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STEPS MINISTRIES NEWSLETTER – End Of Year 2021

Can STEPS Ministries serve you in some way? Is there someone you know, who may be hurting, that we can serve? Or, perhaps, we can help you help them? We all know hurting people, and there are things we can do: We can HELP them take a positive first step, provide HEALING for their pain, and offer HOPE and encouragement in their despair. You can join the movement to help hurting people.

We’re marking the end of one year and the start of another, so this will be a summary newsletter update. We’ll focus on how we can all grow in ministry and help each other help hurting people. First, a few STEPS updates from just the last several weeks: 

  • Jenny Waltman, CEO of Grace Klein Community, joined our Board of Advisors. See all the members of the two STEPS boards here.
  • Erica Larsen, Emma Cobb, and Stu Marshburn will join the team as interns in January.
  • Continued the efforts launched in November for Next Right STEPS with a new website and blog, a book on Amazon, and new programs.
  • Developed content for a new presentation for organizations, a webinar on dealing with stress, and material for future books.
  • Held an end-of-year GROWTH fundraising campaign with video stories, Board Matching Gift, GROWTH program, and email outreach.
  • STEPS was approved for 2 new grants. Added Venmo to make donations along with credit and debit cards, bank transfer, NCF, etc.
  • Provided valuable free content via the blog and the “Taking STEPS Toward God” eBook, “Crisis Survival Tool Kit”, and “Resource Guide.”
  • Increased focus on “helping people help other people” with new articles and through promoting sharing of helpful blog articles.

STEPS Ministries helps hurting people take next right steps to live life better, and we provide HELP, HEALING, and HOPE through practical resources and effective training and content. Just a few of the overall highlights from 2021 include:

  • Reached tens of thousands through digital outreach and thousands through events, email, and social media.  Helped hundreds with in-person and virtual training and served tens of people and families with individual coaching. 
  • Built the Proactive Parenting program and the PACES for Parents online learning center, launched Next Right STEPS with a new website, book, blog, and programs, and created 75+ articles, products, presentations, and videos to help hurting people.
  • Grew the ministry by 50% by being awarded more grants, adding to our team, and efficient use of interns, volunteers, and agencies.

 In 2022, we are positioned to serve a great many more people. A few examples of our plans to grow in ministry and help hurting people are:

  • Expand the Proactive Parenting program with new content and training options, collaborate with more organizations to serve their parents, and increase our digital outreach to reach tens of thousands of parents.
  • Use Next Right STEPS to reach people and organizations with useful web content, books, virtual training, speaking, and webinars.
  • Deliver more speaking engagements, webinars, and video education to help more hurting people and those that care about them. 
  • Grow the ministry by 50% through donations from donors, GROWTH Partners, and grants and add to the team to serve more people.
  • Increase the ways all of us can help the people we are close to, for example:
    • Enhance the website as a convenient and practical “Tool Kit for Real Life” that anyone can use.
    • Launch a blog series with inspiration, guidance, and stories to help people look for epiphanies and breakthroughs in life.
    • Offer the book Next Right STEPS: How to Live Life Better to help people develop a positive approach to live life better.

I want to thank all of you for helping us help hurting people. Your encouragement and prayers are a foundation for our ministry efforts. Your donations allow us to grow to reach the most people, and your willingness to help allows us to serve people well.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Steve Ward

Executive Director, STEPS Ministries

STEPS MINISTRIES NEWSLETTER – November 2021

STEPS Ministries has exciting new announcements around the launch of our new initiative for “Next Right STEPS.”

