New Concept for Voices - please comment

VOICES CONCEPT DOC

Goal

To produce an award-winning quarterly publication that consistently illustrates (through text and images) how the Alliance as a covenantal people continuously responds to the call of God in a rapidly changing world.

Objectives

• To share with the Alliance potential and existing constituency the good news of all who are a part of the Alliance movement.
• To affirm the extraordinary work of Alliance members and affiliates.
• Spotlights generous givers.
• To create a quarterly published “artifact” of the Alliance that can be physically held and shared with others.
• To answer the question, “Why Should I Give?” by telling our story and by showing why other people give.
• To capture the imagination of those who have yet to hear of the Alliance or do not know the Alliance’s place in the world.
• To promote the class, race, sexual and ethnic diversity the Alliance consistently strives for in its body.

Print Specs

• 8x10 full bleed, 4 colors, saddle stitched, 8 pages inside, 12 pages total.

Attributes

• Fits into the family of communication pieces we are developing with a look and feel that says, “We’re the Alliance, baby!”
• A gorgeous piece that solidly promotes our presence in the world.
• Consists of graphics we can reuse in future Voices and maybe in other pieces.
• Contains timely content that clearly expresses who the Alliance is and what we do.

Specific to the November Issue (unless we want to pull some of these out for another issue)

• Through existing articles from connections, some new articles, and pictures create a montage of the identity of the Alliance:
• A Voice of Progressiveness.
• A Voice of Inclusivity.
• A Voice of Advocacy and Social Justice.
• A Voice of Environmental consciousness.
• A Voice of Baptist-ness.
• A Voice of Freedom. (We decide in what context).
• A Voice of Ecumenism.
• A Voice of Missions.
• A Voice of Convocation.
• A Voice of Worship.
• Juxtaposed with these voices are sidebar quotes and pictures of generous Alliance givers. Who are the top 10 givers off the major donor list that we can quote?

For this issue or another?

• Do we want to include in some way all of the givers in 2009, to date?
• Do we want to include in some way all of our affiliates?
• Do we want to include in some way our mission partners, chaplains, and affirmed clergy?

Email Subscribe

Okay.  I have been blogging for a while but not using all the fun tools provided.  I thought being a "Follower" of our blog would send us updates but it won't - it just links our google accounts.  So I have now added an email subscription.  See it on the right?  You just add your email address and then when an email comes to your account you have to click on a link to activate the subscription.

Sorry for the confusion.

Random thoughts on our Alliance "pitch"

It was great to be with you all during the Board meeting.

Here are some random thoughts of mine to get the ball rolling for our Alliance "pitch" presentation. Being in sales for a year-and-a-half, I have some decent resources to draw from for making effective presentations (not that I'm great at making presentations, but I do have resources :)). Conventional wisdom says you have 90 seconds to engage your audience and get them over the "so what?" hump to care about what you have to say. Now, most of our presentations will likely be done under friendlier conditions than the typical sales setting, but there are still some things I think we can apply.

The main one I want to offer is for us to stay focused on "What Is In It For You" (WIIFY). Jerry Weismann coins this in his book "Presenting to Win." He says when we have to present ourselves to a group, we mostly want to talk about us, but if we hope to engage our audience and bring them over to our side (whether that means selling a product or getting a church to put us in our budget), we need to start with and never stray far from WIIFY. What needs does our audience have, and how does what we have to offer meet those needs?

This raises the question, "Who is our audience"? I have listed out a few of the audiences below that I can think of, and it makes me wonder whether we'll ultimately have one presentation or a handful of similar presentations that target the appropriate audience.

So with all of that said, here are the aforementioned random scraps:

The Alliance: a denomination, a network, a movement

"Roots AND Wings" (grounding and progress)

"Baptists for a Changing World"

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“What is in it for you?” Start with “Them.” What do we know about Them and what They need?

Should our focus be on who we are, or what we do? Being or doing? Identity or results?

Who are our audiences? What is our answer to each of them asking “so what”?
 Current Alliance congregations
 Prospective Alliance congregations
 Theology school students
 Potential mission partners
 Potential organizational partners (theology schools, colleges, etc.)
 Clergy


Individuals seeking rooting in a living tradition
Individuals seeking companions on the journey
Churches seeking connection
Resources for living faith with integrity in a rapidly changing world.

“I am the Alliance” (Alliance profiles)
 Traditional church
 Emerging church
 Churches in transition
 Older member who shaped the Alliance
 Newer member who is shaping the Alliance
 Single, couple, family, diversity of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation

Montage of faces, of churches
Quotes from trusted sources on either a) the impact of the Alliance, or b) the circumstances of the church today that make the Alliance relevant (Marcus Borg, Brian McClaren, others…)

List of benefits for individuals and churches
Visuals of each of our initiatives (mission partners, marketplace, etc.)

Map to show where our churches are, where our members are, where our mission partners are

We have a BLOG!!!

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