I haven't talked about this at all in the two years since I started working with churches to help them tell their stories in the community better. For a long time it didn't even occur to me to talk about it and why would I? We don't tell stories because they raise money, we tell stories because they are fundamental to our existence as humans and we're able to connect people to God in ways that spitting information at them will never accomplish.

But the fact is, stories raise money. A lot of money. And serving our community takes money, so we shouldn't be ashamed to fund-raise for God's kingdom.

Did you know there are national conferences for non-profits that exist solely to help them tell better stories to raise money? Ask any development/fundraising professional what they do and they'll tell you "I tell stories." 

Yet often in the church we ask for money in other ways that make people feel guilty or reluctant. In today's culture, people don't give to numbers, knowledge, or information. They give to stories.

Consider the following two appeals:

Story #1: "Our church has seen a 3.5% increase in attendance over the last 3 months, which has led to 13 individuals requesting Bible studies and 6 baptisms! When you return your tithes and offerings, make sure to remember our Small Group ministry which provides funds for materials, refreshments, and other expenses!" 

Story #2:  "Jon and Cheryl are one of the many new folks who have started attending our church recently. Just a few months ago they never thought they'd be in a church. They were overworked, underpaid, and working through a medical complication Jon suffered last year, which has left them in a financial deficit. They say it's because of the Bible studies their friends Chris and Natasha invited them to that got them wondering what more their lives could be. They realized there had been a depth missing in their lives that has now been filled by Christ, which led them to be baptized! But none of that would have happened without our Small Group ministry which allows the space for lives to be transformed like Jon and Cheryl. We need your help to make sure it continues flourishing!"

If you're like most people, you connected with Story #2 because it conveyed more than just numbers. In fact, people tend to give more to of a single story than to a data report of positive outcomes for larger numbers.

Check out the following fundraising video for a church in Brooklyn, NY. They not only straight-up ask you to donate, but go one step further and ask for each person to create their own campaign. But it doesn't feel pushy or harsh because you feel like you're a part of this movement, this mission the church is accomplishing in their community. And it's because it is framed within the church's story.

So yes, ask for money, but do it by telling stories. You may just find that you have to stop asking for money altogether!

This article was originally posted on The Media Story.

We learned from the tithe-studies done in our region that many people don't really choose not to return tithe or give offerings. They just don't get around to it or don't have the money with them when they get to church. We realized that we needed to develop a website and a mobile giving app that addressed how people were managing their finances today.

We've been rolling out the online and mobile options over the last three years. In the first year, we had about two million dollars in tithe coming in from that source, but now, we're reaching almost two million dollars per month! We think that a lot of that increase has to do with being able to access the e-giving website and app. When we looked at the reports, the internet site usage goes up on the days that most people get paid, and on the offering side, i.e. the mobile app, the usage spike occurs during the Sabbath worship service time. It has become part of their worship.

Since younger people and even older ones don't go around carrying cash anymore, we definitely need to engage our younger generation in this way, otherwise it's going to prevent them from giving. Stewardship is about planning ahead!

We are in consultation with a few other divisions in this regard. The app has more than recovered the cost of its development. We are grateful for the vision and dedication of our IT people, and our administrators' support of the project.

Watch an interview with the author>>

This article originally appeared in the October-December 2016 issue of Dynamic Steward.

eGiving app on iTunes

If you’re like most non-profits, the end of the calendar year means one final fundraising push. But it might surprise you that the success of these year-end initiatives is directly connected to the story you’ve been telling throughout the year. Whether or not you realize it, your communications (or lack of) are telling a story, and that story is the key to creating a sense of the value of your organization. When your audience values what you’re doing, they are more likely to support you.

Social media is popular because it speaks to a basic human need: to connect and share. So how do we use social media to tell our “story” all year long and build a connection with our audience that ultimately motivates them support our mission?

In digital marketing we often talk about the 20/80 rule. The ideal ratio of posts on an organization’s social media should be 20% sales messages (aka direct appeals), 80% engagement. In other words, 80% of the content posted by your ministry should demonstrate the need your organization fulfills, share what initiatives your ministry is implementing to satisfy this need, update your audience on your goals and various efforts, showcase impact through testimonials and results, and simply engage your fans.

