Jordan Sanford

Jordan Sanford is a Minneapolis-based recruitment professional and program manager with experience spanning nonprofit arts administration, higher education recruitment, outreach program development, visual arts, and traditional and experimental theater. For over a decade, Jordan has been focused on helping emerging creatives forge paths toward successful careers. He currently leads search operations and candidate engagement strategy at TOC Arts Partners, where his work has directly supported the firm’s successful leadership placements. Jordan brings a blend of strategic precision, creative fluency, and equity-centered insight to every leadership search—ensuring clients not only attract strong candidates but foster the conditions for lasting alignment. Jordan is also a contributing architect of TOC’s All Rise initiative and was one of the program’s earliest mentees.

His most recent position prior to TOC was Director of Artistic Advancement at The Art Effect, a youth-serving nonprofit arts and media education organization in New York’s Hudson Valley. There, he managed the marketing and implementation of year-round visual arts portfolio development programs and a Heckscher Foundation-funded post-secondary pathway program for students from diverse backgrounds. Before The Art Effect, he served as Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admission and Coordinator of Baltimore City Diversity Initiatives at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). There, he maintained a full schedule of nationwide recruitment, served as a liaison between administrative departments for marketing and communications, and pioneered the first Admission-run post-secondary pathway program for students of color from the region. While there, he also cultivated strategic partnerships with the Greater Baltimore Urban League, Maryland Art Education Association, and the National Art Education Association, helping to lay the groundwork for the success of MICA’s regionally focused diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives.

His combined expertise in recruitment strategy, systems design, and community-building helps TOC Arts Partners deliver value-aligned placements and inclusive hiring processes that reflect the evolving needs of the arts and culture sector.

Creatively, Jordan is a writer, maker, and performer. He has acted in traditional and experimental theatre productions in Baltimore, Maryland, and performed cabaret-style sketch comedy with a troupe based in Kentucky; he has collaborated on performance artworks at New York City’s historic Living Theatre and Gallery 456; and, most recently, appeared in the award-winning queer web series, The Fae. He continues his artistic practice through writing narrative fiction. Jordan received his undergraduate degree in Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art.