Behind the Scenes with Communications

“Give people a backstage pass and show them how your business works. Imagine that someone wanted to make a reality show about your business. What would they share? Now stop waiting for someone else and do it yourself.”– Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemier Hansson

At National Convention last year, I sat across from Mrs. Pam Minyard, TeenPact’s Director of Development. Mrs. Minyard is based in Hernando, Mississippi and focuses her efforts on developing relationships with people and exposing them to the opportunity of investing in the work that God is doing in this ministry. Over an early morning coffee, I shared with her my heart for creating a visual brand that would consistently offer people an authentic look at who we really are as a ministry. Continuity and consistency are crucial for maximizing an experience. While evolution can be a good thing, drift is not. Change ought to be purposeful and inspired.

Mrs. Minyard was in full agreement and shared that this had been her vision for sometime. Working remotely offers its challenges, and one of the greatest of these is simply the day-by-day pursuit of fresh vision. Having a team mentality is difficult to maintain when a number of our full-time staff work remotely. (TeenPact currently has three employees who work remotely— Pam Minyard, Laurel Morton, and Paul Martin.) As we continued to discuss the opportunities in front of us, we asked hard questions and created an action plan. How can we work to create beneficial branding structures, offer hands-on experience for growth, and truly highlight the story of TeenPact? This is what we asked of ourselves, and this is what we set out to do.

Each of us at the National Office entered into new discussions about the future of TeenPact, and how we can set the organization up for success and serve students and their families well. Serena Walker shared about her passion for learning and applying communications skills in the real world. Impassioned by the love for communications, Serena and I set out to create a “Communications Department” that would serve to streamline our organization messaging.

Over the past several months we have invested time, money, and resources to accomplish our goals. The result is a new visual brand as reflected in our communications. We have a new website, courtesy of former TeenPact student and staffer Kiefer Partridge. This is now the building block of our visual brand and allows us to progress into the new stage of messaging. We have a new blog, managed and maintained by Serena and myself. This platform offers us the opportunity to share the heart of the ministry, the story of TeenPact.

The work of students, parents, volunteers, staffers, Traveling Interns, Program Directors, and full-time staff should not be left unnoticed. We want to see the good that God is doing in and through the work of these people. This is why we do what we do.

At the end of the day the story of TeenPact is made up of thousands of stories. The story of TeenPact is your story. And we would love to hear from you. Share your story at teenpact.com/shareyourstory.