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.
Alexandra Axel is the media director for The Caregiver Space, a nonprofit with a free online social network that allows caregivers to share their experiences, find critical resources, cope with stress and effectively combat the isolation and exhaustion of providing care for someone they love. Additional to her work at The Caregiver Space, Allie enjoys writing poetry and short fiction, devouring books, biking, crafting, urban agriculture and imperfectly cooking. She currently resides in Brooklyn with her partner and their pup, Hen.
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 am: I wake up around 6 am and feed our dog, Hen. We both snuggle and I do some writing. Take her for a walk, prepare breakfast and lunch, and I’m out the door at 7:50 am.
8:00 am – 10:00 am: Grab a scone and coffee at Joe’s or some fruits and veggies at the Union Square farmer’s market, call a friend, get into work at 9 am. The first thing on my work agenda is designing our inspirational “CareCard” graphic for the day and posting to our blog and social media.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Around 10 am I start creating, curating and scheduling our social media posts for the day, usually checking in with Jonah and Adrienne around 11 am (our development director and president/founder), checking emails as I go. I do a little website maintenance, deleting spam accounts, writing on our forums and other online community management responsibilities. I take lunch at my desk (today is roasted squash!).
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: My morning schedule is generally the same every day. But the afternoon is where things get creative. From 12:30 to about 3:30 pm today I will be planning our “5 Day Caregiver Challenge”– a digital media campaign to engage caregivers in a stress-relief routine. Then I’ll be editing and publishing a blog post from one of our contributing writers.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: I’ve brought Hen to work with me today so I’ll take her for a quick walk around 2 pm. I’ll get pumped up to create a fantastic Weekly Digest email and hopefully she’ll get her energy out so she crashes when we get back to the office. Adrienne and Jonah will both lend their eyes to the newsletter before I schedule it to go out. I’ll wrap up the day by reading some educational blog posts while simultaneously replying to some emails I got a couple days ago (oops).
After 4:00 pm: Work actually stops at 5 or 5:30 pm when I leave but I think about marketing and development strategies for The Caregiver Space all of the time. Because we are such a small nonprofit, the result of every effort visibly feeds our living and breathing organization. As a nonprofit communicator, I am the lungs of the company.
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
