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One big mistake we often make as leaders is putting all the focus on our staff and forgetting that we have an army of extremely “bought in” trip leaders. Shift gears and instead, think of your leaders as more than great people who lead your trips but people who can carry your vision forward.

To participants and field partners, here are some suggestions on how to engage your trip leaders to a higher calling: 

#1 Equip them. Remember, they might be your greatest tool for mobilizing your audience to mission. Help them become better recruiters, mobilizers, and senders. 

#2 Encourage and gift books. There are so many great mission books (When Helping Hurts, The Great Omission, Shadow of the Almighty, and so on.). Consider having an annual book you purchase and send out to all of your trip leaders to continue building their own personal mission philosophy and worldview. 

#3 Appreciation meals. Host appreciation meals for your trip leaders to pour into them, keep them connected, share what’s new and upcoming, and to allow them to build a tighter community with each other. Spread these out throughout the year to avoid the “see you next summer” mindset that some trip participants and leaders may accidentally fall into. 

#4 Provide trainings. Host at least one annual trip leader training. Whether it's by video or something else, the most successful we’ve seen is for organization to have a time where you stop thinking about everything else and focus on your larger purpose for mission trips. 

#5 Brainstorm sessions. Host brainstorms sessions throughout the year (especially out of peak trip season to keep leaders engaged) and collect feedback on ways to do things better: preparation, process, communications, resources, debriefs, and more. 

#6 Give note & gifts. Sure, giving gifts for a volunteer role may not be the norm, but think creatively about this. Sending a note card and a $5 gift card to Starbucks to say thanks for all they are doing goes a long way. 

#7 Recognize the work. While trip leaders may be working with you on the direct details of a specific trip, they are often mentoring and connecting with their participants long after the trip. Be sure to recognize and thank them for continually pouring into the people. 

#8 Invite to team meetings. Invite trip leaders to key team or staff meetings when you are working through short-term logistics, strategic changes that impact them, and/or celebrating key things. 

You have a unique opportunity to equip and send so many people. We often fixate on the trip participants and forget what amazing resources we have in our trip leaders. More so, these trip leaders really can essentially be your pro bono staff members giving you an army of equipped mobilizers. 

Action: Select at least one item from above that you can implement this week. Maybe it's having a zoom call over coffee with a few team leaders and asking them what they need most to be equipped well. 

This is just one strategy of five (5) we have for doubling your impact. Download all five (5) strategies you can implement immediately that will double your missions impact.

This post is written by Will Rogers. Will is the Co-Founder and CEO of ServiceReef.

We talked about how to improve fundraising communication recently. Let's review some ideas for how you can communicate well to everyone you need to during a crisis—or even when life goes back to normal—for that matter. Here 10 ideas for communicating well during a crisis: 

1. Over communication

I truly believe that over-communicating is key. Would you rather someone say, “Why didn’t you tell me?”, or “Ok, I have enough information?”. I for one will take the latter. Granted there are certain situations where information must come out at its rightful time and place, but communicate until you are blue in the face and people are asking you to stop telling them.

2. Break your communication list down

Who needs to know what? Staff, team leaders, participants, parents, leaders, donors, partners, lodging, transportation. Take a moment a create a list of who exactly needs to know what.

3. Communication is two way

Give people space to ask questions. Whether that's through social media, responding to email, or just making phone calls, allow space for people to ask.

4. Behind the scenes

Don’t be afraid to give them insight behind the curtain. I have found a lot of questions come from a lack of context or communication. What will hurt from letting them know your process? I mean really, are any of us keeping presidential-size secrets that people cannot know? Take a breath and give the people what they want!

5. Prioritize your communication list

There is nothing worse than a participant knowing something before a team leader. Enough said.

6. Create a sample email (then test it)

Write out your email. Give it a proofread. Now read it again. Now send it to your team to proofread. Now send it to yourself. Ok, you’re all set! Hit send and let the questions roll in, just kidding, you’ve communicated so well nobody will have any questions.

7. Don't forget donors

This is a very important group. Here are a couple of approaches to this; it all depends on how your organization handles donations and participants. First of all, thank them. This is so important—but can be forgotten in the chaos. Second, let them know your policy for donations whether the money will remain with the participant until they can go, or your own policy regarding funds when a short-trip is cancelled. This might include letting them know the IRS policy on donations and refunds.

8. What’s next?!

Let them know how you will be monitoring the situation, who you are listening to, and how you are going to communicate moving forward. Should they be looking for emails, phone calls, updates from team leaders, social, or website? Be clear and follow through on those. If it changes, let them know!


9. Empower

If you have the space, empower your team leaders to communicate to your team. For one, it takes the burden off of you to communicate and manage however many people you have going on trips. Second, as leaders, we should desire to draw out of our people the ability to lead. Giving this opportunity, although small, gives them the chance to grow and lead their team well—at your direction. You might even write them a sample email to get them started.

