Kelly Murphy
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.
Marketers, Fundraisers, etc – We Need More Days! If you communicate, we want to hear from you. Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
Kelly Murphy is the Senior Manager of Communications & Special Events for the Philadelphia History Museum, a city Museum dedicated to engaging Philadelphians and visitors with the rich history and diversity of the city’s people and their neighborhoods through their collection of 100,000 objects! She has been with the Museum for over 2.5 years, starting out as a marketing intern while in graduate school. Her passion for Philadelphia is coupled with a deep appreciation for the communications field and the arts, and she enjoys being able to share the stories of Philadelphia with a wide audience on a daily basis. When she’s not at the office you can find her at a local reggae show or cross country skiing in the Catskills!
Here is a typical day:
Before 8:00 am: Typically I get up around 6:30-7:00a.m. to get a quick home work out in. I’m lucky to live a few blocks from my office, so after a cup of coffee, and an egg or oatmeal, I’m out the door.
I also use this time to check my calendar for the day. A few of my girlfriends and I have our standard morning text conversations as they take city trains and buses to their offices.
Today is an early morning for me, as we have a corporate rental, which I’ve managed, beginning at 7:00a.m., so I am off to work at 5:30a.m., coffee in hand!.
8:00 am – 10:00 am: The first thing I do once I’m at the office, is get my desk ready for the day. I’ll stack my paperwork in the order it needs to be completed and run through it as the day progresses.
Today I am downstairs, at our admissions desk until 10:30a.m. to make sure things are running smoothly with the caterer and client.
Once I’m back at my desk, I’ll check in with my intern and assign new projects. Right now she is assisting our promotion efforts for an upcoming tour through historic playgrounds in Philadelphia.
10:00 am – 12:00 pm: It’s 10:45 a.m. and I’m back in my office. We’ve recently come off of our Annual Appeal campaign and I am catching up on drafting acknowledgment letters and updating the campaign matrix.
I typically don’t pre-schedule our tweets or social posts, given the changing nature of everyday at the Museum, but today being Thursday, I have a Throwback Thursday post ready to go, thanks to our content schedule that I work on with our Collections, Education, and History departments.
I typically bring lunch that I’ve prepped earlier in the weekend, but today I’m checking in with our caterer!
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: I like to schedule the majority of my meetings for later in the day. It helps to avoid any potential later afternoon crash.
Today I am meeting with an advertiser to talk about the performance of our online campaign, on VisitPhilly.com, and check in on options for this year.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: On Thursdays, the Museum’s Director of Education and I meet to discuss upcoming engagement opportunities and public programming. Today we are discussing the Museum’s Spring Events Calendar, the date of our annual Young Friends Garden Party, and the launch of a new dedicated blog for the Education department.
Once 3:00p.m. rolls around, I’m on to my second cup of coffee for the day.
After 4:00 pm: I’m downstairs now to check in on our rental. They are winding down at 4:30p.m. It looks like they had a productive session! We have the world’s largest walkable map of Philadelphia in our Main Gallery, which lends nicely to creative workshops.
Once I’m back at my desk for the last leg of the day, I’ll respond to any emails I missed throughout the day, check our social media channels, and organize my desk for a fresh start tomorrow.
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
