Data + Research
Caffeinated Church offers some tips and tricks for engaging (or not) with snarky, negative, hateful, or spam comments on social media or a review site:
Don’t ignore negative messages, especially on public platforms. Unless you are a church with thousands of negative comments and messages a day, you do not have the luxury of affording those comments going unnoticed or unacknowledged. This not only makes the commenter feel as if their experience and anger has gone unheard, but it makes visitors, church shoppers, and everyone else who can see that comment believe that you are trying to avoid confronting the issue and the person behind it. In this moment, everyone who can see the unacknowledged comment or message will begin to doubt your level of public engagement with your community.
This in-depth article in The New Yorker looks at how we count and evaluate data, and what we might be missing. What can we learn for our own data-gathering practices at camps and conference centers?
In a year of uncertainty, numbers have even come to serve as a source of comfort. Seduced by their seeming precision and objectivity, we can feel betrayed when the numbers fail to capture the unruliness of reality…
Those who do the counting have power. Our perspectives are hard-coded into what we consider worth considering. As a result, omissions can arise in even the best-intentioned data-gathering exercises.
Research is one of the key ways to map the landscape of outdoor ministries and tell the story of what we contribute to the church and society. Every other year, through our partnership with other outdoor ministry associations across the mainline Protestant denominations (Outdoor Ministries Connection, or OMC), ECCC participates in a survey on the state of our sites and centers. 2020’s survey provided insights about the state and impact of Christian camping, broadly, and the many implications of COVID-19.
This report is the overall ecumenical picture; we will receive denomination-specific reports soon, and post them here.
There are lessons for our summer camp and youth-facing programs here, as well as the parents among us:
The result is a double whammy: Kids with overprotective parents are less likely to seek leadership roles, and their peers and teachers are less likely to select them for leadership roles.
Which means they don't get the opportunity to learn how to be better leaders.
It can be hard to keep track of what works on social media. I remember when the big push was to move your camp’s Facebook audience away from a group into a “more official” page. But, over the decade since then, that’s led to marketing overwhelm to individual users, and recently Facebook has shifted its focus again: To engagement between people, not brands.
Did you know that, on average, less than 35% of page followers receive Facebook Page content in their news feed? So, if you’re seeing less engagement with your camp’s page content, you’re not imagining it.
We are partnering with our friends in Outdoor Ministry Connection (OMC) to conduct the fourth bi-annual survey of camp and retreat center directors. Research is one of the key ways we work with our ecumencial partners to map the landscape of outdoor ministries and tell the story of what we contribute to the church and society. This is a critical year to participate, as the survey will help us tell the stories of success in the year of COVID-19, as well as the incredible challenges this pandemic has brought to our industry and individual ministries. As in previous years, we are asking for one survey per ministry organization. Here is the link to participate.
CampCounts 2020 is part of the ACA Research Team’s annual efforts to learn about camps and the communities they serve. We use what you share to expand the value and visibility of all kinds of camp experiences for all young people, adults, and families.
You matter, your camp community matters, and understanding your summer 2020 story is important to how we serve campers and their families into 2021 and beyond. With your help, we can tell the camp story of summer 2020 and chart an evidence-informed path to summer 2021. Your input is critical! Whether you ran on-site camp programs, provided virtual programming, you sent camp in a box, or simply started planning for summer 2021 — no matter what your summer 2020 story might be — you count.
Plan to spend about 30 minutes on the survey. Your responses are anonymous; you and your camp are not identifiable in any way. You will be able to access the results for free at www.acacamps.org in November 2020.
To help you prepare, check out this overview to see what information you might want to have available. You can save your survey and respond at a later time; however, given the length of the survey, it might be difficult to complete on a smartphone. Please submit only one response per camp.
The good news is that over four decades of research on resilience shows that protective factors can buffer children from harm and increase the chances they adapt positively to adversities such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Families and communities can work together to promote these protective factors.
For years, the American Camp Association has been conducting a study on the long-term effects of summer camp experiences on today’s youth.
The study was conducted in three phases, each of which built off the one before. Phase 2 results have been released, and identify a set of outcomes that are unique to camp and highly transferable to settings like college and early jobs. These include: Responsibility and independence, relationship skills, being present, and appreciating differences. You can read about the findings on each of these outcomes in the ACA’s Camping Magazine. Here is a direct link to the most recent article on Appreciating Differences.
Whether or not you are a summer camp accredited by the American Camp Association, you will find insight and data in this report worth considering and citing.
One of the questions we get the most at ECCC HQ is about registration and donor software systems. Here is one resource we can recommend.
The results of our project suggest that the outcomes in prior studies may be more so due to communication constraints from gender-segregated physical spaces and social practices (e.g., school housing, single-sex schools, bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams) that can be pervasive during the time in which youth develop friendships, rather than due to youth having a notable preference for same-gender friends. This highlights the potential for emerging gender-inclusive spaces — like camp cabins — to integrate youth friendships across gender identities.
You may know that I have a 5-year old son, Jude. As I type this, he is throwing a tennis ball against the outside fence, having already “helped” with my work this morning — you should see how organized these stacks of paper are! I’ve never been a clock-in and clock-out kind of professional, a characteristic cemented after nine years of both working and living at Camp Stevens — because there’s nothing clock-in and clock-out about non-profit, summer camp, or retreat center work. (Can I get an Amen?)
In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation partnered with researchers at the University of Connecticut to deploy a comprehensive survey capturing the experiences of LGBTQ youth in their family settings, schools, social circles and communities.
“Only 27% of LGBTQ youth can “definitely” be themselves in school as an LGBTQ person.”
Research is one of the key ways we work with our ecumencial partners to map the landscape of outdoor ministries and tell the story of what we contribute to the church and society. Every other year, ECCC’s directors are surveyed on the state of their centers that paints the picture of camping across the mainline Protestant denominations.
Changes to the tax code have made many of us in the non-profit world anxious: Without a tax incentive, will individuals be as inclined to donate? The first data is in.
Here's a breakdown of some of the giving changes from 2017 to 2018:
Giving by individuals dropped 1.1%, or 3.4% when adjusted for inflation.
Corporate giving increased 5.4% (2.9% adjusted).
Foundation giving increased 7.3% (4.7% adjusted).
Specific fields that saw decreased giving include religion, education, human services, and giving to foundations and public society benefit organizations. Health as well as arts, culture, and humanities saw small increases in nominal dollars which translated to a slight decrease when adjusted for inflation.
Thank you to Beth Bojarski and the Virginia Theological Seminary for your work on faith formation at camp.
In 2016, Youth Outside collaborated with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Morgan Family Foundation to offer the Cultural Relevancy Series, a 7-month program designed to build their grantees’ capacity in cultural relevancy, equity, and inclusion.
Research is one of the key ways we work with our ecumencial partners to map the landscape of outdoor ministries and tell the story of what we contribute to the church and society. Every other, ECCC’s directors are surveyed on the state of their centers, and we receive two reports: One that paints the picture of camping across the mainline Protestant denominations, and one specific to Episcopal Camps and Conference Centers.
While our Episcopal camps and conference centers aren’t traditional “environmental organizations,” there are similarities and alignments in mission, location, and staffing structures, and many ECCC members consider themselves part of the broader environmental movement. So, what might we learn from Green 2.0?
Conference: Pathways to Partnerships (2015)
Presenter: Jacob Sorenson, Sacred Playgrounds
Presentation PDF
I have a feeling that many of us running summer camps have seen and experienced elements of this fraying — and practiced braiding — in the last month.
People are exhausted, mentally and physically. Expect the crumble. It’s coming, if it hasn’t already. Plan for the crumbling and consider new ways to braid people, yourself, and your community back together.
What have you learned? Leave a comment here.
This article offers four practices for engaging and managing Gen Z in the workplace:
Keep things moving, and fast
Want their attention? Use visuals, not text
Keep your internal communications game strong
Offer workplace flexibility
Read the complete descriptions here. The article is two years old now, and doesn’t take into account the effects of the pandemic. What still rings true? What would you add?
Eighty percent of the 1,335 respondents said their boss has a significant weakness that everyone knows and discusses covertly with each other, but not directly with their manager.