"balloon thoughts" on the life and growth of eMinistry
Friday, September 14, 2007
Back after many transitions!
Finally back into the swing of things after a summer of transitions. In late May I started a new career as a real estate agent here in Spokane, and just a few weeks later my mother died very unexpectedly. I did the funeral in NYC and the committal in Vermont. In early July we moved into a new house. It was, as my siblings say, a "lost summer" -- and eMinistry simply had to be put on hold.
Now we're getting started again with a few classes this fall, beginning in October, and looking ahead to a large number of classes in 2008. We've submitted a grant application for 2008 which would allow us to offer a comprehensive series of teleclasses in the areas of Outreach and Christian Education -- and also to teach a series of classes on how to create your own teleclass program. We'll know more about the grant later this fall, but regardless of its success, we plan to offer a large number of classes in the new year.
If you have topics to suggest in the areas of Outreach ministry and Christian Education -- remembering eMinistry's goal of offering practical, user-friendly classes on tools for ministry -- please post them here or email me at elizabeth@eministrynetwork.org
I'm looking forward to working with our leaders and participants this fall!
I guess I've been too busy doing eMinistry over the past three months to blog about it, but a lot of great things have been happening. Classes in November included 2 classes with National Episcopal Health Ministries and 2 with Barbara Crafton on "Forgiveness" -- along with classes on the MDGs, Designing a Confirmation program, and Discernment 101. December was spent taking care of organizational details like our first board meeting and end of year financial and registration statistics. In mid-January we completed and filed the IRS application for tax-exempt status, and our state and federal taxes are due next week. Developing and running a non-profit is certainly an interesting process!
We've got great classes scheduled for the spring -- again our biggest challenge is in getting enough registrations to hold them. Some classes are easily subscribed, others are requiring targeted emails to diocesan committee and commission chairs. I know that 2007's emphasis has to be on promotion. We've proved we can get great leaders and develop terrific classes -- now we need to explore all the avenues for letting people in congregations know about what we offer. I purposely stayed "under the radar" in terms of promotion last year. Now I think we are ready for press releases and maybe some advertising.
The past couple of months I've been working on two project proposals which would fund the development of about 25 classes in two different ministry areas. We'll know more soon about whether these will be funded. Both would significantly raise eMinistry's visibility. And both would provide a focus for developing a comprehensive program of classes in those two ministry areas. Now that we have some real experience in running teleclasses, we're able to better estimate the time and administrative support it takes to make them happen. All of that will impact the type of funding we seek tohelp us develop into a full-fledged operation over the next three years.
Things are bursting forth all over -- and it's both incredible exciting and somewhat daunting -- so many avenues for training and support to explore:
I've been having great conversations with interesting people who have responded to the invitation to explore leading a class.
We're looking at ways to provide more classes on outreach ministry -- as the Diocese of Spokane's newly created outreach commission looks at how to connect and support their members in the many outreach projects and activities that are happening here.
I've also had a good conversation about how eMinistry might develop classes supporting diaconal ministry -- both in this diocese and for the wider church.
Other advances:
After working with 20+ leaders to develop their teleclasses, I finally taught one of my own -- last Thursday the first of two sessions on lay preaching -- and I absolutely loved it so much I have scheduled another set of classes for January.
I'm making headway with developing a board -- which frankly has been further down on my list as my main concern has been to get classes up and running. But the anniversary of our incorporation is upon us (November 18th) when all sorts of state and federal things must be filed, and we also are approaching a February deadline for applying for IRS tax-exempt status....so these infrastructure and administrative processes have to move ahead.
We now have the ability to post class listings on faithandwisdom.org -- which allows us another platform for ecumenical publicity. Thanks to Lynne Grifo via Wayne Schwab for the suggestion that we explore becoming a "sponsoring agency" (which allows us to publicize on the faithandwisdom.org website.)
A couple of classes had to be cancelled due to low enrollment, which is always a disappointment-- I'm hoping that as our visibility grows that will happen less and less....
So it's just about getting to be time for another newsletter....
Revamped the payment process to streamline the registration form -- I think it will be much easier for people to navigate through. Lots of technical snafus to work through, but it came out pretty well. I've added a question on the order form, "Are you lay or clergy?" as I want to gather that piece of data to see who on the whole we're appealing to. Went back through the previous 100 registrations to fill in the blanks there -- so far about a third more lay people than clergy have signed up for a class.
Also revamped our fee policies. After having two people drop out of a class 30 minutes before class time, bringing us from 4 participants to 2 plus the leader and eMinistry associate, I am kind of glad that the free registration/beta-test period is coming to an end. We've given over 100 registrations free and have benefited a lot from the whole process. Now it's time to start charging a moderate fee and seeing how that impacts registration. Our fee policy is simple and clear, and it allows us to pay the leader the stipend we've committed to, even if participants drop out at the last minute. I'm hoping that paying something for a class will discourage drop-outs....but we'll see.
3 great teleclasses -- on "What Is Your Spirituality?" with Alan Akridge, "Ten Best Practices for Vestries" with Jim Adams, and "Narrative Budgeting" with Mike Stephenson. We learned a lot -- that with each of the first two classes, there was enough content for a two-session class instead of the one we scheduled, and we're revamping both of those into two-session classes for later this fall. In both of them participants felt the pace was packed (rushed) and we need to allow more time for the very interesting people who show up for these classes to connect with each other.
