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. Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
Kate Edgerton joined the Genesee Center for the Arts & Education in 2010 as an office assistant and has morphed into many different roles. She helps to keep the Center running smoothly, coordinating marketing efforts, maintaining the database, communicating with members, updating the website, sharing stories on social media, designing promotional materials, and whatever else needs to get done. Kate graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Integrated Marketing Communications
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 am: I’m a night owl, so not much is happening before 8am in my world!
8:00 am – 10:00 am: Check social media sites and email as soon as I wake up (which is later than I’m willing to admit on the internet!). Respond to anything urgent.
Drink a cup of coffee, pack a lunch, and head a mile down the road to work.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Our local newspaper has requested a full calendar of our events and exhibits through the next few months. We have 8 exhibits and events scheduled in the next 3 months and I’m responsible for knowing the details on all of them. I compile them all into a press release and distribute to the newspaper. I’ll send a more detailed press release for each event when the time is right.
Next I load the events onto our website. It’s a tedious task and requires some html coding. (I make a mental note to research new website content management systems to make my life easier.)
During the middle of this, an instructor steps into my office to give me a description of his students’ exhibit along with some photos.
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: One of our galleries is hosting a national juried ceramics exhibit. To help out the director of the ceramics program, I’ve compiled all the entries and uploaded them to a Dropbox folder for the juror to view.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Lunch is usually at my desk. Today is no different.
Our building (which is a really beautiful 100 year old former firehouse) recently underwent some remodeling, and it was just finished up today. I snap a few pictures of the changes.
Next I start working on a design project. We need a new banner to use when we’re out at events and festivals. We’re working on rebranding the Center but it’s not developed yet, so I need something that will work until then. Knowing that my artwork will be 6 feet wide makes me nervous!
After 4:00 pm: Whoops! My colleague just stopped in to give me the mail-in submissions for the juried ceramics exhibit that we had forgotten about. Now I have to organize, upload to the dropbox folder, and email the juror these additions.
I’ll leave work at around 5 pm to make myself some dinner and go for a quick run in preparation for a fundraiser 5k I’m participating in next month.
I’m behind on some data entry work, so I’ll most likely be entering new contacts and class payments into our database later tonight. Luckily I can do this sort of thing from home while I relax with a glass of wine.
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