  • New ministry focus to serve more people effectively – Watch a 1-minute video summary on Next Right STEPS as a life improvement process where we use our heart, soul, mind, and strength to live life better. We see that we can discover breakthroughs and break the CHAINS holding us back.
  • New book titled Next Right STEPS: How to Live Life Better – You can order the eBook or paperback on Amazon now. I hope you enjoy it and benefit from it. It would be great if you put a review on Amazon, gift the book to family and friends, and agree to give us your feedback. All proceeds go to the ministry.
  • New website that also serves as a “Tool Kit for Real Life” – You can see the new website here, which is still at LifeImprovementSteps.com. It has been totally redesigned to help People, Families, and Organizations and provides a great many useful resources in all those areas.
  • New blog being rebranded around Next Right STEPS – The weekly blogs will include more content on the website. The article for today captures many of the key areas in Next Right STEPS, and you can see it at “Making a LEAP Forward with Next Right STEPS.” In future blog emails, you will receive a short version of the blog, an example of a Next Right Step to take, and a link to additional resources, and we will encourage sharing the blogs to help others.
  • New programs and plans to expand key focus areas – We will reach more hurting People using Next Right STEPS, and we will expand our reach with digital marketing. We will help more Families with Proactive Parenting, and we will expand to parents of elementary and college-age kids and collaborate with other organizations. We will serve more Organizations with easy-to-implement speaking and seminars on a growing set of relevant topics.

You can see a short video overview of this launch with highlights of these new announcements here: Next Right STEPS Launch Summary.

Next Right STEPS will encourage, equip, and empower you to find direction and purpose in your life, and it will teach you a practical and intentional process to live life better. It will educate you to overcome problems and bad habits and equip you to make good choices to find more peace and joy. And it will help you help others. 

My biggest desire is for STEPS Ministries to help as many people as we can. Maybe, even you. If you or people you know are hurting, know that you are not alone, and there are things you can do to get better. Hopefully, the Next Right STEPS material can help you along your journey so at the end you hear, “Well done.” God bless. 

Steve Ward

Executive Director, STEPS Ministries 

STEPS Ministries Newsletter – July 2021

This month, we celebrated the Third Anniversary of STEPS Ministries. Looking back over our initial three years in operations, we see a variety of ways in which we have served people:

Teaching

  • Proactive Parenting – Managed this initiative to serve tens of thousands of parents.
  • Parent teaching – Delivered ongoing speaking engagements, seminars, and webinars.
  • Business Wellness – Led seminars & workshops for companies and business groups.
  • Addiction Prevention – Held dozens of presentations and workshops for many groups.
  • Coaching – Conducted ongoing 1-on-1 coaching with dozens of wonderful people.
  • Large events – Participated as a sponsoring organization in numerous large events.


Content

  • Parents online learning center – Launched the PACES for Parents learning center with prevention content for parents and the Proactive Parenting Program for organizations.
  • Blogs – Published 150+ articles, about 90 which included a video and podcast version.
  • Video seminars – Published numerous videos for a variety of groups and purposes.
  • Digital products – Built and distributed dozens of products to serve various audiences.
  • Presentations – Effective event presentations will be reused moving into the future.
  • Podcasts – Published over 85 podcasts.
  • YouTube videos – Published over 100 videos


Outreach

  • Influencers and media – Featured on national, regional, and local podcasts; interviewed on several radio shows; and authored or interviewed in over a dozen magazine articles.
  • Social media – Utilized Facebook and Instagram to reach over 20,000 people.
  • Google Ads – Utilized Google grant program for nonprofits to reach over 1000 people.
  • Digital outreach – Reached 100,000+ people with digital ads displaying useful content.


Operations

  • Platforms – Managed software for website, online courses, Customer Relationship Management, email, social media, video/audio, graphic design, and related functions.
  • Team – Utilized 15 college interns, and our current team includes 4 hired contractors.
  • Staffing – Hired 5 agencies to consult to develop techniques to reach more people.
  • Budget – Managed a budget and related fundraising that is growing 50% year to year.

STEPS Ministries Newsletter – April 2021

Launched STEPS Proactive Parenting to prevent teenage addiction.

  • Launched the PACES for Parents online learning center with prevention content for parents.

    • Includes 11 free and fee products plus a product bundle with monthly pricing. Products include videos, assessment, eBook, tool kits, coaching, video seminar, and full-length course.

    • Built a new Proactive Parenting website as our online learning center which featured an opening parenting assessment, 9 explanatory videos, and supporting information.

    • Integrated eCommerce and automated email marketing functionality built into the website.

  • Launched the Proactive Parenting Program for organizations to offer training to people they serve. 

    • Easy-to-deploy automated program for churches, companies, nonprofits, and other groups.