Think of social media as a potluck with friends during which you share your desire to go on a mission trip. You wouldn’t hard sell them or ask them for their support with no context, but you might talk about your goals, ambitions, why it’s important, and share your general excitement about what you have planned. Once your friends understand how important this mission trip is and why you want to go, they will naturally be more inclined to help you when you mention that you haven’t yet reached your fundraising goal. The same principle is true for an organization’s social media channels. If you spend most of your efforts telling the story behind your cause and creating value, your followers will gradually become more emotionally invested. Then when you make direct appeals for support (the 20%), your results will be more effective because your supporters feel like they understand the importance of your mission and know how the money will be used. This is especially important for millennial givers, who demand transparency and accountability when it comes to use of funds.

In addition, don’t forget the “Rule of 7,” which states that: a person needs to be exposed to a message a least seven times before they’ll take action. This means when your organization is building its general digital content strategy, not only should you to take in account the 20/80 rule, but also work across all your channels (digital, email, print, website, etc.) and platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) to reach your audience multiple times—reinforcing your message and maximizing effectiveness. Try utilizing a diversity of content that is relevant to your mission to help enforce the same “story” or message in unique ways.

Remember to plan in advance. Build your value all year long, and launch your digital year-end campaign at least 7 weeks out from the December 31st deadline. Then schedule reminder posts with milestone updates every 10 days. As the deadline approaches, increase the urgency in your message and boost key posts to cut through the clutter and ensure that you reach your fans. Post a few days before the deadline and then the day of the deadline in tandem with email reminders. It's not too late to incorporate social media pushes into your strategy this year. Consider a 10 day reminder on December 22, another on December 29, and one final push early on December 31.

Now if your organization can't join the digital fundraising bandwagon this year, you can always add these strategies to your organization’s list of “New Year’s resolutions.”

Happy Holidays!

Please your comments or questions below.

Your Best Pathway to Health (#PathwaytoHealth) is a ministry that serves needy communities by providing entirely FREE mobile clinics, offering medical, surgical, and dental care, as well as counseling and other critical services in cities throughout the United States. This past July #PathwaytoHealth took place in Beckley, WV in the very heart of Appalachia, an area with a population of about 200,000. The Social Media + Big Data department of the North American Division provided support through a comprehensive digital strategy that, among other goals, sought to generate community awareness. In addition, it became clear that social media would and continues to be a valuable tool for relationship building and community care.

To begin, we launched a six-week awareness or ‘buzz’ campaign combined with strategically placed Facebook paid ads to recruit volunteers and generate community awareness. This buzz campaign then culminated in live coverage of the event, in coordination with traditional media. Truly effective communication strategies work in tandem across all channels and platforms. The social media component of this campaign served to magnify the impact of traditional media, as well as create a collective story of what God was able to achieve through the ministry of #PathwaytoHealth. I encourage you to search #PathwaytoHealth on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for post examples and to learn more.  

As a result of this campaign strategy, over 1.9 million impressions were tracked on social media, easily reaching over 1 million people. By comparison, the previous #PathwaytoHealth event in Los Angeles, CA was bigger than the Beckley, WV event in every way, except social media reach. The difference was the integrated digital communications strategy at the Beckley event.

This enabled us to reach beyond a small local community in a powerful way, through the testimonies and stories shared. I can only assume that #PathwaytoHealth made a good first impression. It is possible that many of the people who saw this content had never heard of the Seventh-day Adventist church before.

In addition, the event in Beckley reached all 50 states and over 94 countries online. The full impact of this exposure cannot be fully appreciated until the next #PathwaytoHealth promotions begin and can be compared. However, it is safe to assume that increased awareness will result in increased support, both through volunteering and donations, in the future. The ‘Rule of 7’ states that a person needs to be exposed to a message at least seven times before being motivated to action. Half the battle is cutting through the clutter online in order to reach people in a meaningful way, telling a story that inspires them to serve or support. An integrated strategy that continues to build on itself is the key to long term gains.

However, the social media component of this campaign was about more than just exposure; it also served as a powerful recruitment tool for patients. One patient heard about the clinic on Facebook and drove all the way from Ohio with her family.

We knew anecdotally that a significant number of patients had heard about the health clinic from social media. In many cases it was a friend or family member who had seen a promoted (paid) post and spread the word. We know that “92% of ‘consumers’ trust referrals from people they know” (Nielsen). But how can we be sure that social media had a significant impact? To answer this question, the exit survey asked 934 patients to identify all the ways they had heard about the clinic.

