It’s one of those top perennial questions for nonprofit communications directors: What does your editorial calendar look like? What software is it in?
There is no single right answer, although there are certainly editorial calendar trends and preferences in our sector.
Before you make the right choice for yourself and your organization, you have to answer this question: Do you have spreadsheet brain or calendar brain? Odds are EXTREMELY high that you have a personal preference for one over the other.
Spreadsheet brains like the grid. They like to see it all at once in linear fashion. The don’t want anything else to cloud what they see.
Calendar brains complain that they can’t understand anything in the grid. They need the visual structure of days, weeks, and months. They want to instantly see that flow over time, and they often want to see the editorial calendar in relationship to other things on the calendar (e.g. events, holidays).
Both are 100% valid. It’s just a different way of looking at and processing the same information. Pick a tool that has your preference as a core part of the software (e.g., Airtable if you are a spreadsheet person).
What if you have a mix of calendar and spreadsheet brains on your team? I would encourage you to explore a more robust project management software that can show your schedule in either format (e.g., Asana).
Our webinar series on editorial calendars is coming up soon. Join us for Everything You Need to Know about Editorial Calendars in 2021 on November 10 and 12, 2020.
