Day 22: Monday August 19th 9am to 5:15pm

Monday was one of our biggest successes with a post on social media. We have 20 clicks on the bitly link for the "Disney Princesses for Equal Pay" YouTube video (below). Throughout the morning the office was buzzing with talk of this video. Our CEO, Maggie, thought it was hilarious and brilliant, as did I. After posting this video in a tweet and on Facebook, Ellen called me into her office. We talked about the word "we" and my use of it in the posts and in emails. 

Also on this day, I updated changes in the Young Leaders Board contact list and I mailed all of the tickets out to the members. Kim, one of the Young Leaders, asked me to create a spreadsheet to keep track of which tickets I gave which members. 

Fun Facts by Ellen: 

• Don't use the word I in an email if at all possible. Simply saying "attached is the ..." instead of "I have attached the ..." is better. 
• This allows you to achieve your largest goal in the office... Make your boss look good. 
• Not including I allows the person you are contacting to believe that you were not the one doing all of the work. 

Day 23: Wednesday August 21st 9am to 5pm

Wednesday was also a really great day for social media. When looking for some additional content to blog about in the morning, I stumbled upon the hashtag #hijabuppropet, which means hijab outcry. This movement began after a pregnant woman in Sweden was attacked for wearing a hijab. Women (as well as men and children) around the world dawned hijabs and took to twitter to voice their support for this woman and women everywhere. I encourage you to search the hashtag #hijabuppropet on twitter and read more about this amazing movement. 

Some of my other tasks this day included creating a job description for a social media volunteer, having a meeting with Ellen about old projects, researching mobile apps for photo releases, and updating the Tribute to Women planning calendar. 

Fun Facts by Ellen:

• Manage your emails, don't let your emails manage you.

Day 21: Wednesday August 14th 9am to 5pm

On Monday, I had to take the day off to move into my new apartment! It's much nicer than my last place, but unfortunately up two flights of stairs... It was a LONG day. 

But, on Wednesday, I came back to the YW and got back to work. The day consisted of a bunch of smaller tasks, mostly for Cocktails for a Cause. My first task was to order the raffle tickets for the grand prizes. Through our efforts of request letters, the Young Leaders Board secured a one night stay at the Renaissance Hotel with breakfast, a one night stay at Bedford Springs also with breakfast, and an iPad mini. These items were part of the more expensive raffle. Each ticket was $10. The Young Leaders Board members each have 18 tickets to try to sell prior to the event. 

Using last year's tickets as a model, I ordered 250 raffle tickets for this years event. The site I used was kwiktickets.com. It was pretty easy to use, and it gave you a preview of what your ticket would look like. I sent the copy for the tickets to Ellen, Kim and Amber for approval, then ordered them with the YW credit card. Since the tickets will not be in until later this week and we want to get them out ASAP, I also addressed envelopes to send them to the board members. 

The remainder of my day was spent working on social media. I scheduled content for this week and next (about 30 tweets total). I also decided to start using bitly to shorten links instead of the built in link shortener on HootSuite. This will allow me to track the amount of clicks per link and to reuse the same link when tweeting about the same thing multiple times. This should help to track the success of our social media posts. 

Day 19: Monday August 5th 9am to 5pm

This week my main job was to create a request for the Robinson Foundation. I was able to use older requests as examples, pull some of the copy from them, and also do my own research. I used GuideStar to learn more about the Robinson Foundation and what they have given to in the past. We also looked closely at how much they have given, and what would be an appropriate amount to ask more. Ellen helped me a lot with this project. She really showed me all of the different resources that I could use to make the best request possible. 

Day 20: Wednesday August 7th 9am to 5pm

On Wednesday, Ellen and I went through the proposal word for word. We restructured almost every sentence to make it the most effective. One of the main goals was to shorten the letter, in an effort to make it more readable. This was a great learning experience. We also spend some time focusing on the pictures we included, what segments would be pulled out in block quotes, what order to put the paragraphs in, and what sentences to put in bold. Every aspect of this letter was well thought out, looked over, and then looked over again. Below is the final product.