This revealed how our more traditional communication channels performed, with 15% of patients saying they had seen a flyer about the event.

The results also showed that social media outperformed all the traditional advertising, and was second only to referral by friend or family member, clearly showing the impact of social media in promoting #PathwaytoHealth to the local community.

In the future, the survey needs to also ask respondents to identify where their friends or family members had heard about the event. Word of mouth is a huge driving factor behind behavior, so it’s important to quantify how those who referred their friends heard about #PathwaytoHealth originally. These results can affect future strategy and help optimize communication costs as well as time. 

Lastly, social media as customer care was a key element during the live strategy, again working with other methods of communication to enhance the overall patient experience. Platforms like Facebook are designed for engagement and relationship building. It can be a powerful tool for identifying, responding, and resolving issues in a timely manner. A patient journey could begin and end on social media. For example, much of my time spent during the event involved answering questions and communicating directly with potential patients online. In certain cases, the first point of contact was on Facebook. The patient then came for services, shared a testimony, and later followed up online for additional information and resources. Months after the event, the #PathwaytoHealth team is still answering questions on Facebook from the Beckley community and caring for their needs. By continuing to engage through social media, email, and in person, #PathwaytoHealth (and by association the Adventist church) is building a reputation as an organization that truly cares about the people it serves.

Moving forward, we would like to use data science to better understand the health of a community and better anticipate its unique needs while still in the planning stages, enabling #PathwaytoHealth to magnify it’s impact in a relevant way. We would also like to test out the use of wearable or tracking tiles to analyze patient transport patterns in real time to assess the effectiveness of the event layout and to note areas of congestion, as well as to better understand the patient experience. Similar technology has been used in department stores, hospitals, and museums to enable organizations to better optimize their space.

These are just a few examples of how social media and data science can be incorporated into a more traditional communications model to effectively multiply awareness and enhance the experience of the individuals served. We have more resources than ever before to reach and meet the needs of the community.

Post your comments or questions below!

Membership Engagement, Revenue and Big Data Warehousing

Uncertain Future?
The Seventh-day Adventist Church of North America has an opportunity to grow with
its membership. The suggestions offered within these pages are not an end-all to many of the
issues and struggles we face as a church, but do cover three very important components that
must be addressed going forward and that tie into an online database solution.!

• How can we engage Seventh-day Adventists in meaningful ways?
• How can we further Church initiatives with a more reliable funding stream and volunteer core?
• How can we deeply understand our membership?!

An aging membership base is looking for volunteer opportunities and meaningful ways to spend their
discretionary income within the Church. This same group is gradually becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of vehicles used by church ministries and institutions to convey
needs.

At the same time, a growing number of Adventist youths see the Church as increasingly irrelevant in their day-to-day lives. The top-down mandate/management model is out of touch with how Gen-Xers and Millennials relate to the world. Both of these groups want a strong Church but need a voice in determining how they will help and in what manner.

As desperately as members want to connect with the institution, the Church continues to look for ways to connect with its membership, raise money, and understand the habits and interests of the greater body. We think that we know what our members want, but do we? And if not, what hope is there for sustainability?

I’m suggesting that the Church build a single web portal that focuses on volunteerism and philanthropy, an online content repository and social collaboration hub that offers choices to individuals, additional funding to organizations, and answers to the Church about who our members are and what they care about. This would all take place within a community that many of them already inhabit: the Internet.!

Engage your members with great opportunities, and they’ll often donate and/or
volunteer. Process those actions in a controlled environment, and you will better understand
the member’s needs. Know the needs, and you will understand how to engage members
better.

ENGAGING OUR MEMBERS:

The Diffusion Model and the Technology Cycle
Sociologists describe the way a catchy idea becomes popular as “diffusion,” a theory that Everett Rogers popularized in the 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations. The earliest research was used to track purchase patterns of Iowa hybrid corn growers, and then was expanded upon by Rogers to describe how new technologies and innovations can catch on. If one accepts the notions that technology is permanent and that the interconnectivity of people’s communication, ideas, and collaboration will continue to cycle through social media and electronic applications, then a huge problem presents itself to the North American Division.

