If you’re working hard with your head down and without time to look up, time flies by, something I have been reminded of this week. One of the first tasks assigned to me by the new Director was to modify a document used by her previous charity to act as a form of agreement with high profile supporters, detailing exactly what the Foundation would require of them as well as what they would expect of us. This helps clarify the potential relationship, making things unambiguous and clear, therefore reducing the chance of disagreement and disappointments on either side. It also gives the request a sense of professionalism and makes it easier for the prospect in question to say yes and agree to help get the Foundation’s message across to people.
Now that all 6 of the other staff have returned from holiday, Susan held her first team meeting, where all of us (including myself) had to provide an “Employee Profile”, detailing our role in the organisation (so she could plan future tasks to be delegated in projects) as well as what we were trying to do at the moment. This also helps to avoid “grey” areas of responsibility, whereby more people than are necessary for the completion of a task/project may be working on it, or indeed there isn’t anyone working on something that needs to be done. There was also a discussion as to how progress was going to be communicated to the board of trustees effectively, as well as a potential change in marketing strategy; Susan prefers a more “personal” approach, highlighting the Foundation’s work on a personal level, rather than blanket statistics and dull, lifeless imagery (perhaps something the Foundation has been guilty of in the past).
Meanwhile I’ve been designated another project, which is to compile information from various sources (emails, multiple spreadsheets etc) about all the different local media outlets in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, so as to provide a way of generating publicity for the Foundation’s work and future events. This involves removing some publications from our database (a sizeable number have become defunct and folded, for various reasons), establishing who, if anyone, is our point of contact within the publication, assessing editor deadlines, distribution and readership as well as analysing if there is a section within the media for editorial content relevant to us. For such a relatively small area there seems to be abundance of newspapers and magazines covering it!