Trying to Look at the Big Picture

My nonprofit is pretty small. We've got a one room office, where me and the other staff worker do our work. In this one room, undergraduate students, graduate students, high school students, even a few professors and staff filter through each day to use computers, hang out between classes, and volunteer. Forget about 10% direct service, I feel like I could spend half my day just chatting with people and doing no work at all.

In an effort to concentrate, I've set up my computer facing the wall for now. I appreciate how friendly everyone is. Lunch breaks are awesome, but I'm not very good at concentrating, so I have to concentrate on concentrating or I'll jump into every conversation people start.

My two big projects for the year are pulling all the workshops they've run into a comprehensive curriculum, and to get the website to be useful. We've got a lot of videos and other media we'd like to display, but our website is a little less than functional.

I've spent my first month focusing on the curriculum. I've gone through two years' worth of workshops outlines (out of about 16 years on file), seen them run a series of Asian American history workshops, and thought a lot about how to make a document that will remain relevant for more than a few years.

I'm more worried about the website than the curriculum, since I have far less experience in web design than in education. Maybe that's why I haven't started on it yet.

I'm attaching a flyer I did for the Asian American Studies Workshops, not because its particularly impressive, but because I'd like to attach something.

Comment from Claudia Escobar on September 1, 2009 - 7:59pm

Meredith: I really like your flyer and I find myself having a hard time concentrating as well. There are so many distractions and of course getting to know people is one. :]