Rogers splits his bell curve into five groupings: Technology Innovators, who like technology just because it’s tech; Early Adopters (Visionaries), who are enamored with what technology could be; Early Majority (Pragmatists), who need the technology to be stable, reliable, and supported before embracing it; Late Majority (Conservatives), who prefer traditional methods and only dabble with technology; and Laggards (Skeptics), who may never embrace it at all.

Adaptations of the model vary, but Geoffrey Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm adds a gap between the first two groups and the last three and focuses on the life cycle of technology adoption.

The Chasm is the period between the time when an idea crosses the confusion threshold and the time when the number of variations drops to the point that people care to grasp what it means or can filter through the options. The Green Line follows the technology cycle. An idea appears, and boundaries of the definition of that idea aren’t known. Many interpretations of that idea appear, time passes, the idea is explored, and fewer variations are left. From that point, the number of things that define a concept is reduced. This can happen over a number of years or in a relatively short span (with technology).

Examples include:
(a.) A lack of options and marketplace interest ushered in the development of consumer-level analog recording devices, many of which are now forgotten (green line ascends and then levels off). Consumers eventually narrowed down their choices to Betamax and VHS (line descends). Betamax had higher quality but shorter recordings, while VHS quality wasn’t as high but offered double the recording time. Eventually VHS prevailed as the standard (line levels). The Early Majority began adopting it, but much later in the game.

(b.) A similar thing happened with high-definition players. Variations became available (green line ascends and then levels off) but eventually came down to Blu-ray and HD-DVD (line descends). The technology was almost identical, but larger offerings from film studios released for Blu-ray made this the clear winner for consumers (line levels).

You can gather from the graph and the examples that the Yellow Line represents the point where the number of variations to an idea becomes too great to communicate an idea to an uninitiated audience. In other words, everyone to the right of the chasm becomes overwhelmed and waits for a clearer choice or winner.

The Blue Line represents social and electronic media applications. This is a problem for us because the number of applications and variations of social media and electronic applications is only increasing. There is no foreseeable plateau and then dip, so the Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards of this generation may never adopt the technology.

Let’s return to the demographic and psychological profiles that the North Central Rural Sociology Committee created for its Study of Diffusion of Farm Practices.

The report summarized the categories as:

• Innovators: had larger farms, were more educated, more prosperous, and more risk oriented
  
• Early Adopters: younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders, and less prosperous
  
• Early Majority: more conservative but open to new ideas, active in community and influential with  neighbors
• Late Majority: older, less educated, fairly conservative, resistant to new ideas, and less socially active
• Laggards: very conservative, had small farms and capital, oldest, least educated, and less risk oriented
  

Do you see a correlation? Christians are a more conservative group than the average citizen. Seventh-day Adventists are more conservative than the average Christian. As a conservative body, many that ascend to leadership positions tend to share characteristics with those to the right of the chasm and are less willing to accept new ideas. And while waiting for a clear winner in the VHS/Beta war hurts no one but the consumer, waiting for standards in social media and other electronic applications to work themselves out could put us too far behind ever to recover.

Our Church has done an outstanding job of utilizing traditional marketing tools, but this is reflected again in the top-down communication approach. It’s time that we furthered our efforts and directed greater resources within higher engagement areas we’ll discuss later in this document.

INITIATIVES THAT MATTER:

Volunteerism:
Many organizations outside our Church have brought philanthropy (annual fund programs, major gifts, capital campaigns) and volunteerism under a single department. Volunteerism is but one strategy of connecting with the community and is leaned on heavily, especially by underfunded and understaffed charities. The Seventh-day Adventist Church believes that volunteerism is a central part of our mission and worthy of its own departmental directive. Volunteerism and philanthropy strive to foster change and improve circumstances but do so in very different ways. Both have a place in the same conversation. A shared central hub would serve both interest groups, as there is an enormous amount of crossover and relevance to philanthropy when looking at volunteers. !

Think about this: Utah had the highest volunteerism rate of any state in the United States. An impressive 33% of Salt Lake City residents volunteered last year, ranking them fifth out of the defined 381 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for the United States. Provo, Utah, had the highest percentage of its population—over 60%—volunteer out of all cities with populations between 500,000 and 1 million people. Provo is also home to the LDS Church’s largest Missionary Training Center.