  • Launched an Affiliate Marketing program to allow organizations to promote PACES for Parents. 

    • The program includes tools, assets, and systems to create and support a remote distributed sales team where any influencer can promote PACES products in return for a commission.

  • Launched a structured outreach to other organizations to help prevent teenage substance abuse.    

  • The Proactive Parenting launch also included these tactics:

Conducted training and outreach with many audiences and organizations.

  • Held coaching sessions with parents related to teenage substance use challenges.  

  • Led 3 Truth at Work seminars with business leaders on understanding and dealing with addiction.

    • Feedback was excellent on these sessions which included prep and follow-up material.

  • Featured on a national Truth at Work podcast (hear a 4-minute segment here).  

  • Had 2 articles in Birmingham Christian Family magazine for February and March. 

  • Published a 32-minute video seminar on “How to Improve Your Life and Relationships.” 

  • Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church will serve as a pilot for the Proactive Parenting Program. 

    • The church also provided an endorsement for the Proactive Parenting launch.

  • Birmingham Christian Family magazine is serving as a pilot for the Affiliate Marketing program.

  • Planned our participation at the Celebrate the Family EXPO to share content with parents. 

    • Including the use of volunteers to interact with and share content with more parents.

  • Interviewed on WXJC radio which has a coverage area larger than the northern half of Alabama.

  • Planned and built content for parents’ webinar hosted by Safe & Healthy Homewood Coalition. 

  • In planning with a number of other organizations about collaboration to serve their audiences. 

Reached tens of thousands of people with valuable content.

  • Reached over 47,000 people with Facebook digital ads displaying our content.

  • Reached almost 1000 people in early efforts to develop our Google ad approach. 

  • Continued to ramp up our social media reach to get good content to more people. 

    • On the STEPS Facebook page, published 35 posts and reached over 12,000 people.

    • Started a new strategy to distribute content through third-party Facebook Groups.

      • Our first engagement shared content with an additional 4000 people.

    • On the STEPS Instagram page, published 35 posts to reach a different social audience.

    • Created a social/email sharing page to encourage organizations to share our content.   

Published 10 blogs with a short video, podcast, and text article.
Initiated a strategic focus on collaborating with other organizations.

  • Installed a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software platform.

    • Selected the software package Little Green Light, installed and tuned the software, imported data for existing contacts, and managed training of team members on the platform.

    • For churches, created an email list and template letters as part of an organized outreach process. Collected contact data for over 1000 churches and delivered emails to over 600.

  • We have plans in motion to expand this type of organized outreach to reach other B2B niches.

    • For example, treatment centers, counselors, financial planners, coaches, etc.

  • Began outreach to bloggers, podcasters, video marketers, media, social groups, and influencers.

    • Influencer marketing to include content-sharing, guest-posting, and third-party promotion.

  • Developing our B2B and B2B2C strategy, processes, and business development capabilities. 

  • Increased our ability to serve people through content and digital marketing

  • Built additional content for more online tool kits to serve additional audiences. 

  • Redesigned the STEPS Ministries web site to serve more audiences with useful content, align with the online learning center in Kajabi, and position the ministry for expanding our impact.

  • Created process to conduct webinars that can be utilized for future webinars as well.  

    • Registration pages and automated email notifications sequences in Zoom and Kajabi.

  • Finalized design of a new STEPS Ministries logo with versions for each area of the ministry.

  • Organized videos on our YouTube channel to serve audiences more effectively. 

Maximized our use of resources while maintaining good stewardship.

  • Welcomed three new interns for the summer: Jacob Taylor, Jeanna Parker, and Blair Thornton. 

    • Said goodbye to two great Samford interns, Kenzie Simpson and Molly Helms.

  • Got approved and submitted information to participate in the Highlands College intern program.

  • Managed an ongoing development program for STEPS team members. 

  • Investigated several agencies as possibilities to enhance our resources. 

  • Executive Director participated in professional development and networking events.

    • Including ULECx Market retreat and meetings, Mission Increase, Truth at Work, and others.

    • Continued weekly group teaching and coaching sessions with LearnDesk.

  • Managed expenses to stay within budget and continued to operate with a cash surplus.