10. Have fun with it!

Seriously, I'm not kidding. Especially at a time like this, there is so much somberness going around that being able to lighten the mood through an email, will relieve the tension for the participant and leader. We need to keep perspective that the God of the universe is in control.

In the meantime...

Share some good books to read (could I recommend “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”),  encourage them to engage with the community they were going to be apart over there right here, meetings over zoom or Skype, love people by respecting their space especially at this time, or make a list of places where people in vulnerable situations might be that they could serve and love well. I was telling a friend of mine after all this is over if I am no closer to the Father than I was when it started I will be disappointed. Encourage time and space to spend with God.

This is one post of many we're doing related to the current crisis. Download Cancelled: A Guide to Maintaining Missions Engagement When Your Short-Term Trip is Cancelled.

ServiceReef announces new way to level-up your short-term trip program: Missions Made Simple

We invite you to learn more about how Missions Made Simple —the digital course in missions—can help you achieve greater engagement with your program

Louisville, KY-- Mobilizing people to short and long term missions can be cumbersome and confusing. Thousands of missions programs and missions leaders across the globe need more training to equip and engage their teams for short-term and long-term missions trips. We have the tools you need to overcome these challenges and see exponential growth. 

Introducing: Missions Made Simple. Created by ServiceReef, Missions Made Simple is a digital course for missions that will help you take your program to the next level.

Missions Made Simple was created to help set you up for amazing success as a missions mobilizer, organization leader, team leader, or anyone walking down a path of greater missional engagement.

“This felt like the perfect time to release the work we've been doing for years with so many others. Digital is the quickest, most easily accessible way for you to connect yourself and your team to training that fits your missions goals.” said Micah Pritchard, Co-Founder of ServiceReef.

How can Missions Made Simple help you?

Many ways. Here are three major ways we can help you:

#1 Resources to Grow: You will find many resources to help equip you to better lead, guide, and engage those living a missional life.  Explore our courses, worksheets, videos, assessments, and other resources.

#2 Connect with Others: We believe you should never feel alone as a missions mobilizer. That's why we have created an online community of others who are equipping and mobilizing people to missional living. Join today to connect with others just like you.

#3 Confidence to Lead: Mobilizing and leading people to missional living can be intimidating while at times leaving you to wonder if you're doing it right or well. Here you can find the confidence to go further faster with these tools and the community of others who are mobilizing.

About the Missions Made Simple course

Level-Up Your Short Term Trip Program will be a game-changer for your missions program. Here you will talk through 10 strategic categories critical to your enhancing your short term trip program.

We're certain these sessions will help you and your team achieve greater engagement and program success.

Watch the introduction video to learn more about Missions Made Simple: 

Here's what you will get from this course:

• 10 critical tools to equip you for leading missions
• 10 short video-guided courses
• Facts about these 10 core functional areas
• Assessments questions to help you evaluate your current engagement
• Tips for how to improve
• One key action item for you and your team
• Downloadable worksheets with more ideas
• Discussion board to discuss more ideas with key leaders 

Sign up today... we're certain this will help you better your short-term missions program in no time!

“This course isn't just for ServiceReef members. This is for all missions leaders to watch and learn—so you're equipped with the tools you need in your missions toolkit." said Will Rogers, Co-Founder of ServiceReef.

The course aims to encourage and equip every missions leader and your team to achieve greater engagement and program success. 

ServiceReef has set up a special page for missions leaders to be encouraged and equipped with resources to help you grow, connect with others, and give you the confidence you need to lead well.

Find out more details and learn about creating a free account today right here. 

ServiceReef knows managing mission trips can be time-consuming and stressful. ServiceReef brings all the pieces of missions - participants, forms, team leaders, fundraising, donors, meetings, & more - into a single platform so you can reduce stress and focus on leading your teams. ServiceReef is everything you need for missions Learn more at https://servicereef.com/.

Doubling your impact but reducing your stress may seem simpler than it sounds. I get it. This is an epic challenge when it comes to short-term and long-term missions goals.

The key is finding a technology that works best for your organization. It’s important you find a technology partner who can help you scale your growth and relieve the stresses of administration on your staff.

Here are a few things to consider when deciding on a software to help your organization reach its missions goals:

#1 Does it manage online fundraising?

This is a given expectation of any tool that handles short-term trip logistics but make certain to map out what exactly you want the online fundraising to look like.

• Do you want individual fundraising pages?
• Do you want weekly fundraising emails sent to trip participants?
• Do you want team fundraising updates? 

#2 Is it simple for our staff to use?

Any new technology is going take time to learn but make certain to find a system that’s both intuitive to learn and has the training resources you need to learn it well. You should feel like your software solution is part of your team and working for you. 

#3 Is it simple for our members to use?

