Stephanie Ashley
Here’s the latest installment in our series on the “Day in the Life” of nonprofit communicators, where we ask you to describe your day in your own words.
Stephanie Ashley is the Marketing and Community Outreach Manager at Larimer Humane Society, an animal shelter whose mission is to promote and provide the responsible care and treatment of animals. Through social media, traditional media, publications, email marketing and outreach events, she promotes the many facets of her organization to solicit community support and ultimately help homeless animals find loving families.
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 am: A few times a quarter, I have the opportunity to take adoptable animals to our local TV station to be featured on either the morning or evening news. Today, I was out the door by 4 a.m. to drive an adorable Chihuahua to the news station to be filmed. (Fingers crossed that she will be adopted as soon as we open!)
I arrived back home full of coffee and ready for a nice, long run before continuing my day.
8:00 am – 10:00 am: Typically, I review the news stories of the day to see if there is anything relevant that I might be able to tack on to by pitching stories to our local reporters. Then I work on clearing out my inbox, update website articles and schedule social media for the day(s) ahead and respond to any reviews or questions via social media.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Mid-mornings usually consist of team meetings, a webinar, or volunteers stopping in to gather materials for events coming up the following weekend. If we have a story breaking in the media, I’ll prepare all the talking points and call anyone related to the issue to get as much information as possible. Lunch is almost always at my desk!
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: I usually have more than a few articles to write for print and electronic newsletters, blogs, or other publications I’m working on. I also will upload the latest animal videos to our YouTube channel and our database so they show up on our website under each animal’s profile.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Afternoons are often when I work on reports – monthly reports of PR, website, email marketing, and social media activities; monthly budgeting reports; and general evaluation of metrics across several different platforms to see how everything is performing.
After 4:00 pm: I might work on projects for other departments that came up throughout the day – the shelter is full and needs flyers and promotion for reduced adoption prices over the weekend, the development team needs a recruitment eblast to go out to last year’s registrants of an event, our humane educator wants to promote an upcoming camp for kids, etc.
I’ll try my best to wrap up at a normal hour but will check emails and social media throughout the evening and respond as necessary. Tonight, I’ll go to bed happy that I don’t have to get up at 3 a.m. tomorrow!
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
