Madeleine Steczynski

Madeleine Steczynski, Co-Founder and Executive Director, is an East Boston resident. She founded ZUMIX in 1991 in response to the worst year of violence in the City of Boston's history. Together with ZUMIX's Board of Directors and Youth Advisory Board, she has grown ZUMIX from a kitchen table project into a vital East Boston community institution. As an advocate for the arts, Madeleine has served on the Executive Committee for East Boston Healthy Boston Coalition; was one of the founding members of Cultural Connections, a three-year effort to integrate arts as part of a Sustainable Community initiative funded by The PEW Charitable Trust; and served as an Artistic Fellow for The Boston Foundation’s Arts and Audiences Initiative. She also served for three years as a Cultural Fellow for the New England Foundation for the Arts Building Communities through Culture Initiative, and as a Community Fellow for Eureka Communities Boston. In 2006 ZUMIX was chosen as a Social Innovator for the Social Innovation Forum at MIT, the same year Madeleine was chosen by the East Boston Times Free Press as East Boston’s Woman of the Year. In 2007 Madeleine was nominated and participated in the Salzburg Global Seminar's Cultural Institutions Without Borders seminar in Austria; received the Canyon Ranch Be the Change Award at the Massachusetts Conference for Women; and was an advisor for the Music National Service Initiative in Washington D.C. In 2008 Madeleine spearheaded a development team in the acquisition and full renovation of an historic firehouse as a new home for ZUMIX. In 2009 she successfully completed a $4.6 million dollar capital campaign and moved ZUMIX into its new home. In 2011 Madeleine started a 3-year learning journey as a prestigious Barr Fellow. In 2012, she was honored with a Berklee Urban Service Award. Madeleine attended Boston College, the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, and the Executive Leadership Program at Harvard University.