Shelley Loader
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.
Shelley Loader is the Website and Online Advocacy Manager at the Canadian office of the World Society for the Protection of Animals in Toronto, Canada. WSPA exists to tackle animal cruelty across the globe. WSPA works directly with animals and with the people and organizations that can ensure animals are treated with respect and compassion. Before joining WSPA, Shelley was the Website Architect at a major publisher for over ten years.
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 am: Check personal email and social media from home. If I’m expecting something urgent from work, I might login remotely to check work email. Grab an almond milk latte on the way into the office. Arrive at the office sometime between 7:40 and 8am. Check email for urgent items.
8:00 am – 10:00 am: Check social media for comments/questions/spam. Read news feeds. Open any links that I may want to investigate for use on social media. Answer/read/file emails. If possible, post on social media. Work on brief tasks, such as posting web stories provided by our international office, preparing content for social media posts later in the day, or reading campaign updates.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Check (and possibly post on) social media. Find and follow a few potential followers on Twitter. Work on larger projects or attend a project or staff meeting (sometimes in person, sometimes via conference call with our international colleagues). Email. There is a condo tower being built across the street, so occasionally, I peer out the window to see what’s going on over there.
12:00 am – 2:00 pm: Lunch is usually brought from home, and eaten at my desk while I check personal email, social media and catch up on web/social media reading. Occasionally, I finish the Sudoku from the morning’s paper. Back to work by 12:45 or 1. Check social media. If possible, post something on social media to catch people returning from lunch. Email. Work on larger projects. This could be creating a new section on the website, working on the monthly email newsletter, or brainstorming/strategizing for a campaign.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Continue working on larger project. Occasionally, attend meetings with other departments, vendors or conference calls with U.S. colleagues. Check social media, and possibly post. Respond to emails. Before heading out at 4 (most days), review agenda for tomorrow, bookmark any links I want to save for later. I don’t usually take coffee breaks, but I do get up occasionally throughout the day to grab a glass of water or a snack, or talk to co-workers in person, rather than emailing them.
After 4:00 pm: Most evenings or weekends, I’ll poke my head into social media and also check if there are any urgent emails, but I tend not to do a lot of work at home. I do spend time trying to keep up with web development/marketing/social media with a lot of reading. I’m subscribed to many email lists and use Delicious to bookmark anything I might need to refer to again.
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