The LDS Church has created a strong culture of volunteerism within the states and cities where it has large population bases or a strong presence. The average Mormon commits nine times as many hours per month (nearly thirty-six hours) to volunteer activities as other Americans do. The LDS Church’s strength in active volunteerism is successful because it is a central Church tenant. The Church also recognizes that the primary barrier to volunteerism is not time, language gaps, childcare responsibilities, financial obligations, lack of transportation, misconceptions about volunteering, fear, or apprehension. The greatest factor is accessibility, so they’ve established a well-organized system that provides abundant
volunteering opportunities within an easily accessible framework.

Volunteerism isn’t just service for the community; it represents real cash value. In 1995, the Church’s human resources department estimated that the 96,484 volunteers serving at the time contributed services having an annual value of $360 million. This data did not include those serving as full-time LDS missionaries.

Volunteering has trended upwards for all teenagers in North America (16-19) over the past six years and for Gen-Xers (1965-1981) for the last eleven years. Older adults (over 65) volunteer at a rate of over 80%. An average of 26.5% of Americans sixteen and older volunteered in 2012. Volunteers are almost twice as likely to donate to a charity as nonvolunteers. When volunteerism percentages are higher in cities, so are other important factors. We see evidence of this when looking at the fifty-one largest MSAs, and it is almost uniformly true as you go from the top to the bottom.

Note three cities that cover the spectrum:

It is hard to say if volunteerism increases giving, or if giving increases volunteerism. In this chicken-or-egg conundrum, the only thing that we do know is that they seem to go hand in hand. Communities of people feed off of the giving and volunteerism that occur around them, and are transformed. Communities of believers who share a central focus on giving and volunteerism stand to benefit even more than the general population when opportunities are available and accessible.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church needs an additional vehicle by which members can collaborate, give, volunteer, and explore. We are not so different from our Mormon brethren. A central repository that allows donors and volunteers to shift focus easily and alternate between the voluntary and fundraising functions of a new website in the fewest number of steps is critical to keeping people engaged and remaining within the portal/database for a longer period of time. Volunteers tend to give, and givers tend to volunteer. By offering a central location for believers to explore both areas, we increase the activity of both groups (and often the same people). We are also providing a service for our members to connect with each other and deeply experience how they can partner with others, including the Church.

Philanthropy:

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is years behind where it needs to be in terms of philanthropy. My colleagues and I have witnessed academies hire fundraisers and expect a huge philanthropic upswing within a year, or insist that a needs-based dollar amount be met. When that doesn’t happen, as is most often the case, the fundraiser is often fired. Other boarding schools commit to maintaining the fundraiser long enough to realize bottom-line improvement. But then some of these schools still eventually fire their fundraisers, shortsightedly wanting to use the fundraiser’s salary for other needs. They assume the same donors will keep giving to what they believe in when the fundraiser was there. Another group of academy administrators keeps its fundraiser but expects these individuals to raise all of the funds.

In each of these situations, it is important to remember that relationships take time, and donors—especially major gift donors—prefer to work with leadership to turn a vision into a reality. They’re giving to that vision, to that relationship, not because an organization needs a new building but because that building will welcome and train students to bring others to Christ.

Organized philanthropy in our Church is relatively new when compared to the systematic generosity of the Andrew Carnegies and Henry Dunants of the world. Our intentions, although good, are often misguided from a lack of experience. Academies in some ways reflecting the “pass the offering plate” culture of the church. We fail to understand that to capitalize on the partnerships we could be forming, we must do so in ways that are meaningful to donors.

That is not to say that Adventist institutions don’t benefit from generosity. The Seventh-day Adventist Church received $3.2 billion dollars in tithes and offerings last year. We have 17.5 million current members around the world, and 1.1 million of those reside in North America. Healthcare Giving in the North American Division Health System is represented by 62 institutions that reported receiving $725,501,674 last year. That is staggering, but…

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research released a report in 2011 titled, “A Decade of Change in American Congregations.” In total, 11,077 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish congregations (120 denominations) were included in the research. The study, which was written by David A. Roozen, looked at the years from 2000 until 2010.

Several things from that report are striking, including the following:

• There are fewer people in the pews each week.
  
• Decreasing financial health is real.
  
• Old-line protestant congregations have some of the lowest young adult involvement.
  
• Churches that use technology and innovation yield better results overall.
  

