#RichlandGives Puppet Master
By Allie Watson
November 30, 2017
My job on Giving Tuesday is to be supportive, smile and direct traffic. That’s it. Seriously. Smile and wave.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Maura’s job is to schedule every event throughout the day and then spend the minutes in between events explaining and reminding everyone else what the plan is, how the day will flow and what their roles will be at each moment.
She does this all while accomplishing the goal that everyone is focused on: raising money for nonprofits.
Maura’s day began at 7am coordinating interviews with nonprofits and the media. This went on for three hours which then led into three hours at OSU-Mansfield for a “Food Truck Rally and Nonprofit Showcase.” Sounds fun, right? It was… if you were there to walk around, pick up freebies from the nonprofits, eat from the food trucks and listen to music.
Meanwhile, Maura was behind the scenes pulling all the strings to make everything go smoothly. From hauling bottles of water for the Rotary & Kiwanis meeting to making sure the nonprofits were in-line for the Facebook Live video with Richland Source. She did this and also managed a couple radio interviews with Rusty Cates from WMAN.
Then there was a wonderful two-hour break in our day where Brady, Maura and I landed back at the office. This allowed Brady and I some down time to check email and voicemail. Maura, on the other hand, was the go-to contact for all things Richland Gives so her downtime was spent making sure everyone was up and running on the website.
At the end of the day we headed to the Phoenix for a little party that turned out to be a huge party with almost 200 people! Again, this involved Maura timing every live remote with Tony Mitchell from WVNO, running the fishbowl of tickets from one end of the building to the other, scheduling announcements of Power Hour winners throughout the event and answering all the questions about Richland Gives.
Maura was the true puppet master of the day. She pulled all the strings and put all the pieces in place to make it a success! The end result is nearly $200,000 raised for Richland County nonprofit organizations.
Our goal for the day was to strengthen nonprofits and increase the philanthropic spirit of Richland County. But, that’s coming from someone who was only supposed to smile and wave for the day so I’d have to ask Maura what the actual goal was for the day. I’m sure there was a number.
