Should Your Ministry Fair Look Just Like Every Other One Out There?

Mark Alves Volunteers
Examples of Ministry Fairs
Examples of Ministry Fairs

Ministry Fair…to Middlin’: Can You Do Better?

In part I we take a look at typical ministries fairs. In part 2, we examine another approach.

Glancing at Flickr photos of ministries fairs and volunteer fairs, you quickly see some common elements that repeatedly pop up.

  • Science fair-type displays, including some that have been around for years
  • Tables spread out across the gym/cafeteria/multipurpose room/narthex
  • Balloons
  • Colored tablecloths for at least some of the tables and maybe some balloons
  • Pens, clipboards, sign-up sheets
  • The occasional TV or laptop showing a slideshow for a particular ministry
  • Handouts, flyers and fact sheets
  • Volunteers standing behind tables, desperately hoping for a prospect to approach them.
  • Event is one day only after church, usually in the fall. Don’t try to get involved on the other days.

Are these best practices or clichés? Essential elements or merely comfortable ones?

Having worked on several volunteer fair events over the years, here are some lessons learned if you’re taking a classic approach to such an event.

  • Select a date (not a long weekend) date for the fair at least a year in advance. Major, conflicting events can’t be scheduled at the same time.
  • Establish a ministry fair committee at least six months in advance that has a budget and members with some authority.
  • Pick a theme for the fair. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it makes the latest fair seem more special. Those groups that want to tie into the theme can do so to show their creativity. Consider a color scheme for the fair (for signs/decorations/flyers) and/or volunteers (like white shirts, dark bottoms).
  • Encourage ministries to schedule meetings or events within days following the fair to give prospective members a chance to connect right away.
  • Distribute a map – in person and online – showing where each ministry area will be as part of a fair brochure
  • Have greeters available at the entrance to the fair to welcome people and guide them. Greeters and signs should also direct parishioners from the church to the fair.
  • Ensure all volunteers have nametags, perhaps even with the fair’s colors and theme.
  • Make sure table workers reach out to newcomers and not just wait to be approached.
  • Find volunteer photographers to record the action after each Mass. The photos can be used online and in the following year’s program/flier. You can do the same with video as well.
  • Your fair brochure includes a list of “job openings”, perhaps cross-referenced by skill and amount of time required. As an incentive for ministry participation, those who participate in the planning by a certain date get to be included in the map/brochure and ballot.
  • People are increasingly unlikely to want to leave their contact information sitting around on a clipboard for all to see. Use a laptop or have a ballot box to protect the privacy of prospects’ contact information and keep it out of public view once it’s submitted.
  • Have a raffle for a fun prize. This can be tied to submitting a ballot for best booth at the fair, answering questions about a few different tables, or rating the overall fair.
  • Get some data. Note the number of sign-ups by hour. Follow up and see how many turn into active volunteers. Over time, you should be able to answer:
    • Are all prospective volunteers contacted?
    • What percentage of prospective volunteers turn into practicing volunteers?
    • Is your church getting better at attracting volunteers?
    • Does the success rate of turning around prospects differ by ministry? By Mass or time of service?
    • To track this information, require that ministries report this information regularly to the parish council.

How well does your church’s volunteer recruitment work? What lessons can you share?

This Week in Twitter for 9/25/2009

Mark Alves Social Media

twitter-leafIn a week where we wondered whether Twitter was worth a billion dollars and 37Signals was ready to play along, here’s some Twitter news for free — no deposit into the Whuffie bank necessary.

Tweet, Tweet, Ka-Ching: Twitter is Changing the Way Nonprofits Make the Ask
Can your church learn from these nonprofits on Twitter?

  • @donorschoose 2,242 followers; see whose followers are the most generous
  • @12for12K 2,729 followers; #GG24 – Go Global September 24-30 – one-hour ad sponsorships
  • @livestrong 38,339 followers; awareness rather than direct fundraising
  • @Twestival 11,824 followers; promote offline, fun meet-ups to raise money
  • @NWF 17,151 followers; #nwf to report wildlife findings, encourage conversations

Effective Twitter Backgrounds
Highly customized backgrounds can look cool, but present challenges:

  • Layouts don’t always work well with all screen resolutions. Don’t let your Twitter page have a visible panty line of a background graphic that has to tile because it isn’t wide enough.
  • Easy does it with the fire hose of contact information in graphical running down the left-hand column. Remember, we can’t click on that stuff so keep it short and memorable.

If you’re up for making your own, try out Free PSD Twitter background template from Fuel Your Creativity.

9 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter
Dan Zarrella is Mr. ReTweet and also the guy who has a DIY redirect on Twitter if you leave out the second ‘r’ in his name. See Dan’s presentation (or the e-book if you subscribe to his blog) and the FastCompany write up. Highlights of what it takes to get a ReTweet based on his analysis of boatloads (twoatloads?)  of tweets:

1. Use links, but not TinyURL
2. Please and retweet work.
3. Avoid boring words like going, watching and well.
4. Higher reading comprehension is ok.
5. Punctuation is fine except for semi-colons.
6. Original content, rare/unusual words, breaking news.
7. Proper nouns and headline format.
8. Avoid negative emotions, swearing and self reference.
9. Late afternoon, especially on Friday

How To Measure The Value Of A Fan Or Follower In Social Media

  • CPM – Use tracking URLs to see what kind of clickthru rate you get from your number of followers, or number of referrers from Twitter (although some traffic from Twitter clients will show up as direct traffic)
  • Goals and funnels – measure completed actions
  • Direct feedback – responses to questions, input on features

10 Code Snippets to Interact with Twitter
Add some Twitter goodness to your church site in PHP, Ruby or PASCAL. Maybe not PASCAL, but it sounds so French and the author, Jean-Baptiste Jung, is from the French speaking part of Belgium.

OK, your turn. Who else had some Twitter mojo this week?

Episode 5: Church of Perpetual Professionals

Mark Alves Podcast Show Notes

Featured items from this church marketing podcast include:

Listen Now

or
Subscribe on iTunes by pasting in:
http://churchmojo.posterous.com/rss

Tweets of the Week

  • @Sween: I only ask myself “What would Jesus do?” if I don’t want to shave.
  • @CatholicMeme: RT @YoGeek: Bumper sticker: “God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.” Word.

Picks

Fantasy Sponsor:

  • Harris Teeter Bits O’Cookie ice cream

Answer These Questions Before You Redesign Your Church Website

Mark Alves Website Redesign

Thinking about redesigning your church website? Seth Godin offers a series of questions to ask before you get started. And Future Now expands on those questions, even covering whether you even need a redesign at all. Usability guru Jakob Nielsen chimes in, too.

We’re at the start of a redesign process at my church and it’s clear how important these questions are. The technology and the design aren’t the hard part of this process, but that’s where the battles often take place. Getting agreement on your goals for the site and who you’re trying to reach in the first place make the rest of the process much easier.

The only area I see missing from those two lists is data — the web analytics, parishioner surveys and other feedback needed to help answer those questions.  Are there other questions that should be answered? What has your experience been?