In 2022, approximately 140 original pieces of content were produced in English, Spanish and Korean to help equip church leaders to lead their congregations effectively. 35% of ResourceUMC.org visitors are under the age of 35 and more than 70% are under the age of 55.

Highlights include the State of the Church report, Methodists Stand With Ukraine and a collection of new resources to help churches implement the #BeUMC campaign, including videos, graphics, a discussion guide and much more.

A new landing page was created for the Interagency Net-Zero Commitment, a shared space for updates from the agencies on progress toward reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The Leader Communications Team worked with the Production Team to host a two-part webinar with agency attendees of the COP27 climate change conference.

Through a partnership with the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women and the General Commission on Archives and History, UMCom began hosting their websites on ResourceUMC.org and providing other communications support. The agency also partnered with the National Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry and the General Commission on Religion and Race to host the "Somos Metodistas Unidxs Webinar" and worked with Strengthening the Black Church in the 21st Century (Discipleship Ministries) on several projects.

From spiritual practice tips to explainer videos to content addressing the denomination's struggles, the Member Communications Team helped keep church members connected.

Highlights:

A new video series -- The Recap: What United Methodists Need to Know -- provided a quick glimpse of top stories from across the church to help viewers stay up-to-date.

A revised landing page helped visitors learn about and participate in the BeUMC campaign. In addition, a new page, Committed to The UMC, provided resources for members of disaffiliating congregations who want to remain in The UMC.

An emphasis on increasing content availability in Spanish, French, Korean and Portuguese – such as a series of Spanish-language Holy Week devotions – coupled with a new process for regularly updating pages resulted in a 40%+ increase in traffic to non-English content.

The Get Your Spirit in Shape podcast reached a milestone with more than 100,000 all-time downloads, including 40,000+ in 2022.

In 2022, the Seeker Communication Team created 57 English language articles, 52 Spanish language articles, 52 Portuguese language articles, 52 French language articles and 52 Korean language articles. The team's content is created and translated at nearly a perfect pace and made available in all the languages on UMC.org.

In an innovative new project, the Seeker Communications Team added audio versions of web articles at the top of web pages. As a result, about 25% of the total number of English language articles on the website are now audio-accessible. The various articles are compiled in one audio stream into an audio magazine, like a mini-podcast. The April 2022 audio magazine was the top Facebook post of the year, with a 14.5K reach. The team also began working with the Web Team on a playlist that can live on the website. Users could add articles to the playlist and listen to them back-to-back in their curated playlist.

On TikTok, "What do United Methodists Believe about the Bible?" had 17.5k views. While paid content gets into the millions of views, this also demonstrated good organic reach.

The Photo-a-Day challenge remained popular, accounting for two of the top five posts on Instagram.

@theunitedmethodistchurch What do United Methodists believe about the Bible? Rev. Adam Hamilton provides perspective. #Bible #christiantiktok #methodist #UMC #unitedmethodist ♬ original sound - The UMC

UM News produced more than 650 original pieces of news content in 2022 in English, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese and French. The UM News Daily Digest audience grew to 60,000 subscribers, and the team consistently produced strong editions of the DuruAllimi and UMComtigo e-newsletters focusing on Korean and Hispanic/Latino news and resources. The UM News portal had 3.2 million page views, up from 2.4 million page views the previous year.

UM News provided factual information and definitive coverage of issues around disaffiliation, including commentaries offering different perspectives and the introduction of a new "Is The UMC really …" series from Ask The UMC addressing various questions.

The team focused on issues related to incarceration and the plight of the homeless. Two new commentary series were introduced: "Hollering for Change" and "Our World, Our Parish."

Other highlights of the year included on-site reporting from Eastern Europe about the United Methodist response to refugees who had to flee Ukraine, coverage of mission programs in Mexico and Laos, on‑site disaster response in the U.S., up-to-date reports on the episcopal elections, the creation of an Africa bureau in Harare, a series of articles on "Valuing Life" and coverage of Africa University's 30th anniversary celebration.

The highlights of the communications training included working with church leaders through facilitated courses like Developing a Strategy for Communication Planning, Creating Hybrid Worship Services and Outreach and Design using Canva.

Additionally, the Training Team collaborated with agency subject matter experts and church communication experts to launch the first-ever Communications Learning Week: Taking the Next Step. During Communications Learning Week, the team helped deliver 30 skill building opportunities to church leaders over the span of 5 days.

The Local Church Services Team served 1,700+ local churches in areas such as branding and logo development, social media strategy, promotional outreach items, website services and coaching church leaders. More than 500 Zoom licenses were provided to help local churches stay connected with their congregations as the pandemic continued. UMCom also resourced churches to participate in the #BeUMC campaign with free #BeUMC t-shirts and customized banners.

