An innovative ministry striving to make true conversions of our teens and youth, Dare2Share is blasting full steam ahead to spread the word of Christ with a passion. One medium that the organization has successfully leveraged as an effective outreach tool is the Internet, and ACS Technologies has helped to make their presence a strong one.
Increasing Capabilities. For about two years, Dare2Share had a smaller scale Web site that experienced difficulty efficiently accommodating the needs of its dynamic organization. In June of 2003, Dare2Share chose the ACS Extend Platform as their Internet solution. Extend enabled the organization to create a whole new look and feel designed to capture the fast paced attention span of today’s youth. With Extend, adding video or audio streaming, message boards, archives, store and online donations soon became a reality and were no longer obstacles to overcome.
Just about a year ago, Dare2Share opted to hire Tristan Kelley, as their Marketing Communications Coordinator responsible for the content development of the site. Kelley, who had operated his own Web site development business on the side, stepped into the position ready to roll. “I was impressed with the fact that Extend is very fast, especially since I understand and recognize the technology behind the system. I find it to be very intuitive and user-friendly. In fact, if I am out or on vacation, most users are able to pick up where I left off and keep things up-and-running.”
Good thing because this site is packed full of valuable information beneficial to youth leaders, teenagers and adults. In November of 2004, Dare2Share had their “BLAZE” Conference in Denver, Colorado. It has been considered one of the most highly rated youth conferences in the nation with about 8,000 students attending the event. According to CEO and founder Greg Stier, “We collected 22 tons of canned goods for the Denver Rescue Mission. We also had over a thousand of those teenagers trust Christ as their savior Friday night and on the next day they were all out sharing their faith, collecting canned goods—it was just an awesome experience.”
Web Strategy. Kelley remarked, “One of the strategies that we use from a marketing perspective involves an email campaign directed to youth pastors across the nation. We have conferences all over the United States throughout the school year. We target a specific region, tell them about our upcoming conferences and direct them to our Web site for further information. Then we are able to tailor a message to the specific conference in their area.”
Early on, ACS Technologies set up a reporting system designed to monitor the number of hits or general visits that the Dare2Share site receives. Kelley notes, “On a monthly basis, this number is expanding in a relatively steady pattern. Even if it is only 20-30 more hits per month, we continue to see growth. It has been great to be able to monitor this information.” He added, “I believe that a large part of this growth is because of how well that the site is designed. Over the past year, we have refined ways to navigate the system and ACS Technologies has offered suggestions to make it easier for the end users to get around our site.”
About Dare2Share
Energizing a generation to evangelize the world, Dare2Share is an organization promoting the spread of Christian faith through education while equipping the nations youth with tools needed to share their faith. Various resources are shared featuring national conferences, inspirational stories, weekly emails and references to other biblical links.
ACS Technologies Products and Services Used
Extend: SiteExtend-Professional, WSD-DNS Registration/Transfer/Ghosting, Domain Hosting, Streaming Media Hosting
Web Site
www.dare2share.org
