Jessica Wuensch
Welcome to the latest installment in our series on the “Day in the Life” of nonprofit communicators! This series lets you describe your workday in your own words.
Jessica Wuensch is the Marketing and Communications Manager at GivingPoint, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that teaches high schoolers about social entrepreneurship. Jessica’s main goal is to help share the GivingPoint story and to showcase the amazing work that the students are doing. In her role, she manages all of GivingPoint’s social media accounts, email communications, and external marketing efforts, and aims for a clear and consistent branding and messaging. Jessica is a midwestern transplant who moved to Atlanta in 2017 and enjoys exploring the city and all it has to offer.
And this is her typical day:
Before 8:00 a.m. – I get up, workout, and get ready for my day. I have my phone set to “downtime” until 7:30 AM (using Apple’s built-in settings!), so I don’t check any email until it unlocks, and then I just make sure I didn’t miss anything major overnight.
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m – I usually head into work around 8:00 AM, and luckily live quite close to our office, so my commute isn’t long.
We work in a shared office space, and they provide really good hot and iced coffee, so I grab an iced coffee (team iced coffee all year round!) and get settled at my desk.
My first thing each day is making a prioritized to-do list for the day. Some days this list is followed more accurately than others, but it helps me think straight when I’m being pulled in a million different directions.
Once I’m feeling organized for the day I dive right into projects!
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – I don’t have a ton of meetings, but my coworkers do and are often in-and-out of the office. I try to take advantage of when they happen to be in the office and have something that needs feedback from them.
Conversely, when I am in the office alone, I try to take advantage and work on some bigger picture strategic thinking. Mornings are usually a mix of these two things!
I eat lunch at my desk around 11:00 AM each day, usually pausing work to eat and take a break for a few minutes.
12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. – After lunch I keep working on my various projects. Sometimes life happens and by the afternoon I’m only on item #2 from my to-do list, but other days I am adding more new tasks for the afternoon.
Today by noon I have finalized the design and language of a couple documents, worked on social media planning, and sent out an important email to parents. And now I’m working on this “Day in the Life” post!
2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m – Some days I tackle email first thing in the morning, but mostly I try to save them for mid-afternoon, when I’m starting to get tired and need some “easy” tasks (assuming all the emails are easy responses, hah).
The late afternoon is also when I tend to do my design work. I like to listen to instrumental music while I do focused work, but when I’m doing design I can listen to “fun” music or a podcast.
After 4:00 p.m. – Twice a month we have after school workshops from 4:30 – 6:30 PM, including today, so I head up to that location around 3:30 PM (Atlanta traffic is no fun!). But if we didn’t have a workshop, I’d head out around 5:00 PM.
Before I leave I try and tidy up my desk space and jot down anything I know I need to do tomorrow on my to-do list. I’ll finish and prioritize the list in the morning, but I try to get it out of my brain if at all possible.
Once I’m home I don’t usually do much for work, but I do keep an eye on my email until my phone switches back into “downtime” at 9:00 PM.
Thanks for sharing, Jessica!
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro by filling out the form below.
[sc:dayinlife]
Don’t see the form? Try this.
