Are you planning for your End of the Year Ask? If not, now is the time! Join us as we talk with Ellen Nielsen about how she approaches her End of the Year ask. You will be encouraged and excited to start your EOYA after listening in!
Are you planning for your End of the Year Ask? If not, now is the time! Join us as we talk with Ellen Nielsen about how she approaches her End of the Year ask. You will be encouraged and excited to start your EOYA after listening in!
Welcome to The Cru MPD podcast with Katie Johnson and Michele Davis. We love that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. We are driven to equip and inspire Christian workers to be Christ centered, fully funded, and financially faithful, so that missionary staff can come alongside all people to help them to know. This process is more widely known as ministry. partner development for MPD for short.
Katie Johnson:Hello, today we have Ellen Nielsen here with us to talk about her iniziare ask and the new approach that she did with that last year. Hi, Alan, how are you?
Ellen Nielsen:Hi, Katie. I'm doing well.
Katie Johnson:Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. You taking time out of your day and just talking with us? Could you just start by telling us a little bit about you and what you do on staff? How long have you been on staff your role, etc?
Ellen Nielsen:Sure. Yes, my name is Ellen Nielsen and I serve on the marketing mobilization as a campus ministry so similar to hotel concierge, I am the one that answers questions. And helps give next steps and make the connections for all the students that reach out to us through our digital platforms. I've been in that role for the last five years. I interned for two years out of college and then joined staff. So I've been on the same team. It's fluctuated over the years, and we actually are now all in different time zones. So that's kind of a fun challenge
Michele Davis:we know all about working in different time zones, don't we? Katie?
Katie Johnson:Yes, yes, we do.
Michele Davis:I don't know about you guys, but I just refuse to talk in other people's timezone language and I know that probably noise people but I'm like I can meet at one Eastern. I don't know what that is for you. You just help me if that works for you.
Katie Johnson:I have messed up a lot of cough. Um, I think it's fine. Lots of grace. You guys. Lots of grace are all over the place. Right? Okay, Ellen, so we know what you do now. But I want to hear a little bit about your MP journey. How was it for you and what does your ministry partner team look like?
Ellen Nielsen:Yeah, I found out that I'm, I may be in the minority here. I actually really enjoyed. I love the quality time quality conversation. I know that I'm very blessed to have great grown up in a Christian household. A lot of Christian friends growing up as well. And so that made connections really easy and natural. And I raised support my first few years of interning rather quickly but the people who made that my team were kind of unique, because I was raised in a very small Lutheran Church with an older demographic. And so all of my supporters from my peers were mostly over the age of 50 or 60. So older crowd but when I did the staff for was trying to find new supporters. A lot of my friends were graduating college and had their first jobs and so the newer demographic of younger people joining my financial so that's why I'm sending out my change, like my changing audience as well.
Katie Johnson:I was Ellen's MPD coach. So it was really fun to walk with her in that journey. As she joined staff. I did not culture as an intern but as new staff. So that was really fun. And you're right, your your demographic of your mission partners is a little different for a long time. It looks like making phone calls and having conversations with people and actually you raise support in the middle of the pandemic. And so everything going virtual was a little challenging for you, because your ministry partners weren't necessarily the people who wanted to do video calls or even knew how. And so I remember there was a lot of pivoting and learning, figuring out how to make it work in the midst of a lot of different challenges and hurdles was a pandemic but
Ellen Nielsen:it did give me an opportunity to ask them how they're doing in the middle of a pandemic that made it really easy to reach out, having a reason to check in and care for them and a really hard time. And so reasons we're in a pandemic was actually not as difficult as I thought. It would be just because everyone's home everyone going on and conversation initiating conversations was more normal. Everyone was bored and wanted to be lonely. And so it made those conversations pretty easy but also everyone was stressed with money and decisions and they had a lot going on. So that made decisions harder, but the conversations were more natural and less felt less of a cold call. Because the relationship was there and it
Michele Davis:That make sense I'm curious if you saw, like the was demographic that you described this, you know, over 50 Crowd did they eventually figure out how to connect with you on platforms like zoom? Because I what I observed from where I live, it seems like people went from I've never heard of zoom to that's an actual verbal use, like fairly quickly. Because it was like for us it was like the only way we could have church. Is that what happened in my circles here and I'm not 50 Just for the record anybody listening who doesn't know? But I'm curious if you at all saw people start to become more familiar with some of those platforms.
