10 Tasks a Remote Assistant Can Take off Your Plate
Many leaders who have never had an assistant before often have a hard time envisioning what an assistant could do for them. Is it really worth the investment of time and resources? Below are ten ways an assistant can alleviate your day-to-day administrative burdens.
1. Email management: Sorting, organizing, and responding to emails.
Whether it be a general email account your organization uses or helping assist you manage your work inbox, an assistant can alleviate hours of your time each week by managing (or simply organizing) your email. Whether you want an assistant to keep your inbox in order or you want help getting to inbox zero each day, Ministry Desk can customize an email management plan for you.
2. Calendar management: Scheduling appointments, meetings, and events.
One of the primary roles of a remote assistant is being a gatekeeper. Your assistant can help look at your ideal week and ensure your time is being spent exactly how you want it to be. By learning your preferences, your assistant can help you align your time with your priorities, ensure all of your meetings and appointments appear correctly on your calendar, and handle the communication that comes along with scheduling meetings.
3. Research: Conducting research on various topics related to ministry efforts.
A remote assistant can help you by researching various topics related to your work. Whether it be hotels to stay at when you go to conferences or events, restaurants to eat at when you are traveling, articles related to your writing, or gathering information on processes, procedures, and/or technology you wish to enhance in your organization, an assistant can do the research for you and provide a concise way of looking at the material.
4. Data entry and database management: Updating and maintaining databases and contact lists.
One of the most foundational responsibilities in an organization is ensuring accurate records are maintained – especially when it comes to key contacts. Whether you are a pastor needing assistance maintaining your church member database, a non-profit needing help with your donor database, or a business needing assistance with your CRM, an assistant can take this task off of your plate and ensure your contacts are always up-to-date.
5. Travel management: Booking flights, accommodations, and ground transportation for ministry or business-related travel.
An assistant can help manage all of your travel – speaking engagements, conferences, and events. From the beginning of planning a trip to making sure all of your receipts are turned in afterward, an assistant can take the reigns of ensuring the trip is on your calendar, pulling flight/hotel/transportation options for you to choose from, booking reservations, and crafting a detailed itinerary for you to refer to while away.
6. Event planning: Assisting with logistics, coordinating vendors, managing registrations.
One of the most common responsibilities an assistant can help with is event planning. Whether you need catering provided and an agenda sent for a small meeting or you need a large conference or event executed, an assistant can work behind the scenes to ensure communication, registration, and volunteers are in place.
7. Volunteer coordination: Organizing volunteer schedules, tasks, and communications.
Churches especially have many volunteers needed on a weekly basis to ensure programs run smoothly. An assistant can work alongside ministry leaders to help communicate and organize volunteers so that you can focus on other important work.
8. Document formatting and design: Creating visually appealing presentations, sermon slides, and/or agendas.
An assistant can help elevate your leadership by helping you prepare and send agendas and presentations for meetings, sermon slides, and more. Nonprofit leaders commonly use an assistant to help organize and distribute electronic board meeting materials and take minutes at meetings.
9. Bookkeeping and expense tracking: Managing receipts and reimbursements.
Simply send a photo of your receipt to your assistant and let your assistant do the rest! One of the most common tasks an assistant helps with is reconciling credit card statements and ensuring expense reimbursements are submitted. After the assistant learns your budget codes and financial processes, you can quickly send receipts to your assistant and approve credit card reconciliation or expense reimbursement when it is ready to be submitted.
10. Newsletter creation and distribution: Designing newsletters, managing subscriber lists, and sending out regular updates.
Spend your time focusing on the content you want to share and not on how it looks. By looking at past newsletters and utilizing or creating a template, assistants can plug in your content, update graphics, keep your distribution list up to date, and enhance your newsletters to save you time.
While these tasks are the most common for our remote assistants to handle, the list is not exhaustive. Contact us today to book a discovery call and see how a remote assistant can help you!
