Communications

• Let the Congregations in your state know what you are doing. The  district office can be a good resource for contact information for the  churches in their district. Begin to develop relationships at various  levels in the church including the minister(s), director of religious  education, youth, adult education, social justice and denominational  affairs committee leadership. Check if there is a Welcoming Congregation  or Green Sanctuary committee(s). Find out when Church newsletters go  out and how you can get articles in the newsletters.
• Ask districts if they will include articles about your work in their newsletters or on their websites.
• Keep good records of your contacts. A simple spreadsheet can be invaluable.
• Identify potential events to attend. In addition to District and  Minister meetings, consider interfaith and secular organizations that  may be in sympathy with your issues.
• Email. Many start ups will begin by using their own personal email  systems. This will work when the number of emails sent is small, but  note that some email systems may limit the number of addresses you can  send to at one time. There are low cost email systems available. A good  resource for more information is Tech Soup or Idealware.
• Create congregations/regional liaisons.
• Follow-up critical emails with phone calls.
• Remember to say thank you. We send thank you notes for donations,  but they are equally important for those who have given their time. A  quick thank you by phone can also be an effective tool for smaller  contributions. 

• Be sensitive to the number of emails you send. Too many and your  readers will ask to be taken off the list, or worse they will ignore the  emails.
• Make your subject line interesting.
• If using your emails as a newsletter, consider sending the email on  the same day each week. You have the best chance of having your emails  read if they are mailed during business hours between Tuesday and  Thursday.
• Keep the body of the email short. Use links to provide additional details Having a big sale, on-site celebrity, or other event? Be sure to announce it so everybody knows and gets excited about it.

Conference calls can be a useful tool to keep volunteers engaged. The  calls can also be hard to manage and to keep people engaged. Some tools  which have proved helpful:

• Send an agenda out before the meeting so all the participants can  follow the meeting. Encourage participants to email their presentation  or handouts ahead of the meeting.
• Limit conference calls to an hour or hour and a half.
• Select a moderator. If you are going to take minutes, ask someone other than the moderator.
• As participants call in, the moderator should ask who has joined.  The moderator should keep a list of all the participants. Start the call  within 3 to 5 minutes of the start time. As in face to face meetings,  on-time starts will encourage on-time participation. Do not interrupt  the call as each newcomers joins. Rather stop the call after 5 or 10 min  to give the newcomers a chance to introduce themselves.
• Begin the meeting by reviewing the agenda and ask everyone to say  their name when they speak. Explain to participants that silence will  mean yes. Ask if there are any questions. In response to multiple  voices, get a list of the names who wish to speak and call on them as  each speaker finishes.
• The moderator should introduce each agenda item, the person who will  speak and approximate time allocated for the agenda item. After the  speaker has spoken ask for questions/comments. If you taking a vote or  sense of the meeting, state the question -“Is there anyone who does not  understand the question?” Silence means everyone understands the  question. The additional clarity is very important because you have no  facial cues to let you know who does not understand. The actual  vote/calling of the question may require a roll-call if it is not  unanimous.
• Be sensitive to time. Like face to face meetings people will leave  early or at the scheduled end time. If your agenda items are taking  longer than expected check in with the participants to see if they want  to cut a conversation off, start a new agenda item, or agree to extend  the meeting. Again, you have no visible cues to help you access what the  participants are thinking so you need to ask.