Ellen Nielsen:So I started support in the summer of 2019. And so I actually started with my family friends who are older crowds so I got to meet with most of them in person. When I was new supporters, like during the pandemic, that was the younger crowd and even they weren't struggling to figure it out. So Google Hangouts and all that. Everyone was figuring out so technology, tech problems was normal. It was time to graze it all out. But I did a lot more phone calls than I anticipated. I mean, I I did make a slide deck and I presented walkthrough stories and shared pictures and I am a very formal NPD person. I like having the notes and the pictures and the stories and and having that ready. Rather than just having a casual conversation. I'm much more formal and I know that about myself, but there's still well risk. But yeah, having to like switch gears, even with Katie of like, reaching out to these people with this method. That method because of how they receive information and what's normal. I call somebody younger than me. I don't know if they're going to answer on the first one. I know I would just like learning about how to best care for people on my team and my team. I don't know if my team is also ginormous. I thought this was normal, but I have almost 400 people receiving my newsletter, and 100 people giving monthly so a lot more small amounts rather than a few large amounts. Which gives me a lot of diversity and amounts and makes it harder for me to lose support quickly because it's it's very small chunks but it also means a lot more phone calls. So pros and cons for sure.
Michele Davis:Like having a diversified portfolio of people. It makes sense to me.
Katie Johnson:So speaking of like all the different groups of people that are involved in your ministry, like different your ministry partners or theory, age and how they communicate and how they want to communicate, and so when I came to your interviewer asking you mentioned this a little bit before what you decided to do a digital, largely digital entrance into your ask last year correct. So what was the catalyst for trying this out?
Ellen Nielsen:I learned a lot in my intern years. First year of interning everyone around me that's what they were doing in October was sending me you're asking though I'd have full stop account or like you might as well send it it's good practice. So I sent it out and my first year I did all physical copies. And I actually had one or two partners complain or were very concerned at why I was switching like they asked to only be communicated digit digital newsletters, so why am I sending them a physical copy?
Michele Davis:Hold up right now. I'm interrupting because I just want to clarify, and this is with your intern, like when you were an intern when most of your ministry partners were older, right? So we've established that this isn't just like the younger people in your group wanting you to communicate digitally.
Ellen Nielsen:Okay, even as an intern, like I had two lists, I had my digital people and my physical copy. And I created two copies of my newsletter every month since I've joined that my first year I decided to step out of your ass just to a physical copy of the envelope to mail things in and that makes more sense. But I got negative feedback of like, I only want the digital and don't don't waste your stamp on me like I don't want this. I'm like Oh, interesting. So I was like, but this is how we do it. So the next year I did the same and then I got another more feedback of like, and it wasn't, it wasn't panning out. It wasn't making a difference. It was way more expensive. And so as a staff member, I started what if I do two different ones and I said similar letter but I sent a different one digital one physical. I got the same amount of responses. So it was cheaper that way and they were getting the letter the way they wanted it where we were expecting it normal the new thing that we'll try this year make this switch remember my my team I love my team. Meeting quarterly talk about best employee experiences and resources, share the wealth. And we kind of read a Google Doc with all of our best practices and kind of brainstorm ideas and create goals together and kind of keep each other accountable. And I've loved that thing that we tried this last year was that my my team leader wanted to incentivize us to take the next step with our our end of your ask letter. And so I was already sending one that that was going to but what she wanted us to do was to follow up with the people that we were sending a letter to and so she incentivized us with something that was most desirable and work related. And that was air pods. And so yeah, it was a really great motivator for me because I didn't own any and we use them every day for work. So it totally makes sense. And so at the stipulations of that we had to send a newsletter of your ask letter to everyone on our team provided like the rules of like this gift within the last three months, you don't have to send them there's those people but the majority of us yes, you have to send it and then within FTX you can actually add a collaborator or coach to that had to add him as our coach on there. So you can see our progress and then we would would tag our top 10 the top 10% of the people that we've sent out, like financial top 10 That's up to tag or top partners in our MPDx and then follow up with them. So whatever that could be the top 10% of your financial giving or the top givers special gifts or monthly gifts. Then we would create another tag to prove that we actually contacted them. And so and we'd have to get that all done before the end of the year. And so there was like a time crunch to like send the letter so it incentivized us to send it out early so that we have enough time to follow up with people who really encourage us to call everybody out to just ask like, Hey, how you doing? I just wanted to see if you saw my ask letter decision and think about it. Just wanted to follow up or something like that. It's a great time to just connect, just to remind them that you're thinking of them. Another opportunity to thank them for being in your team. And that's something that I've never done before is the follow up component. And honestly, it doubled the money that I got from my end of year ask. Like i i usually get over 1000 If not$2,000 like I'm just sending the letter because I'm very sweet measure partners who are in the rhythm of getting to ask letters from normal. I also was encouraged to take off my sidenote but who use MailChimp or anything else digitally printed newsletters, have a button to give at the end of your newsletter and I had that on for a while and then I was encouraged to take it off. So that your end of your ask or to ask letters here would be the time to give because if you ask them every month, then why would they give? Why would that be special? And so the normal to receive an Ask letter twice a year as a rhythm and a routine and something they expect then they're more likely to give just don't push to get to everybody on my list rather than like, oh, maybe not like this was a hard year for them. This was like you can really get in your head on that. I was told it's like they're getting 20 Other ask letters from a handful of other ministries and charities and random businesses asking why don't you just throw yours on the pile? Like at least they know you. That was true. I mean I was I was psyching myself out and talking myself that of sending it to people and giving the extra push everybody every time crunch of the timeline be accountable to my teammates like we were all celebrating in our Slack channels of like I just sent it out we're like I just got this much money trying to encourage each other keep each other accountable but also celebrate with what one was doing. And my team leader followed through and we all got air pods or if someone sent you
Katie Johnson:all got them?
Ellen Nielsen:we all made our goal
Katie Johnson:so you made the goal. You got the air pods. It wasn't like if you were the most
Michele Davis:Oh, that's this is so I love this so much.
Ellen Nielsen:Well, I mean, it's team leaders best interest that our staff accounts are full. Because
Michele Davis:we're like laughing man because it's a crazy idea, but because we like we love it so much.
Ellen Nielsen:So true, because if our staff account is not a priority to our team, then we're gonna have to take a couple months off during support and not your work for you. And so if if that's modeled by our team leader and prioritized work weeks, then it's we just encourage each other and they were all more stable we can work for longer.
Michele Davis:Absolutely this we should have made this video recording because at like Katie and I are like waving our arms and cheering so happy to hear that like because it
Katie Johnson:again for the people who didn't hear that right
Michele Davis:oh my gosh, your team leader needs an award himself or herself himself or something. But yeah, yeah, that's just
Ellen Nielsen:I thought so. And to be honest, I've seen so many of my other co workers struggle with their MTD and have that not be a priority for their leader like they're not given the time or they're asked to do other activities before they prioritize that. That makes me sad and I'm really grateful that we're encouraged to have at least three hours a week to work on MPD I'm pretty sure that's in our handbook that that's what's expected of us. And that's not always communicated and so to have our scheduled time together or like normalize that like oh, I'm taking the afternoon to work on NPD and write notes. Write this out like it's it's been a great rhythm, and it's helped me to be on track.
Katie Johnson:I love that you brought up the handbook. Ellen, I could just see you being like, like if you were on a team where they didn't let you hurt kind of like it's even here in the hands. And I love that about you because I feel like I mean, you're exactly right. Like people, like team leaders and staff should care about their staff. support so that they stay on the field, right?
