How well do you hide? Get yourself found!
Regular readers will know that I’m a fairly determined person, and a Quaker. As I like visiting other meetings I often do so while travelling.
My first attempt to visit my new meeting took three attempts to find and I’m not certain that many new enquirers would have persisted!
I’ve been surprised at how hard it can be to find meetings, and one memorable occasion walked around the building several times until I happened to see someone with a cloth bag going through an unmarked door and decided they looked like a Quaker so followed…
Do new enquirers or potential hirers find you easily?
This could be either your physical location or your online footprint.
If you are tucked away into a corner, or behind a tall hedge or wall do you have good signage and helpful council street signs directing people to the front door?
If you have a website, is it easily readable, has up to date contact details and have links to your social media?
Does the building appear on local maps and in local guides? Including online maps and perhaps using what3words?
Outreach is for me an invitation to others to join us in our way of worship and response to life which are so important to us that we wish to share them. At the simplest level this means supplying information about meetings, Friends to contact, and basic beliefs, all of which should be given accurately, clearly and if possible attractively. In the second stage outreach offers to others, through meetings, personal contact and literature, the experience and truth which Friends have found for themselves through three centuries and which impel us just as strongly today. It is different from some forms of evangelism in that it does not use mass emotional appeal, idiosyncratic demands or autocratic compulsion but only the persuasion of insight, humanity and good sense. It does not depend on rewards or threats, but on the active acceptance of those who see it as truth.
Being found is so important!
We have an online course Thinking About – How to Market your Meeting House which comes with a very useful Outreach Audit that we have developed. It has various prompts and discussion points to evaluate your outreach and the ‘ability to be found’. You can work through this and use as a jumping off point for discussions.
The course is an updated version of the script and handout from when I visited meetings to help them explore what marketing and outreach meant for them as a worshipping group. Plus how they might develop ways of finding people to hire their building as a venue, or who want to find out more about Quakers.
I’ve written about marketing buildings, publicity and outreach quite a bit over the last twelve years. Search and click on the ‘outreach’ category to find more posts for free.
You can find the course through our classroom catalogue HERE.
Our next FREE online workshop is all about the foundations of building online presence via social media. It is a useful session for those that already have a social presence and those that might just be starting to think about appearing more prominently online.
These session will cover :
- Why social media is a game-changer for charities
- Defining a strategy
- Identifying your ideal audience
- Setting clear achievable goals
- Choosing the right platform
- Creating content
- Measuring success
We would be delighted if you could join us, you can register below.
In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives!
Wendrie Heywood
MBS Founder
We’re going to be changing the way the workshops are made available – so keep an eye out on our newsletter and social media.
