Anybody can have a good website.
Anybody.
And that includes missionaries and ministries and humanitarian efforts that want and need. . . money.
And oftentimes, what you see IS what you get– honest efforts at helping others, effective means of sharing God’s love with a community whether it be in education or poverty reduction or leadership training or whathaveyou.
But, I’m on the ground here in SE Asia, which happens to be somewhat of a Christian mecca for missions organizations in all of Asia, and a story I’ve seen repeated more than once from or by the missionaries here is one of
false advertising.
Because anybody can have a good website.
And, let’s be honest, a good website with moving pictures of the impoverished or the primitive, sells. Or fundraises,to be more specific. And since so much of the work here is support-based, it’s a bit of a game that missionaries and organizations have to play. We live in a virtual age, after all, when the validity of a company is based in large part by the flashiness of its website, and nonprofits are having to compete, naturally, if they want to survive and raise the necessary funds to further their visions.
And I get it. I understand the language of SEO tags and google analytics, but my greatest struggle is when ministries paint a picture for their online viewer that isn’t actual reality or when they use content that actually exploits the people they are supposed to be helping.
The hard reality is that Hollywood sells. The dramatic, the photoshopped, the extreme, the well-crafted word, the grungy graphics, the SEO-optimized– this is the stuff that raises funds, faster. And funds are what the missionary or relief organization needs to stay operational, to stay on the field, to continue the work.
And I’m not pointing fingers, because I look back at my own communication of our past 18 months, and I’m left nervous that I myself have painted too grand a picture of the work here, have cropped reality too often, or have used brush strokes that have highlighted self far too frequently.
But, really, what’s a missionary to do? Give the ‘audience’ what they want– inspiration that will translate into the writing of checks, and thus, the ability to do more ministry?
Or deliver the brutal truth of failed efforts and the boring everyday and, more than likely, watch their financial support go the way of their old-school website stats?
I mean, really, {and I’m sincerely asking} where’s the line between honestly recording the good cause and softly manipulating to further it?
*post archived on LauraParkerBlog
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Thoughts? What do you think of the connection between fundraising and Hollywood? Stories, rants, opinions? How do you handle this tension with your donors back home?
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– Laura Parker, former humanitarian worker in SE Asia
