1. Tell us a bit about your role. What do you do?
I am the Communications and Development Officer at Twenty10. My cocktail party answer to this question is, “I talk to people and ask them for money.” On a day to day basis, that means I’m drafting social media and blog posts, writing newsletters, liaising with donors, and maintaining our website and other web presences.2. What does your team look like, and how do you all work together?
As we’re a small non-profit organisation, we have one person directly responsible for creating and scheduling content – me! My manager Jain Moralee is the Co-Executive Director of the organisation and worked with me to develop our current social media strategy and presence – including looking at how we use various platforms as well as what content we create versus curate. I also work closely with our Client Engagement team, which consists of our Client Services Manager Susan and Client Services Officers Jet and Samia. Right now, Jet, Samia or I create promotional images for upcoming events, then I schedule them on social media through Gain, which Jain is the approver on.3. Can you give our readers a few tips or tricks that help you work smarter when it comes to content creation and collaboration?
Having a communications approval pathway (like the one Gain provides) is one of the best ways to collaborate. It really takes the guesswork out – you can just send a draft post and ask for specific feedback if you’re not sure about something. Clear guidelines on language style, look-and-feel, logo usage, etc. are also helpful.4. When you switched to Gain, how did things change for your team? What is the biggest problem Gain solves for you?
Sometimes the nature of the work we do, working with young people who are of diverse gender, sexuality, and/or intersex variation runs the risk of becoming politicised by external parties, particularly conservative media and politics. We need to pay very close attention to detail with our external communications to ensure our information includes elements like age ranges of participants and other necessary elements, so that our work and those we work with are protected from unwarranted political scrutiny. As a result, we started looking for tools that would let us double-check social media posts before they went live. Finding one that was affordable was harder than it should have been – one major provider quoted us $10,000 for that functionality, which was way out of our reach! With Gain we got peace of mind, and some protection against future misunderstandings or misrepresentations. It’s also given me a chance to grow as a communicator. The comments I’ve had from reviewers and approvers have made me think about what I write in new ways.5. In addition to Gain, what app or tool could you not live without?
Canva! It’s free for nonprofit organisations (for up to 10 users) and has robust collaboration tools. It’s super straightforward, even for people without a design background. We use it all the time!A big thank you to Dina for taking the time to share more about how the Twenty10 team works together using Gain! We’ll be sharing more tips and insights from the top organizations using Gain to automate their social media approvals, so stay tuned!
