Written Communication Points

Missionaries, especially direct sent missionaries, communicating with financial and prayer supporters have more options than ever.  Some focus on hard-copy newsletters, others mainly on blogs and social media. Regardless of the form of written communication, we suggest these 10 simple suggestions for written communication sent to financial and prayer supporters.

1. Evaluate your prayer and support team to determine the best forms of communication. Some will prefer hardcopy newsletters, others prefer digital.
2. Balance personal and ministry news. The majority of content should be ministry updates. You can always send supplemental family pictures and updates to a smaller list of close friends and family.
3. Choose and use excellent pictures. Consider quality over quantity. Remember the adage, “bigger is better and less is more.” Do this by choosing one large picture instead of several small pictures.
4. Keep hardcopy newsletters to two pages, or less. Blogs and other copy blocks are best kept to 500 words or less.
5. Make all written content, in whatever form you use, easy to share. Encourage people to copy, print, and forward to others.
6. Ask someone to edit for basic grammar, spelling and punctuation.
7. Include your contact and support links.
8. Make specific and not general statements using short declarative statement sentences.
9. Work with your home church to commit to a reasonable schedule for hardcopy, email, or blog newsletters. It is better to be able to commit to dedicated monthly communication than an irregular schedule.
10. Include prayer requests and praise reports in every written communication. Consider including a bullet point list of issues to intercede for and to give thanks for.

While some see missionary communication as a platform for missionary support raising only, we suggest focusing on excellence and the building of relationships.

This article was contributed by Pastor Ed Compean

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash