How Ministry Leaders Discern God’s Will Without Punting on the Plan How do you balance planning and strategy with following the Lord’s guidance? For most ministry leaders, the honest answer is a moving target, and discerning God’s will is something I wrestle with constantly. I want to steward this ministry well. I want to plan […]
Discerning God’s Will Without Abandoning Your Strategy Read More »
Five Marks of a Board That Leads With Vision, Not Just Oversight Most nonprofit boards do not fail loudly. They drift quietly into becoming an extension of the staff, meeting often, managing details, and slowly losing the altitude a board is meant to hold. Nonprofit board development is the work of pulling a board back
Nonprofit Board Development: Building an Innovative Board Read More »
10 Ways to Tell a Story Without Exposing the Person in It Protecting beneficiary identities is the difference between storytelling that honors the people you serve and storytelling that exploits them. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools a ministry has, but when the person in the story is a survivor of trafficking, abuse, or extreme
Trauma-Informed Storytelling: How to Protect the People in Your Stories Read More »
Stop making the donor the hero. Cast the roles right Hero’s journey marketing comes with a popular piece of advice that ministries should be slow to accept: make your donor the hero. It is catchy, it is everywhere, but for a ministry it is corrosive. Cast your donor as the hero, and you gradually push
Hero’s Journey Marketing: Who Is the Hero of Your Ministry’s Story? Read More »
Stop chasing fresh ideas. Start documenting what God is already doing. Learning to create content at scale is the closest thing ministries have to a shortcut through a marketing world that will not sit still. New platforms, new formats, new algorithms, it changes faster than any team can track. This is Part 2 of our
How to Create Content at Scale When the Digital Landscape Won’t Stop Changing Read More »
Tell more stories. Ask less often. Trust grows, and so does giving. A strong donor development strategy is built less on the ask than most ministries assume, and more on the trust you build in the long stretches between asks. A while back we had Brittany Baker, Regional Director of Marketing for IJM, on the
Donor Development Strategy: How IJM Turns One Story Into Lasting Trust Read More »
We don’t serve a God of scarcity. Nonprofit partnerships are one of the most underused strategies in ministry, and the reason is almost always fear. In a recent episode of The Ministry Growth Show, we talked with David Sudarma from Cru and Christy Johnson from Athletes in Action, and Christy said something that has stayed
Nonprofit Partnerships: Why the Future of Ministry Is Collaboration, Not Competition Read More »
Your ministry is a storytelling firm that just so happens to do what you do. Fundraising storytelling is the difference between a donor who reads your appeal and a donor who never forgets it. In a recent episode of The Ministry Growth Show we talked with David Sudarma from Cru and Christy Johnson from Athletes
Fundraising Storytelling: How to Connect a Donor to a Changed Life Read More »
How User-Centered Marketing is a Missional Opportunity Campus Crusade for Christ, or CRU for short, is one of the most successful Christian ministries in the world, both from a financial standpoint and most importantly in its effectiveness at making disciples. CRU is not only a leader and pioneer in campus ministry but a leader among
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Stop cramming it all into December. A nonprofit fundraising plan that lives only in the last three months of the year is the most common, and most costly, habit in ministry fundraising. We had Emily Fitchpatrick on The Ministry Growth Show to talk about the fix. Emily started her career at the Billy Graham Association,
How to Build a Nonprofit Fundraising Plan That Runs All Year Read More »
Fundraising isn’t a necessary evil. It’s an invitation. Biblical fundraising begins with a mindset shift most ministry leaders need before they need a single tactic: the ask is not begging, it is an invitation into the work God is already doing. We had Emily Fitchpatrick on The Ministry Growth Show to talk about this, and
Biblical Fundraising: From Begging to a Kingdom Invitation Read More »
People don’t relate to statistics. People relate to people. Emotional storytelling is the single most underused tool in nonprofit communication, and most organizations bury it under a pile of dreary statistics. We featured Than Baardson, co-founder of Unseen, on The Ministry Growth Show, and he put words to the tension every mission-driven organization feels. Unseen
Emotional Storytelling: Why the Story of One Beats the Statistics Read More »
