Emily Brennan
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.
We’d need to hear from more of you! Don’t be shy – tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro. ~Kristina
Emily is the Marketing Coordinator at a Community Access Television station north of Boston. Being the only marketer on staff, she is in charge of spreading awareness to the community about how to get involved with local television and help others discover a new hobby in video production.
Here is her typical day:
Before 8:00 a.m. – I wake up around 7:30am every morning to give myself about 50 minutes to get ready for the day: pick out an outfit, make-up, hair, and most importantly breakfast!
Then I get in my car and drive the 40 minute commute to work. Listening to Boston’s morning radio talk shows always puts me in a good mood!
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m – I start work at 9am. First, I open up my Gmail and Google calendar, which has all of my co-workers schedules combined (there’s only 4 of us), to see what’s going on for the day.
Next, I check my to-do list, which I have filled in right before I left the previous day. I spend about 30 minutes to an hour perusing local organizations websites, Facebook pages, and news articles to see if there are any upcoming events around town that could be filmed for the Community Access channel. If I find any new events I post them on our Facebook page, website, and send out email blasts looking for volunteers.
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – Next I’ll go into our video equipment rental computer program to see what reservations have been made for today and if I need to prepare any equipment that will be going out.
Then I check the “To Be Uploaded” bin right above my desk to see if anyone from the community has dropped off any DVD’s of shows that need to go on air. I start importing, uploading, and scheduling the shows that will be played on one of our three cable channels.
12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. – I usually break for lunch around 1pm. 90% of the time I will eat at my desk but occasionally I have gone outside my office building and found a nice bench to eat lunch on so I can get some fresh air.
Then it’s back to uploading and scheduling more shows. This task probably takes the longest, but it’s one of the things I enjoy doing the most.
As you can see, since we have such a small staff, I have more responsibilities than just marketing even though that is my job title. This is actually perfect for me because I went to college for video production!
2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. – Mid-afternoon I’ll start working on the more long-term marketing projects.
Today I’m working on designing brochures and flyers to market our local news show called, The Journal, which is a half-hour long program that provides updates to the community of important information or events going on around town. We hope to make this a regularly viewed program by the whole town!
After 4:00 p.m. – For the last hour of the day, I start wrapping up my projects and begin closing out of the many tabs and applications that have appeared on my computer throughout the day.
Finally, I’ll go to our Facebook page and schedule a post to go out early the next morning, which is the time I’ve found our posts get the most views.
At 5 o’clock I shut down my computer and head off to the gym before going home to eat dinner and watch one of my many favorite TV shows. Tonight is Pretty Little Liars!
Want to be featured in this series? Tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro.