The team expanded their work in the Philippines, hosting a three-day training event focused on web development, social media strategy and marketing outreach. Two new projects began, which provided directional signage for 44 local churches in the South Africa Conference and 513 local churches in the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area.

Team members also wrote MyCom articles, participated in online trainings and podcasts, and hosted UMCom tables at events and annual conferences to aid church leaders in utilizing marketing outreach to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Relationship Team worked closely with church leaders to engage in partnerships, nurture relationships, assess existing needs and increase awareness of services provided by United Methodist Communications. The team identified equipment and training needs for South Africa, Burundi and South Congo for radio and television evangelization and began an initial exploration of ministry opportunities in Senegal and Cameroon.

The Global Communication Technology Team met in Cape Town to work together on strategy and attend the AfricaCom conference.

UMCom worked diligently to continue providing internet connectivity to episcopal offices across Africa and began laying the groundwork to make this program sustainable. Working with the United Methodist Radio Network, the team continued to build capacity and prepare for a potential shift to the United Methodist Broadcast Network.

As a result of training and outreach over the last few years to help people better understand how to use UMConnect effectively, utilization of the platform experienced a high degree of organic growth in 2022.

The addition of several new contractors will aid efforts in mapping 923 local churches in the Philippines, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cote d'Ivoire. For the first time, we also have a field project manager in the Africa Central Conference. She started laying the ground work for exciting projects such as a communications mentorship program.

A spring advertising campaign celebrated a new season for togetherness via ads on social media, websites, search engines, advanced television and billboards. The summer campaign reminded viewers that local churches don't take a break from serving their communities and included fun videos on TikTok and Snapchat. The Advent season saw a return to Times Square advertising, with jumbo animated ads and subway digital boards - along with English and Spanish-language billboards in 13 U.S. cities.

International advertising efforts included funding a celebration event in the East Congo Episcopal area and the launch of an out-of-home advertising campaign in South Africa.

Promotion of the internal #BeUMC campaign resulted in 15.4 million ad impressions and reached 57.9 million people via social media.

The United Methodist Church Facebook page saw an extraordinary 23.7% increase in engagement. Page like ad campaigns garnered more than 72,000 new Facebook fans.

The PI Team worked to create positive media coverage, including pitching dozens of stories and working with reporters from major media outlets to local news. The team provided public relations expertise for 35 projects, with 35 press releases and 15 feature stories. UMCom also collaborated with church entities on crisis prevention and response strategies and training.

The Connectional Giving Team elevated awareness of and participation in The United Methodist Church's special giving structure. Their efforts saw a 12% increase in pastor & leader kit downloads, 51M social media impressions and 394K social media engagements. Overall giving increased 17% reaching $75M in designated giving and $115M in apportionment funds.

The Technology Team made website improvements in 2022 that reduced average page load times by more than half and assured GDPR compliance. In addition, the team worked diligently to improve search engine results through a sustained effort to analyze and update site content and structure, monthly audits, adding redirects to facilitate positive user experience and adding Google Programmable Search to all sites for improved search results.

New content was migrated to UMCom's web platform, including the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women's website, Judicial Council decisions and all past General Conference sites.

In the area of web hosting, the Technology Team partnered with the Local Church Services Team to implement six new client services (five-page website Build, website rebuild, website security, website coaching, additional page buildouts, and SEO assistance) and worked with the Marketing Team in the promotion of Find-A-Church in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The Customer Experience (CX) Team worked to develop and improve My Portal ensuring that constituents received the most valuable information from United Methodist Communications. Church leaders, staff, members and others could update contact information, job roles, interests, subscriptions and more. The CX Team also delivered information architecture workflows for cross-application integration via My Portal for Local Church Services application and Find-A-Church updates. In addition, the CX Team collaborated with the incubation team to deliver a simplified and improved user experience for Find-A-Church 2.0.

In 2022, the team worked with 22 church partners on varied projects including videos, events, audio projects, Bible studies, web content in multiple languages, promotional and marketing videos, sermon series, webinars and much more.

Through its Kingswood Productions arm, UMCom provided production services to 27 external clients including Vanderbilt, PIC and Harper Collins Publishing. This work generated additional revenue for communication ministry.

Here's what some of the team's partners had to say:

From United Women in Faith: "Their keen idea for what makes riveting stories for live programming made all the difference."

From United Methodist Publishing House: "The crew on film day is professional and courteous, making our authors and other stakeholders feel right at home from beginning to end."

From the Upper Room: "Their creativity, flexibility, professionalism, and expertise consistently result in a great product. Their missional heart and ready collaboration make them a trusted and valuable partner in ministry."

From Abingdon Press: "Whether working on a large-scale project in the studio with audience or quick streamlined videos for social media, the team brings all their skill to the job. They are nimble, creative, and reliable."