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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/.

Now, you may not yet have the mindset for leading missions that we're talking about in this post. But, you will be amazed at how this single action will radically increase your effectiveness and your intentionally. Here’s the concept...always be working to “exit the scene” of any missions project. Does this sound negative to you? It shouldn't. Let me explain. What I mean by "exit strategy" is to be thinking in terms of sustainability, empowering nationals, and trying to avoid building dependencies. Here’s what this is going to do to your mindset:  #1 You’re going to think more strategically. Working toward an exit strategy helps make us all more strategic. What if we can’t sustain engagement in a certain area forever? What if we were working to make them more self-sustaining? You will find the strategic questions you ask about purpose and value shift when this takes root.  #2 You’re going to allocate resources more intentionally. You are already working to be a good steward of your resources. Adopting and working toward an exit strategy will help you make even better decisions in how you allocate resources, budget, train, and more.  #3 You’re going to send short-term teams with more purpose. This is a rich opportunity to equip and train short-term workers with a mindset that your overall strategy is to see each field healthy and self-sustaining in the big picture, not just the short-term trip. Many short term trip participants come home asking the questions about the purpose of such a short visit. This helps give that question context and helps them see short term work can be significant for long term impact.  #4 You’re going to ask different questions. Inevitably you are going to ask different questions as you select partners, as you evaluate projects, as you choose short term trip locations, as you select team leaders, and more. This provides a different framework for each step of the process.  #5 You’re going to evaluate your trips with a new lens. You will take such joy in how you evaluate your short-term trips and see them now with a greater purpose for a longer impact far after the short term trips or your organizations ability to be involved.  #6 You’re going to reach more geographical areas. It may seem strange, but this will open new opportunities to engage more geographical opportunities...not to mention new types of projects.  #7 You’re going to build more long-term relationships. You will find yourself being a better partner with field teams and organizations as you are working to truly help them for the future and in so doing building lasting relationships with them that make them part of your family.  #8 You’re going to honor people well. Perhaps most convicting is asking “how would I want this done to me?” if someone were to come and “do missions” to you right here at home. This mindset helps you honor people well, just like you would want to be treated.  #9 You’re going to do more. Yes, and you are going to do more! You will be amazed at just how much more you will be asked to do and will be able to do when you work toward not being the lynch pin of each project. You might be invested longer in each field, but the overall scope of your involvement will increase.  This is a mind shift for most of us, but this is such an important question and philosophy to adopt. In our opinion, this only makes the case for short term trips stronger. We desperately need short term teams who can go and leave a lasting impact. Properly adopted exit strategies allow you the opportunity to greatly increase your impact and effort.  Action: Evaluate how you could be working toward an overall exit strategy. Discuss how you could be training your team leaders toward this end. Read When Helping Hurts by Steven Corbett and Brian Fikkert.    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.

It's amazing how God often uses short-term trips to be a catalyst for someone's missional lifestyle. And we know you want your participants to view a short-term trip as more than just earning a merit badge, but rather something that impacts the way they live their life. We agree! We believe short-term trips are a gateway to someone’s heart taking in a rich meal of vision, purpose, and even calling. But this is also a very challenging task when this isn’t modeled well many places. It takes time and there aren’t many tools and resources available. No problem! Let’s talk about what you can be doing to plant deeper seeds of purpose in someone’s heart.  #1 Make it an objective. It starts by making it an objective of your church or organization to move people from a “one and done” mindset to seeing missions as a part of their life.  #2 Talk about it. This is super simple, but take the time to talk to your trip participants once they are back to explain how to take a next step and give them tangible ways to do that immediately. If they don’t know what to do next, then they most likely won’t take any action. As a leader, be sure you're communicating well. For example, be sure you're setting proper expectations before, during, and after missions trips. #3 Train your Team Leaders. Your team leaders are your advocates for your mission and vision...and spend the most time with your participants. Make sure to train them so they are guiding participants into a perspective that this is more than a single short term trip but an opportunity for a lifetime of mission work.  #4 Debrief the day and the trip. Take advantage of great debrief questions to help shape each experience into a step for what’s next.  #5 Capture stories. Stories are powerful ways for sharing your vision, but also powerful ways for your participants to unpack what’s going on in their lives and share it with others.  #6 Journal. Similar to sharing stories, journaling helps us internally process our experiences and gives us time to work out what the Lord might be calling us to do next.  #7 Missional.Life. Have your participants complete a free Missional.Life profile where they can build a plan for mission engagement, invite in family and friends, and post stories, prayers, and goals. It’s free and it’s extremely powerful for helping people see it’s more than a single event.  #8 Training resources. Point participants to great resources like Perspectives, missionary biographies, and other training materials. We have tons of resources and support here. #9 Sign up for another trip. Take the momentum of the current experience and invite them into signing up for another trip or even more, signing up for a longer trip somewhere to get a deeper experience.  Andy Stanley once said, “think steps, not programs” as he presented guiding principles for his organization. We agree. Short-term trips are steps toward a greater goal, not an end in themselves. And your calling is to guide people into a lifestyle of mission with countless engagement points.  Action: Have a conversation with two (2) key staff members about how to engage participants within the first week/ month after they return from a trip. Have your team members create a Missional.Life profile at https://missional.life    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.

