A Day in the Life of a Director of Programs at Minds Matter Southern California
Shalin's role as Director of Programs at Minds Matter Southern California involves a highly variable schedule, often including evenings and weekends due to the organization's volunteer-driven model and Saturday programming; currently, a large portion of their work focuses on program evaluation, including survey development and gathering feedback from leadership, students, and alumni to ensure alignment with the organization's goals and impact.
Project Management, Communication, Problem-Solving, Teamwork, Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Shalin Craig
Director of Programs
Minds Matter Southern California
University of California, Berkeley, 2015
N/A
Ethnic & Related Studies
Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking
Education
Scholarship Recipient, Worked 20+ Hours in School, LGBTQ, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. The role demands flexibility and commitment, often requiring evening and weekend work due to the organization's volunteer-driven nature and Saturday programming.
2. A significant part of the job involves program evaluation, including survey design, alignment with program goals, and gathering feedback from students and alumni.
3. The day-to-day tasks are varied and unpredictable, requiring adaptability and collaboration with volunteers and students to overcome challenges and ensure program success. This includes logistical tasks such as planning meals and managing communications
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a Director of Programs look like?
It will definitely look different across different organizations. For our organization in particular at Minds Matter, since we are so volunteer-driven, our staff is a small team of four while we have hundreds of volunteers.
A lot of it comes down to scheduling. Our programming happens on Saturdays, so there are a lot of evenings and weekends involved. When we have events or meetings, those have to happen around our volunteers' schedules. They typically have regular nine-to-five jobs Monday through Friday. So, as staff working with them means a lot of evenings and weekends.
It's a different commitment than many similar roles. The day-to-day can also look very different from any given day. Our work can be unpredictable at times, as we are dealing with students and volunteers who have a lot going on in their lives. Things can come up.
The really awesome part is that everyone is always willing to jump in if challenges arise. Currently, my day-to-day is really focused on program evaluation. We are revamping our survey.
So, what that looks like for me on a day-to-day basis is looking at our survey questions. How do they align with our theory of change and our student outcomes? Are we gathering the information that we need? I also talk to our leadership teams about what data they need to be helpful for their roles.
Then, I think about the students and talk to alumni to get their feedback. It can look very different, but in general, it involves working on projects as well as the logistics of making sure we have lunch on Saturdays for the students or ensuring our weekly emails go out on time.