Module 3 - Non-profit Communications

As the Communications Coordinator for a small non-profit organization, communications plays a huge role in my day to day work-life. APPLE Schools (Alberta Project Promoting active Living and healthy Eating) is a research-based healthy school initiative dedicated to improving the health-behaviours of students, staff, families and community members (our stakeholders). Specifically we work with our stakeholders to improve healthy eating, active living and positive mental health behaviours. 

I've been doing the work of Communications Coordinator off the side of my desk for the past 3 years, and in June of this year the position was offered to me officially. My educational background is in Marketing and General Management, and the vast majority of my work experience has been in public health, making this role a terrific fit for my different skill sets. 

I'm currently working with the management and staff of APPLE Schools to develop a comprehensive strategic communications plan to help the organization reach its goals. This includes:

• clarifying our internal and external communications, 
• identifying specific communications goals, objectives and activities, 
• developing processes to make the organization more effective and efficient, and 
• developing a social media strategy, (which the Social Media Citation is directly helping me with). 

Additionally, I'm developing an online database to house data about all of our stakeholders, to assist us with developing grants and funding requests to the government, as well as communicating internally and externally with our stakeholders and partners. I also maintain a resource library that's accessed by over 100 different school communities and partners across Alberta, and write and distribute a weekly newsletter for internal use. 

Some of my future projects will include a YouTube channel to chronicle the different health initiatives and activities that happen in the schools we work with, and possibly a blog to support the distribution of these videos.