Lizzie Chen
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.
Lizzie Chen is the multimedia specialist at Southwest Key Programs and specializes in documentary photography and video production. She received her Masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Journalism. She is a passionate visual storyteller. She loves bringing the stories at Southwest Key Programs to life through videos and photos.
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 am: I grab my iphone and scroll through my inbox for work and check the calendar to see what I have ahead of me today. I snuggle with my kitty while checking my email in bed. Then I make coffee and head to work.
8:00 am – 10:00 am: I normally make breakfast at work and create a to-do list for the day. I also start responding to pressing emails and attend morning meetings. I check our social media outlets and see what is new. I start to get my gear ready for any video or photo shoot that day.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: My mid-morning varies between taking photographs of students from the charter school we help run, East Austin College Prep, editing photos, creating a production schedule for video shoots and editing videos.
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: I eat lunch at my desk while browsing through our social media to see what needs to be posted or check out statistics on previous posts. I also glance over my Twitter feed to check any news related to the programs that we run. I continue to work on videos and photos and sometimes attend meetings. I interview folks from our programs throughout the nation for our blog.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: I normally try to take a walk at 2 pm around the trail surrounding our building to clear my mind from video editing. I’ll make some afternoon tea and see what I am missing from my video projects so I can schedule additional interviews or plan to go shoot more footage in the field. I meet with our communications director to go over my videos to get feedback. I take a break from video or photo editing by writing stories for our blog.
After 4:00 pm: I wrap up my day by charging all my batteries for my various equipment, make sure all memory cards are uploaded and formatted. I back up all of my footage and photos in three places in case the world falls apart. I glance over my to-do list to make sure I accomplished my goals for the day. After 5 pm, I stay here to do Zumba at work or head home to do yoga and cook dinner. Sometimes, we have after school programming and events that I attend to photograph or film.
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