Seventh-day Adventists in North America should be worried if we continue on this path. There is a noticeable drop in attendance in many of our congregations, especially among young adults. Tithe has flattened and will drop in the coming years. And from the Division office to lower branches, we have not made a concentrated effort to be innovative technology enthusiasts. There are pockets of success but not enough to stop the slide.

Tithing is not a sustainable way to fund the church going forward. A general survey of our nation’s young adults found that Millennials are more trusting of institutions––except churches––than older generations are: Elders (41%), Baby Boomers (41%), Gen-X (34%), and Millennials (30%). We did not start losing church connectedness through giving and volunteerism with Millennials; the phenomenon began with Gen-X. One of the more disturbing repercussions of this shift is that the future tithing crisis is likely to affect the church a full generation earlier than most may have anticipated. This is not to say that we should not ask for tithes. Tithing is a very important part of the worship experience established by God, and it may be possible to bring some of those AWOL tithers back to us. However, unless we can connect with our membership needs, members will define what tithe means to them and where those and other philanthropic dollars go.

Penelope Burk, the president of Cygnus Applied Research, an international consulting company on fundraising, said it best: “Religion has a huge impact on turning people toward philanthropy and keeping them pointed in that direction. Who or what is waiting in the wings to pick up the slack?”

The Barna Group, a leading research organization that focuses on the intersection of faith and culture, highlights a renewed urgency for spiritual substance—not in the worship style, dress code, or programs but rather in the substance of what it means to participate in church. This means that members’ involvement with the church beyond the mortar and brick is as important, or more so, to the connection they have with the body as passive pew immersion with which old-line protestant congregations have sometimes been associated.

Barna also mentions three points in its findings about people and purpose:

For years, I’ve driven by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on my way to work and marveled. Hopkins has one of the premier university systems in the world. What sets Hopkins apart, though, is its research. No university system has received more research and development (R & D) funding from the federal level, and the difference in funding is staggering. Hopkins received $1.88 billion dollars total grant money from the US government. The next highest grant payout was to the University of Washington at $949 million, and then the University of Michigan at $820 million. Johns Hopkins is required to use only 12% of its own money for research. The next nine highest grant payout universities funneled an average of 40% of their own money into research.

The government sees value and rewards the university because Hopkins delivers. Through its work, Hopkins essentially says, “Continue providing grants…and we’ll reward you with innovation. We’ll alter lives. We’ll do things that nobody else can. We're that committed.”

This belief and commitment to the institution isn’t limited to government funding. The fundraising this university does is uncommon. Johns Hopkins University is in the midst of a $4.5 billion dollar campaign. Roughly six months into the campaign, Hopkins was halfway to its goal, with $2.25 billion from 162,000 donors in the form of gifts and pledges. In addition, 262 of the donors have made campaign commitments of $1 million or more, and 28 of those have given $10 million or more. And that’s without factoring in the endowments that finance a portion of capital campaign requirements for the university system. Hopkins continues to ask for funds from full-time, part-time, and research employees at the university (numbering
6,092 individuals) and tracks and solicits from the 163,705 current alumni of its nine schools. And when asked, all of these groups give higher-than-average percentages of their time and money.

Hopkins is almost an apples-and-oranges comparison for many reasons. But it’s a benchmark. It does everything right in reaching donors, has done it for over 100 years, and is changing with the times to reach more donors electronically.

Want to know what a university student thinks when he or she leaves Hopkins? How about this: 65% of the graduates believe that their jobs make the world a better place. That probably doesn’t surprise you. But this might: 63% of Andrews University graduates feel the same way. Only two of the top 100 universities mentioned in the 2012–13 PayScale College Salary Report were above Hopkins, and only four colleges/universities in the top 100 surpassed Andrews in their percentage of graduates that felt their jobs made the world a better place.

I’d like to believe that Andrews is a barometer for the values of the broader Church and that all of those numbers would be reflected in our other schools if the data were available.

Hopkins graduates believe they will make the world better through science. They are the standard for bringing students in and then putting them out into the world to cure disease, explore space, and create quantum algorithms to predict market shifts. Seventh-day Adventists also believe we can make a difference by bringing in students and then putting them out into the world to excel in many of these same fields. The difference is that we also have a sense that God wants us to do more with our lives. We are called to serve, give back our time and our money to causes we believe in, and partner with institutions of vision within the church that know how to accomplish things, but we lack resources.

