + BELONGING

Expanding access to an institution built for community.

Community institutions are at their best when everyone has the opportunity to belong. At JCC Manhattan, I led a broad portfolio of programs for children and families, working across the organization to expand financial access while strengthening the programs and systems that made that access possible. The work brought together program strategy, fundraising, financial aid, and institutional leadership around a shared goal: making cost less of a barrier to participation and belonging.

ABOUT

The work taught me what was possible.

I began my career in education, eventually leading schools and programs where I saw firsthand what exceptional learning environments could offer children and families. I also saw how often access to those experiences depended on whether a family could afford them, knew they existed, or happened to live in a particular place.

How do we make more of what is exceptional available to more people?

I draw on more than two decades of experience building and leading programs and institutions, managing complex public and private funding, working alongside communities and nonprofit leaders, and taking ambitious ideas from strategy through implementation.

That experience shapes how I advise.

Curiosity about what could be.

Rigor about what it will take.

Deep respect for the people doing the work.

EDUCATION + CREDENTIALS

B.A., Columbia University
M.S.Ed., Bank Street College of Education

Certificate, Modern DAF Advising, Daylight Advisors

CONTACT

It starts with what matters to you.

Jacqueline Marks
Philanthropic + Giving Advisory
jacqueline@jmarksadvisory.com
New York

What we choose to make possible matters.

JACQUELINE MARKS
Philanthropic + Giving Advisory

jacqueline@jmarksadvisory.com
New York