Ellen Nielsen:Not stressed as they're not worried about the next meal or their rent because they don't count again. It can really spiral and even like when my tips might lose a partner, like I get anxious, but to know that I have the permission to kind of go write a thank you note or go and write an increase. Ask whether or prioritize multiple hours during the end of my year to recommend your ask letter and follow up on that. Like it's encouraged. We're accountable to it too. I'm not a competitive person. I'm really not a competitive person. But to have an individual competitive thing, like that's where I thrive. Like, I knew that I had a goal for myself. And my goal was totally different from my coworkers goal, because I have a lot more mission partners like more people I could contact but like 50 was the minimum if we wanted to reach out to more than 50 people, you're more than welcome to do that. But some people didn't have 50 And so like how is their goal different to tweak it? What's challenging for them? Can they eat it and so each other goals, work working towards that and if you didn't reach your goal, you know, you didn't get air pods or something people value but we all were competing against ourselves rather than each other. Like their success didn't hurt me in any way propelled me forward other than accountable and like oh 30 cent there's I'm behind. I gotta send it by now. It was a healthy thing. To put each other down.
Michele Davis:Yeah, that makes sense. So these 50 calls that you made I'm curious to hear more about like how how it felt trying to fit that into your work time because a long long time ago Ellen, Emily and far away in a time far away when all we have our phones before smartphones at the bar that staff would have when they went full time in PD was to make 100 calls a week. Okay, that was like 100 calls a week was what I had to do. And it was before text messaging. I promise I'm not 50 It was before text messaging it was before. Like Well,
Katie Johnson:I had to Michele and I'm not 50 either, so
Michele Davis:a great thing. But um, and so fit both of these like to some listeners there. That's about half of half of what was expected of me when I was on full time MPD but you're also then doing it when you're like kind of full time on the job. So where did you find the cracks in your schedule to do that? Like, how did that work out for you very practically.
Ellen Nielsen:Well, being part of the campus ministry, there's work does dip a little bit during the end of the year for us. So I was able to find time before the holiday. I also I had something a family emergency come up and so I had to give myself permission to not not make calls. Like if I called them that'd be great but the other half I've had the capacity emotionally to do that and I and so I did texting and honestly that work just as fine especially not to demographic like to just text them like hey, did you see this message? Like i i sent you a letter I'd love to hear what you thought about it. Any questions for me? And they're like, Oh, thanks for the mind. I'm gonna give right now. And then they give so though the expectation and encouragement was take the phone call for everybody. I think it was understood like your membership partners best so whatever follow up with reflect. Best receive like, if you're going to call them that's going to scare them out it was maybe not the best idea. But so most of my work text message, but I did call to people, especially people who I just wanted to talk to them and talk them in a year and a half. So I did call those but I just broke it down into manageable chunks. Like I said it was like 50 people within the course of a month, month and a half. And so I do like five to 10 a day. Yeah, I think I work better in chunks rather than like split up and so it's like I'm gonna take the next two hours texts as many as I can. My goal is this. Okay, and I'll do it tomorrow. So I guess I'm among capacity. And so my work schedule may look different than others that are actually on campus. So I could like block out time on my calendar and then know that I would have that time there to work on that. Yeah, it's different for everybody, depending on what their role is. I tried to move
Katie Johnson:on Can I ask you a question based off that kind of? I know we're like going way off script here. Sorry. So I just keep having more questions. Also. No pressure and Michelle, but I'm your only team member but if you want to get my boss
Michele Davis:I'll take I'll take that under review. Katie.
Katie Johnson:Thank you. Thank you. I'm curious like for a long time and we talked about the best time to reach out. And so you kind of have this like, somewhat recent pool of people reaching out to your ministry partners, whether it's by call or text message. Did you find that like, certain times of the day, were better at contacting your ministry partners, or did you feel like that you had freedom to contact them during the workday whenever you could? Like what did that look like for you?
Michele Davis:Well, most of my follow up was done in November. A little bit in december two I was late to the game and the follow up. So it was holiday season. So a lot of people weren't working. And so I go I'd love to come over that time for them. I really don't know that and my contacts are across the nation. So even if like it was the best time for this person, but I was bad time for that person because they're in different time zones. So I really so much stress and I just took the two hours that were best for me. And I called them I left a message or I texted them and they got back to me. Because that was best for my mental health rather than calling at weird times that would disrupt my like, I'd miss dinner with my family. To call somebody. It's like, Nah, that's not that's not worth it for me. Like I'd rather have dinner with my family and call them knowing that they'd get back to me at the best time if there's so that that's what voice calls for. If it's not the best time for them to answer the phone and they'll call you back. That's to help. So I don't worry about like the best time to contact somebody definitely jumps to the follow up our listeners secure because that's fast as important communities. It's I think it's kind of like how are they doing what's best for you will continue to take those steps even to make the call is better than last year, like what was causing that to happen, so Oh, but not for this year, but next year. Give a sense of how much time your team raised or even exact amount. Is there. Like a sense that you've had for two people talk about it like do they seem to find that they were receiving more than they expected or had in the past?
