After five years working on the digital transformation of Orange County’s nonprofit newsroom, Voice of OC Digital Editor Sonya Quick this past month moved to a new position with the state’s nonprofit newsroom, CalMatters, helping tackle the industry’s sustainability issues on a statewide level.
“Sonya’s background and skill set make her the perfect fit for our new membership manager role,” said CalMatters Chief Development Officer Kate Looby. “We’re thrilled to add her to our growing team and know she’s going to be enormously successful in helping us take CalMatters to the next level.”
Quick remains active in Orange County, teaching at Chapman University and serving on the OC Press Club board of directors in addition to being an active member of the Society for Professional Journalists, LA Chapter.
Following a long stint at the Orange County Register, covering a variety of beats that included working on the paper’s development of it’s mobile platforms and strategy, Quick came to Voice of OC in 2016 just before the historic elections that catapulted the county into national headlines as a battleground area known as Purple County for its mix of Democrat, Republican and independent voters.
Quick led branding efforts within the newsroom, developing a new logo along with the newsroom’s social media and donor management software.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Quick also led efforts to keep residents appraised of changing virus infection, death and hospitalization rates with a graphic page and daily updates that remain popular with readers, offering virus data in a contextualized manner that focuses on keeping residents informed of historical and current data.
“We are extremely proud of Sonya’s accomplishments and leadership at Voice of OC,” said Voice of OC Publisher and Editor in Chief, Norberto Santana, Jr. “Our entire newsroom extends its deepest gratitude to Sonya for her work and is excited to see her efforts continue to flourish at the statewide level, leading efforts to produce civic news in a fiscally sustainable manner that is also grounded in community.”
At CalMatters, Quick is managing membership engagement programs for the statewide nonprofit.
“I greatly appreciate my time at Voice of OC where I was able to hone my skills across engagement, fundraising, digital storytelling and UX,” said Quick. “I will always remember my time at Voice, particularly in collaborating with the talented news team and in learning directly from two of the best journalists I’ve ever met: Norberto Santana, Jr. and Tracy Wood.”