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.

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.

Staying on mission at home isn't easy. For many, the mission trip begins well before they even touch down on a foreign land. It starts in their city maybe even in their neighborhood. With so many trips being shut down right now and living in uncertainty, I want to provide five ways we can encourage our mission trip leaders and their teams to engage the world right around them. After all, that’s what Jesus did. 1. Take your neighbor or those in vulnerable situations a meal There is a phrase that begins with “You never really know someone until...”, the facetious side of me wants to say “until you know them” but one way we often see Jesus getting to know people involves a meal or inviting them into a meal. So take your team or encourage your team to share a meal with someone they may not know. 2. Spend time online with people from the community Know a local church that focuses on that demographic, check out their website and see what they are doing to carry on through the quarantine. Maybe watch their live service, and see who can learn more words or pick up phrases and then debrief with your team. Remember things may be different, but they aren’t weird. 3. Go to a restaurant that serves food from the place you would have visited Two years ago I was sitting in the Louisville airport when a conversation began between myself and an older woman from Ethiopia, we began sharing stories of traveling and different cultures. She encouraged me to visit an Ethiopian café and share in a coffee ceremony. Most people think the way I make my coffee is ceremonial in and of itself (Chemex pour over anyone?!). 4. Read a book or watch a movie. I have found books to be more accurate than movies, but unless this quarantine plans on lasting a couple months I better just watch a movie. If you love books and reading grab a book from that country or city and learn everything you can about it, study it, research it, and get together with your team over Skype or Zoom and share what you learned. God has created some amazing cultures that reflect the uniqueness and beauty of who he is so go learn about them. PS. Geography Now is a must on YouTube, you can thank me later.   5. Serve When in doubt, don’t over complicate it. God has you right where He has you. Live out the confidence and hope we have in Christ by serving those around you. Write a card to all of your neighbors, call your grandparents, or the nursing home to check in on them. Thank the superstore workers when you can only get one roll of paper towels. Deliver food to families who might be affected by the loss of a job. When in doubt, do something, anything, don’t overcomplicate it. You are an image bearer of the Father, live out of your identity in Him and walk confidently and wisely into serving those around you. 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.

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.

Is your missions trip cancelled? Cancelling (or even rescheduling) your short-term trip may not be the only option. It’s worth considering if there are other options like repurposing the trip into something local (actually, this post works regardless of if you also cancel or reschedule the trip). It all comes down to the original purpose of the trip and working to extrapolate from that trip its purpose. Let’s take for example a Youth Trip or Vacation Bible School (VBS) trip in Poland. The heart behind the trip is to engage high school students in a VBS program and have them engage well with younger kids and help make the program a success. Now let’s see where we might be able to take that same group of high school students and engage them now or in months to come in a similar purpose. You could have those high school students working to creatively build things for local kids to do while they are in a quarantine. You could have those high school students reaching out to family with young kids to see if they have any needs during this time. You could have those high school students sign up for a local VBS-type program this summer You could have those high school students reach out to local teachers to ask what they are doing to help parents and see if they could help.   It’s really quite simple if you stop to think back about the original purpose and goal for the trip and then mine out a means to do that locally. Truth is, many people are quite bored and your creative ideas here could both help engage your participants and help a lot of people in your local community.   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.

