Marketing and missions
Is there room for marketing in missions? Is it ok to use marketing for support raising? Does that seem manipulative? When you're raising support and you run out of people you know and you haven't met your goal what do you do?
These are some, probably not all, the questions a friend of mine is facing right now as he is approaching the 6 month mark before moving to another country to do missionary work.
I believe there is room for marketing in the process of raising missionary support dollars, but I think it's a tool in the tool box, not THE tool. It's something I'm interested in putting more thought into. There's obviously a very diverse group of people potentially that a missionary could be talking to in asking for financial support, but one commonality would be that all of them are involved in the local church and hopefully are interested in seeing more come to understand the gospel. But where marketing comes in I believe is how do you make the ask more about them (the giver), than about the missionary? I think.
I'm thinking in this story somehow the giver should be "the hero", and the missionary is "the guide". The giver has a problem that they don't know where to give and feel as if they can't give. The missionary is the one that's hopefully had experience in being in that position and can provide empathy as well as show competence in a past history of doing missionary work. These things then help the giver have confidence that they are giving to someone that has a desire to see the gospel shared with those that don't know Christ. This is probably oversimplified and a little general, but I think it's a start.
Yes I think there's a place for marketing in missions. I'll keep thinking about it.
These are some, probably not all, the questions a friend of mine is facing right now as he is approaching the 6 month mark before moving to another country to do missionary work.
I believe there is room for marketing in the process of raising missionary support dollars, but I think it's a tool in the tool box, not THE tool. It's something I'm interested in putting more thought into. There's obviously a very diverse group of people potentially that a missionary could be talking to in asking for financial support, but one commonality would be that all of them are involved in the local church and hopefully are interested in seeing more come to understand the gospel. But where marketing comes in I believe is how do you make the ask more about them (the giver), than about the missionary? I think.
I'm thinking in this story somehow the giver should be "the hero", and the missionary is "the guide". The giver has a problem that they don't know where to give and feel as if they can't give. The missionary is the one that's hopefully had experience in being in that position and can provide empathy as well as show competence in a past history of doing missionary work. These things then help the giver have confidence that they are giving to someone that has a desire to see the gospel shared with those that don't know Christ. This is probably oversimplified and a little general, but I think it's a start.
Yes I think there's a place for marketing in missions. I'll keep thinking about it.