The third class on Narrative Budgeting proved we really do need to make the leap into web-seminars for certain class topics. Mike did a terrific job moving people from worksheet to worksheet in MSExcel, and the class got top grades in feedback, but it would have been much easier to take people through the forms online......so that's underway in terms of choosing a provider we can afford....
Lots of wonderful connections with 4 new potential leaders, 3 of whom are already scheduled to teach a class this fall -- and each of them have other great leader ideas to suggest....
Haven't blogged for a while as I've just been so busy doing the day-to-day stuff of building eMinistry. Thousands of emails and administrative details, which I actually enjoy -- and then the great pleasure of intial contacts with potential leaders. There are so neat people out there! So many possibilities to explore....
I'm thrilled that the National Episcopal Health Ministries board has decided to work with eMinistry to offer an introductory teleclass on "Health Ministry in the Small Church" in November -- that will be super for them and great additional experience and publicity for us.
Also, we've got 11 different people from 11 different dioceses signed up for Lallie Lloyd's class on the Millennium Development Goals in October -- and are starting to get registrations for the second session in November.
AND we are getting our first paid registrations! Wowee! I have agonized over what to charge, and what people will be willing to pay, over the past weeks. Have finally settled on $10 a class hour for the present. We'll still offer a lot of first-time classes for free or at a reduced rate....But to be able to at least begin to cover the cost of the leader's stipend is terrific! I've been told by a lot of people that we're charging way too little, but I still think that because very few people in the Church have experienced a teleclass -- let alone heard of it -- a lower charge is the way to go in this start-up phase.
As I wrote in the last post, we've had the disappointment of low registrations for some classes, so we've had to cancel and reschedule them till later in the fall. The leaders have been understanding and gracious. But a second issue is also that people register but then don't show up for the class. I think part of that is due to our offering classes for free during this beta-test period, and perhaps our beginning to charge a fee now for most classes will increase people's commitment to participate. But at this point, no shows are a really problem -- every person's presence really matters! If you've got 12 to class, it doesn't matter as much if a couple don't attend -- but when you've got 4 registered and 2 don't show up, it makes for a much less vibrant class. I know this is basically a problem of publicity and promotion -- the more widely we're known, the more people will see what we're offering and will want to register.
A busy week -- working hard on contacting potential class leaders, getting 4 new classes scheduled and listed on the website for October! Some I've been working on for quite some time, and some just developed very quickly -- which is so neat. I'm looking forward to the Leaders Introductory Teleclass next Wednesday which is set up to talk with people about eMinistry and what becoming a leader involves.
So far today -- by 1:30 PST -- we've had 59 visitors to the website (!!!!) which is great -- but only 2 registrations -- I don't know if it's because they're not interested in what we're offering OR because the time/date we're offering something doesn't work for them. I'm not sure how we might get that feedback....maybe an informal poll on the website? Need to think about that.
A disappointing piece of news is we had to cancel the first offering of "Planning Your Final Celebration" -- lots of interest expressed in it by people but only one registration -- so we rescheduled it till later in October. I'm disappointed because the content looks terrific, and I am so eager for the learnings we get from holding each class -- and I hate disappointing the leader who gets all geared up for the class but then finds there's not enough people to hold it. It all gets down to getting the word out to the person in the pew, and I am wrestling with how to do that better.
Some ideas:
contact the communications officer of a diocese which has an eMinistry leader teaching an upcoming class -- write a specially focussed "press release" kind of announcement to help them publicize that particular class in their own diocese
ask leaders for names of people/places their class might be publicized (alumni magazines from colleges or seminaries; professional contacts/colleagues
go through diocesan websites to find the contact person who would be interested in a specific class -- I've shied away from this because it is so incredibly labor-intensive....but it would get the news to a different level than diocesan staff or clergy
find people who've taken an eMinistry class who are willing to be an "eMinistry rep" for their diocese -- they'd receive weekly updates about newly-scheduled classes; they would know WHO in their diocese might be interested in learning about a particular class.
I don't naturally think in a martketing-type way, although I am certainly learning to! I wonder who is out there who might be a good person to coach me on how to promote eMinistry?
Back after 3 weeks on vacation in Northeastern Vermont! It was wonderful to be with my family and friends in the place where I've gone all my life (a few too many social events though -- 14 in a 20 day vacation!) -- and I made some good connections for eMinistry while I was up there. Now it's good to be home in Spokane and back into my regular life and routine....
Now I'm working on getting more classes scheduled for the fall. There are so many incredible ministries and leaders out there to talk with about developing a class. What I had not expected when this all began a year ago (September 5th is the anniversary of eMinistry's creation!) was how labor-intensive the process of class/leader development can be. I'm hoping that the Leader Introductory Teleclass I'm giving on September 6 will be the first of many that will make it easier for potential leaders to connect with me -- instead of my being the one to make that first approach. I've also made all the resources a leader needs to develop a class accessible on the website, though right now only through me. This eliminates sending attachments in bits and pieces as our working relationship develops.
The other suggestion a leader made was to offer leaders free registration to a class as long as there's room. I think that's a terrific idea. Giving some additional perks beyond the minimal $30 stipend would be great. Any additional suggestions would be welcome!
I need to work on getting the board in place. Had a great meeting before I left for Vermont with a potential treasurer/board member here in Spokane, who also has long-term connections with other helpful people here. His enthusiasm for the concept and goals of eMinistry was so wonderful and affirming! It will be great to have a larger team to work with.
Anyway, am getting the September newsletter ready to go out tomorrow, and adding more parish email addresses to my mailing list (working on some of the central dioceses...)