First, you should consider creating a weekly communication during this crisis (or whatever frequency you prefer) to stay engaged with your trip participants while we all wait to learn next steps and what’s coming. Everyone understands the unknown of the current situation. We believe this is a great time for you to stay engaged regularly with your participants and continue to keep their hearts and minds engaged in a missional perspective of life.   NOTE: There’s no ideal time line for a resource like this... keep evaluating each week if still needed.   Here are a few suggestions for what you might include in a weekly digest: Prayer requests - share prayer requests from your church, organization, partners, or other things. Scripture verses - teach and edify your participants so they can continue to grow in their faith. Key updates - keep everyone updated on anything new from you or the field. People want to know! Stories - share stories from the partner on the field or other things you’re hearing and learning. We’re all in this together. One thing you could do - give suggestions for one key thing each time that they can do. Survey question - get to know your constituents better, send out a survey each time to learn about their missional interests, challenges, or desires. Note from you - make it personal and share from your heart how things are going. Sermon resource - share any sermons or lessons from your pastor or other churches (make sure to give credit!) Blog article - write or share a blog article about how others are working through this interesting time. We hope this post encourages you to start communicating more regularly during this time.    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.

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.

One of the key elements that will drive questions from participants, leaders, and parents is “what happens to the funds I've raised for this trip?” Some key elements to prepare yourself and your teams for this include the following, which may include things you are already doing, but perhaps can do better/different to make this easier each time that you go through this process.  You already understand your role as a leader when it comes to short-term mission trips. Here are a few ideas for how to improve fundraising communication with participants, leaders, and parents Involve your Accounting Team and Financial Leaders This one is pretty obvious, but there are some critical questions that they will need to help walk you through, including: ✓  Tax implications and verbiage you can use when people ask for a refund (because they will, even if you’ve told them many times what the process is) ✓  What should we do with the funds that were already provided? ✓  Are there any restrictions and/or considerations we should make when deciding to cancel or postpone a trip? ✓  Identify which funds or trips that already have expenses and determine what do to in order to recover or eat that cost (e.g. travel costs, etc.)   Involve your Leadership Team Depending on the involvement of your leaders, some may already be well aware of what is going on, but here are some thoughts to consider: ✓  Be prepared to summarize for them (or provide them a summary that they can provide their own leadership/board). ✓  Provide options with benefits/drawbacks to each approach. For example, reschedule versus cancel. ✓  If you decide to reschedule, have a general timeframe for communication... or at least determine what information you will need to decide on a timeframe. ✓  If not involved in the financial communication with your accounting team, provide your leaders a roadmap/summary of the financial impact and approach that is suggested (as they will likely be asked this by their leadership)   Communicate Clearly to Participants and Leaders ✓  Create a communication plan, even if a very simple one. For example, write up a communication to the teams and create some common questions people will ask. ✓  Clearly communicate what will happen with any funds that have been raised (based on your conversations with accounting and leadership). ✓  Have others review your communication. This can be a review for typos, tone, etc., but it is important to make sure that you get buy-in from others. ✓  Copy and Paste...once you answer a question once, either copy it to a word doc so you can use it later or add it to your common FAQ area/web page. ✓  Provide some education or guidance to the process. For example, participants are not aware of the tax situation for non-profit donation. Provide some simple guidance that helps them understand enough, while keeping communication focused. ✓  Provide assurance that their concerns are addressed. While you may have gone through this process many times, this might be the participant’s first time a trip was cancelled. Try to put yourself in their shoes and address uncertainty. Assure them that you have done this before and will guide them through the process.   We hope this helps you improve fundraising communication when speaking with participants, leaders, and parents.    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.

For most of us, the decision to cancel or reschedule a short-term mission trip was made for us with the cancellation of international flights and other quarantines. That still left the remaining question of having to simply cancel the trip all together or reschedule it for a later date. Both have their reasons and both have their benefits. Let’s unpack the two sides to better assess which might be best for your organization.   Here are a few times when it's good to strongly consider CANCELLING? When it’s time specific When the team you’re visiting isn’t on the field any longer When there are fixed variables Project was time sensitive   Here are a few times when it's good to strongly consider RESCHEDULING? Because of government travel restrictions Because it’s the wise thing to do When you have a flexible team, team leaders, field host, and logistics   Have you made your decision yet? Here are a few questions you could/should be asking: Is it possible to reschedule? Do you want to reschedule the trip? Would participants be able to reschedule? Can we accomplish the same goal if we reschedule? How much work will it be to reschedule the trip (and is it worth it)? What are our absolutes for rescheduling? Hopefully, for those of you considering cancelling or rescheduling, we've helped you unpack the two sides to better assess which might be best for your organization.    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.