By Tom Bandy
Strategic thinkers often want to explore a specific demographic detail for which there is no one single category in the Build a Report process. Recently I was asked to research locations with a high population density for children aged 5-13 in families below poverty. MissionInsite only allows you to do separate OpportunityScans (“OpScans”), but not combine them.
This was prompted by a broader challenge. Every year Outreach Magazine asks me to review ten new books from different publishers. One of the best in 2023 is Strong Girls, Strong World (Tyndale Press) by Dale Hanson Bourke. It’s a comprehensive and very practical book and helps charitable individuals and missional churches understand the plight of vulnerable girls worldwide and the potential for social transformation if we can help them. How can a topic like this be researched using MissionInsite?
One solution is to use a method I call “stacking”. You can draw two or more scans (differently colored) of the same area, save them to PowerPoint, and then overlay one on top of the other.
For example, strategic thinkers may want to identify highest population density for children aged 5-13 AND families below poverty in an urban area like Baltimore. Their goal is to identify specific neighborhoods and nearby churches to develop outreach ministries that protect vulnerable children who are most at risk in low-income households.
Here are the steps:
- Draw a search area. In this example, I have drawn a search area around urban Baltimore within the beltway. Be sure to save this shape since you may need to retrieve it again.
- Create the first OpScan to search for “Children Aged 5-13”. (Use the “Demographics” tab, bottom toolbar, then find the category in “Build a Report”).
- When you click and create the map, the default color is various shades of green, with the darkest shade indicating highest population density in this category.
- A menu will pop up on the bottom left of the screen offering a sliding scale to increase or decrease representation. Click the “EYE” icon and a new menu will appear. Select the “More Than…” choice at the bottom of this list. The screen will then isolate only those areas of highest population density in dark green.
- Take a screen shot of this OpScan. Copy and paste it into a PowerPoint slide.
- Now create a second OpScan (same shape) for “Families in Poverty”.
- Click the colored circle in the pop-up menu to change the color (in this case I chose orange). This changes the color of the OpScan image.
- Again, take a screenshot of this OpScan and paste it into PowerPoint.
- You can now compare the two slides, identifying different demographic categories.
However, these will be side-by-side, and you may find it difficult to compare color-coded areas of highest population density in each category.
- Now create a new slide by overlaying the second image on top of the first image. Initially, the one hides the other.
- Select the top image and reformat the picture … making this image about 50% more transparent. Now you can see the one image beneath the other, each in two images, in different colors.
- Now you can see the neighborhoods proximate to each other. The darkest areas (where green and orange colors overlap) are the most significant neighborhoods for outreach. You can also see where neighborhoods are close to each other where outreach ministries will also be opportune.
I have edited the new PowerPoint slide with overlapping images in different colors.
Those areas indicated by the symbol are the most urgent neighborhoods for outreach to vulnerable children aged 5-13 in households below poverty.
Those areas that are circled indicate neighborhoods proximate to each other that also reveal opportunities for outreach.
You can locate the nearest churches and encourage them to focus outreach on this specific issue. Families could walk or use easy public transportation to any church site for outreach.
You can also compare this “stacked” image with a map of lifestyle representation and use Experian’s E-Handbook or the MissionImpact Guide to explore ministry, facility, and technology expectations of target groups.
What can churches do?
Urban churches can become more relevant (and more attractive) to the households immediately surrounding their church buildings. And they can employ the compassion, education, and skills of church members who commute to the church from outside the neighborhood.
- In ministry, churches can partner with public schools or other social agencies to offer supervised after-school care, create boy’s and girl’s clubs to provide safe and healthy social interaction, work with police and emergency services to support neighborhood watch programs and counseling services, customize worship services on holy days and holidays, and more.
- In advocacy, churches can lobby to fund extra-curricular school activities and social services for young families, set civic priorities to upgrade neighborhood infrastructure, create supervised drop-in centers specializing in children and youth services, design strategies to protect vulnerable children in high crime areas, and more.
- In pastoral care, churches can hire staff to manage programs designed for neighborhood children, Sunday school, youth, and other lay leaders to be alert and responsive to hidden abuse or manipulation and develop mentoring relationships between church members and community residents with young families.
- In communication, churches can target specific neighborhoods (houses and apartments) and acquire direct mailing lists from MissionInsite to invite participation, share information, and create community among those households most vulnerable in the neighborhood.
My main point, however, is that you can use this “stacking” method to focus ministry on any specific demographic detail in any neighborhood or region. This can be used in district and congregational planning to assist churches developing relevant ministries. These PowerPoint slides may be harder to read in a document like this, but once projected on a large screen church leaders will be able to see, know, serve a specific neighborhood with a relevant ministry.