Ellen Nielsen:conversation about it. I don't actually hold that. I found that really fascinating. Because it might double for the last few years. So that was encouraged. I'm pretty sure that all of my teammates like had better responses. Whether that was never asked before class or while they watch this lecture while they got a lot so there was there was success in different ways. Yeah, I don't know. Other than really?
Michele Davis:Yeah. Well, yeah. It would be fascinating to know if you ever could get that though I would want to know it. Also, I think that sometimes people can be afraid to call or personally initiate during the holidays. They think it might backfire. You know and so yeah, well what you guys did is you really took on an experiment to you know, kind of show that that's not necessarily the case, if everyone had a more positive, like, in some way a more positive Indivior experience because of this one change. Well, maybe a couple changes actually doing it and trying to follow up with some some of the people then that's not like necessarily conclusive for all time or for all people. I'm not saying that. No one will get mad. And also don't call people on Thanksgiving Day. Do I have to say that that seems like basic, but you know, but maybe the fear is not rooted in something that we have evidence for unnecessarily you know, the fear of people don't want to call three December they have other things on their mind. Well, maybe maybe you don't know that.
Ellen Nielsen:It could be a really lonely time. You're really encouraging to them. I I did make a few phone calls to my my older ministry partners and they it made their day and that made my day like I love that's why I like MPP is that gives me an opportunity to care for somebody and to be cared for and returned and I have a huge ministry partner team but I just love having hundreds of people a part of my ministry that's so encouraging and to be a small part of purging them or thanking them or just Merry Christmas. You know, like that's it's such an easy thing to say and reach out and the time of thanksgiving. That and a phone call or a follow up text or email. Usually well received Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. I when I really started this conversation about your digital interviewer asked and it went into more about your in your asking general which has been so good. But it seems like you also did get the same amount of response as a digital to like sending out a physical letter altogether. And so maybe in general that you're in the you're asked if you had to do a do over Is there anything you would change the past but without the follow up people have responded when I've added the follow up doesn't get lost. So maybe the people listening if you're swinging digital and you're asked for important email or text, reminding them that it's lost during the holidays. Because the physical ones, they've seen it, they come to their mail, they're looking at Christmas cards, we open them up and it's there they'll find the email and get lost if they're on vacation and I'm looking at the email. We need to remind him that so that was something that I did learn this year that was different. Yeah, in general, like doing I wish I would have told my intern self that it was okay to do both. Just to follow up with that because that that really did make a difference. Kind of normalizing sending out another end of year ask or summer ask. That's a normal thing that people in ministry do people in charities. And so I think I overthought it quite a bit. Last couple of years, just kind of give my permission to throw my hat in the ring, but really helped out.
Katie Johnson:That's really encouraging. I think our staff feel really improved. Are you hearing all the different approaches that you've made to endear ask and what you've learned and even just the values of working on MPD as a team, and lots of other little nuggets that were in this conversation and so I feel like that's like good. Any other last any last advice? Ellen before we in our time together
Ellen Nielsen:if you're struggling with MPD I would give you permission to ask her team leader for help in the space. Don't struggle on silence like it's really helpful to talk to people who've also raised support and if they don't know that time off to raise support or write a really great and then your ask letter speaking out the money that helps you to be accountable to it as well.
Katie Johnson:Yes, so that. Well Ellen, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a joy and we appreciate you coming and spending time and sharing all of your knowledge but it actually it's only I'm like super excited to be asked now and I'm like what strategy can I have to follow up so I'm just appreciate you being here. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having
Michele Davis:thanks for listening to The Cru MPD podcast. Please help others find our show by liking, sharing and readiness on Apple iTunes. And wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on social media by searching for The Cru MPD podcast. Check out the show notes for more information including the various resources we mentioned in this episode. Till next time, we encourage you to be faithful and full of faith in all things especially in MPD