We need this kind of structure, and we need it now.

The North American Division (NAD) would maintain control of the Online Content Repository / Social Collaboration Hub (OCRSCH) to ensure security of the data files and privacy of the participating institutions and individuals.

In its simplest form, the OCRSCH is a hub where individuals can volunteer time, services, and philanthropic support to organizations or people who work to help Seventh-day Adventist initiatives. Organizations can post volunteer opportunities and receive financial support from individuals or groups.

All organizations defined as NAD entities (churches, conference- and union-owned educational institutions, ministries, ACS, etc.) would have automatic membership access to this database. Before going active, the institutions would need to provide certain basic information that the NAD would define. Other Seventh-day Adventist organizations would be given the chance to join this network if they’ve met the participation requirements of (Adventist-laymen's Services & Industries, Maranatha, etc.). And a final group might include young adults who are raising funds for objectives such as mission projects.

Individuals and organizations will register one time, creating a password and username of their own choosing. At the time of registration, the individual will be given the option to provide credit card information or bank routing information. Individuals will also be asked about volunteer opportunities they are interested in. Individuals who register may provide a personal address and/ or church information. The system will automatically add the union and conference to which they pertain.

Organizations and groups can make a case for a worthy need or post volunteer opportunities on their boards by using drop-down options. They can also define their needs through categorization, which becomes a searchable parameter. The more clearly an organization can define the need or an individual can address a skill set, the easier it will be for both groups to locate one another. The possibilities are endless when multiple search areas are made available. Search fields may include the following:

• Opportunity (give, volunteer, or both)
• Type (crowdsourcing, traditional)
• Friend’s Interest (“Dominique indicated that she wants alerts from XYZ. I do too.”)
• Area (radio, disaster relief, worthy student fund, evangelism)
• Stories (institutional, mission field, community service)
• Ratings and Comments (“I love what this organization did with…” )
• Causes (battered women, prison ministries)
• Specific Need (Volunteers needed in Japan for three months)
• Month (“I’ve got extra money coming in August. Who needs help?”)
• Matching Gifts (This organization will get $200 if I donate the same amount)

This type of opportunity within the portal is designed to allow people the freedom to peruse and choose which projects they want to contribute to and volunteer for. It builds collaboration by allowing us to see what others are giving, too. And it aims to do so in the fewest number of actions necessary while still providing a deeper, more immersive experience. Also, institutions can directly gauge their standing among donors and people who have volunteered at their ministry. The portal experience is social. It’s empowering. It provides instant feedback. And it provides valuable dollars and volunteer hours.

While all of this is happening on the surface, data warehousing is occurring in the background, and the division is able to benefit greatly by mining down into activities. The backend database is separated into three areas:

• Shared Open Assets: These assets are stored on the server but are easily accessible to all individuals and institutions. Such assets include Volunteer Opportunities, Giving Opportunities, Testimonials, and Message Boards.
• Shared Private Assets: This is general data we could share with conferences and unions and  ministries about their members. In addition to the benefits of receiving gifts from individuals, these same groups could run a general data report on the opportunities to which members are contributing, the average amount of time spent volunteering per church, the age group contributing to each cause, other initiatives to which people who give to ACS also donate, and so on. The data is extensive and would help the divisions, unions, and conferences better serve members. Names are not shared.
• Private Assets: These are the individual member details, member activity details, and overview of individual member activity. The North American Division would hold onto this information to ensure the privacy of the individuals who use this portal. Beyond credit card information, it might be in our best interest to destroy that information on a weekly basis. This discussion is best saved for another day.
  
  

In Conclusion:

What will our church look like in five years, or in 10? Can we say that we’ve done everything possible to empower our members to give and volunteer? Have we given them an opportunity to finish the work by enabling them to choose the causes to which they contribute? Donors and volunteers do not belong to churches, conferences, unions, or divisions, but we sometimes treat them as though they do.

In this scenario, some organizations and stewards will be rewarded by a community of believers for their good work. Others will learn more about themselves and how they can improve. And some instances, organizations that are just getting by because of name recognition…will need to be accountable to it’s base.

I love my church, and I want everyone to see the many wonderful, extensive issues they can be part of. I believe that philanthropic and volunteer involvement is key to funding future initiatives and that providing opportunities is the only way to realize that dream.

What will the church look like in five years? It all depends. We’ll see.