Often, we shop for software from the perspective of the administrators but also make sure to think of the end user experience (your members) and if the tool has all the features and simplicity they need.

Read: the easier your technology is to use, the less stress your admins will feel because users can do it themselves! Meaning, you get your life back!

#4 Can it scale to our ultimate vision in missions engagement?

This is an important question to ask as you choose a solution. You might only host a handful of trips right now but does the solution scale to your growing needs? Also, does the solution help you not only handle short-term trips but also scale into sending long-term missionaries and helping people build their long term missional goals? This may seem way off, but it’s good stewardship to be thinking of this now. 

#5 Does it help mature your members toward greater engagement?

We have no doubt you will be asking all the right questions about the functions you need for short-term trips but we also know you have desires to see your short-term trip participants turn into so much more. Does the technology solution you choose have the ability to nurture and walk with people long after their short term trip? This is important as you want to keep the continuity of the engagement moving. 

#6 Do applicants need to fill out application data from scratch each time?

Application management is complex and it can be very frustrating for your participants. Imagine filling out a 60 question application for a trip this summer to find that you have to fill out all the same questions again to apply for next summer? That’s not good! Does your solution offer the ability to retain application field answers to make it easy for participants to serve year after year? 

#7 Does it allow granular permissions to be given to your administrators? 

There are about a thousand different combinations of how you might see trip admins assigned, but the common thread is the need and desire to assign very specific admin permissions. Does your solution provide the right granularity (choice) of permissions needed for your organization? 

#8 Do trip members have dedicated fundraising pages?

We discussed this above, but it is important to mention specifically. Does your solution offer each individual a personal fundraising page to help them fundraise, tell their stories, and build a community of support?

Personal fundraising stories should allow for someone to raise funds online but also allow them to tell their story well so that donors are engaged in understanding your vision and impact (beyond the writing of a check). 

#9 Are trip members notified of financial progress?

What automated notifications are associated with your solution? It’s important that your tool helps make your communications simpler which means it should provide robust automated notifications along with tools to easily send “as needed” communications. 

#10 Does it help you tell your organization’s missional story? 

And last, but certainly not least, you are not only stewarding short term trips, you are stewarding the vision of your organization and telling a significant story.

• Does your solution offer a way for your participants to tell their story?
• Does it engage donors in that story?
• Does it offer a team blog tool that you can embed in your website? 

These are only 10 questions you should be asking but these are important questions to help you be more strategic in your missions goals and choose software that’s going to set you up for the greatest long-term success.

Action: Brainstorm and build your own list of required and optional features that you need. Download the ServiceReef scoring sheet at Choosing a Technology. 

This is just one strategy of five (5) we have for doubling your impact. Download all five (5) strategies you can implement immediately that will double your missions impact.

This post is written by Will Rogers. Will is the Co-Founder and CEO of ServiceReef.

Who ever wants to be quarantined?! Maybe a few people out there but it’s not likely.

Thankfully there are tons of creative things you can do (and should do) to engage your participants even now as people are home.

We've mentioned how vital communication during a crisis can be. Don’t miss this opportunity to guide your people into a greater missional journey. Point to God with these ways to serve during quarantine.

• Prayer - create a prayer guide around missions (partners, projects, people, regions, needs) to send out to your participants to be praying each day for something missional.

• Learn - encourage them to keep learning in their missional journey either through a missions book or programs like Perspectives on the World Gospel Movement.

• Books - send out books about missions that people could read - biographies of missionaries, missions philosophy, stories, etc.

• Support Local Healthcare Workers - remember the work that local healthcare professionals are doing to combat the COVID-19 virus and reach out to provide a meal or help them in some way.

• Elderly in Area - reach out to local nursing homes or other facilities to see if could use assistance with supplies, errands, or other needs.

• Encouragement - write encouragement notes to missionaries, partners, donors, or others who are part of your missional community.

• Assessments - encourage your participants to take an online assessment (Enneagram, Meyers- Briggs, Strengths, etc.) to learn more about themselves and how their unique design could be used for missional purposes.

• Donate to a Cause - there are tons of causes out there now helping people in need around the current virus or financial circumstance, donate to one of those causes.

• Missional.Life - create a Missional.Life account to learn more about who God has made you to be, what story He has written, and where He might be calling you.

• Research - learn more about the specific field you were planning to visit to learn more about their culture, the religious makeup, their history, and their needs.

• Zoom Meetings - host a team Zoom meeting to keep everyone connected and engaged. Zoom meetings can be great to keep everyone’s mind in the game.

• Share Stories - have everyone share stories (online if possible) about what they are learning through this season about their short term trip hopes.

Have you or are you planning on using any of these ideas? Let us know on our facebook page. 

This is one post of many we're doing related to the current crisis. Download Cancelled: A Guide to Maintaining Missions Engagement When Your Short-Term Trip is Cancelled.