Committed to Communication

When you hear the word communications, it probably conjures up images of smart phones,
iPads, emails, and social media. Staying in touch is so important to relationships that people
keep inventing new ways to do it. For the past 62 years our One Challenge workers stay in
touch progressively using new means and methods, because we are committed to
communication and relationship.

Currently One Challenge’s Communications Department processes roughly 100 unique

newsletters from our workers every month. The process transforms a plain Word doc and
some images into a professionally designed letter sent out by mail and email.

Monthly numbers range upward of 20,000 paper letters and 10,000 emails. It is a costly,
work-intensive routine coordinated by a newsletter editor and done 10 times a year. Why so
much investment in communicating?

And the Survey Says…

A 2011 in-house survey of OC newsletter readers showed that 95 percent of the 3,400
respondents “usually read” the letters, with 500 of those noting they “always read it.”

The survey also indicated that readers partner with their workers through prayer (75%) and
financial support (62%). We are committed to communication and these monthly letters are
a central piece.
It is one crucial way workers and their support teams stay connected and build relationship.
“We hear so many good stories of victory for the kingdom of God. Our job is to broadcast
them,” says Kathy, Director of the Communications Department.

“Additionally, the prayers of our partners are what keep our people going. My family was
very aware of that in our many years overseas and we still sense it.”

Custom Communication
Where other organizations have dropped sending paper letters or have delegated the
correspondence process to the worker, OC continues to provide support with monthly letters.

The justification for this is three-fold. First, it is much more difficult for the worker to
produce what we do, taking them away from what they alone can do on the field. Secondly,
experience has shown us that if we provide the schedule and service, the flow of
communication is more consistent.

Finally, it is much less expensive for us to post letters from within the U.S., also maintaining
up-to-date addresses for the recipients.

Thus, our approach is to encourage regular correspondence through the department,

delivered according to the readers’ preference, either paper or email. If a preference
changes, it can easily be made with an email to donorrelations@oci.org. Getting the stories
out in a way they will be read is the goal and ongoing challenge of the team.
This is what has motivated the team to redesign the way emails are sent out, also including
visuals and links to resources, corporate news, and events.

Keeping Current
Staying in touch and in tune with technology has meant growing the team to include a
journalist, website manager and graphic artist.

“God has brought together an amazing team of highly motivated, competent people who
passionately drive for high standards,” says Kathy.

In the past three years the team has completely revamped the OC website, added social
media, and redesigned all corporate print pieces, in particular adding an expanded yearly
report (ministry review) to the list.

The team is determined to keep up with the higher demands for instant and accessible news.

Shannon June, whose family served with OC in the U.K. and who now works virtually on the
team from Texas says, “I’ve had the privilege of participating in developing communication
technologies for over 25 years, beginning when books and magazines first started being
digitized.

Each development brings new benefits but also the challenge to learn new technologies. I
enjoy deciphering what’s available and finding useful applications. It can be tricky when we
get something set up and working and then the industry decides to make an update to
improve things.

Those “improvements” often lead to opportunities to learn more new things. Even when it is
a headache, I love the challenge!” Shannon June is serving as the website manager and
electronic communications generalist, but she also contributes with writing, video editing,
and special projects.
Developing Dialog
“We would like OC’s website to accurately depict who OC is as an organization. This is
often difficult because the Spirit directs our steps and OC has a wide range of ministry. But
we, as a team, strive to tell the God story he has entrusted to us,” says Kelli, OC’s website
journalist.

Kelli has been a part of OC for 22 years, first as an MK and as an adult, serving in the
Philippines and now in Colorado Springs. “In the last 10 years, with the explosion of social
media, the avenues in which to tell God stories has grown exponentially.

Facebook, Twitter and other similar sites are great ways to start dialogue of how the Lord is
moving in the world.

OC has only begun to explore and navigate the potential of these sites and others,” she says.
In light of these less expensive ways of connecting with people, the Communications team
would love to add one or two more members.

“An increased capacity for video and social media would enable us to quickly post even
more engaging pieces for our followers,” says Kathy.

“We continue to pray that we recognize the resources God has chosen and may choose to
give us. As an example, we have a terrific relationship with our local printer. We have also
greatly benefitted from the volunteer work of some faithful folks in the area of audio
transcriptions. It’s a blessing both ways, I believe.”

Expanding the Conversation

One other critical arena the team has addressed this last year is internal communications. It
is very difficult trying to get information to and from OC personnel who live all over the
world.
With the upcoming presidential transition as well as The Launch Project, it has been
important to leadership at the United States Mobilization Center to communicate as clearly
and personally as possible with the worldwide OC family.

To enable real time group communication with workers in multiple countries, both the IT
and Communications Teams were enlisted to learn and facilitate the use of web broadcasting
to stream live video and have real-time text “chatting” with those viewing the broadcast.

Differing bandwidth worldwide is an issue with any kind of broadcasting, so leadership is

still evaluating what works best.

In the realm of both internal and external communications, the team imagines doing much
more in the future, and likely it will stay that way.

“One of the things I appreciate most about the team is their ability to generate and
incorporate new ideas, new systems and new technology into the stream of all that we do,”
Kathy says. “It’s a lot to manage and they do it with finesse and joy.”

Reference:

“Committed to Communication.” One Challenge: Transforming Nations Together. Published on

https://www.onechallenge.org/2014/11/04/committed-communication/. Colorado, U.S.A. 2017