Member/Seeker communications via UMC.org

In 2024, UMC.org brought stories to life—highlighting innovation, faith in action and the incredible ways United Methodists are making an impact.

From ministries embracing neurodiverse communities to outreach serving those experiencing housing insecurity, the Denominational Content Team told stories of radical inclusion and unwavering compassion. The team explored the power of prayer, the beauty of lay-led ministries, the ways art can deepen our worship and helped families guide children in understanding the sacredness of communion.

Through The Recap—videos that offer a quick glimpse into top stories from across The United Methodist Church’s connection—UMCom delivered global church news.

The team captured the joy of connection, sharing how members are finding community through pet ministries, a passion for comic books and gaming and even improv comedy.

UMCom honored The UMC’s rich history—uncovering the stories of unsung heroes and celebrating milestones like the legacy of our first female bishop.

Through it all, UMC.org continued to inspire, inform and connect, reminding us that faith is alive, evolving and meant to be shared.

Leader communications via ResourceUMC.org

ResourceUMC.org remained a vital hub for United Methodist leaders, equipping them with the resources, essential tools, timely updates and fresh inspiration to help them lead and serve confidently and effectively.

Beyond General Conference, the Denominational Content Team created comprehensive resources on the newly passed constitutional amendments, offering clear explanations and a roadmap for the ratification process. A dedicated Worldwide Regionalization page was developed to help church leaders understand this historic legislation. This resource hub featured a summary flyer, two tailored slide decks (for Central Conferences and U.S. Annual Conferences), and a video showcasing worldwide support—all designed to foster deeper understanding and engagement.

Content continued to support local churches with practical inspiration and tools. The introduction of a New Places for New People page highlighted innovative ways churches are reaching their communities, sparking new ideas for ministry. Also new in 2024, the Monthly Ministry Planner helped church leaders easily find relevant resources from across the connection—ensuring they have what they need, when they need it.

Across the websites collectively, the team published 305 new content pieces, shared 140 UM News stories and promoted 123 pieces of content from partners in ministry such as Annual Conferences and other agencies.

In October 2024, UMCom hosted a communications training in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, marking the first time in almost 20 years that the agency had brought together communications staff from across the African continent. The multi-day event, led by staff  throughout the agency, trained 80+ communicators who participated in a two-and-a-half day training touching on subjects such as news reporting, crisis communications, social media and other communications initiatives. Then nearly 100 participants, representing a mix of communicators and other church leaders, went through a one-and-a-half-day in-depth training—led by UMCom in collaboration with the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table—on the concept of and legislation around regionalization to help debunk misinformation.

Virtual trainings—focused on mapping, websites, branded emails and UMConnect were conducted in 10 countries across the Africa central conferences. Virtual website trainings were conducted with Liberia, Senegal, Cameroon and Mozambique. In-person trainings were held in Burundi, Kenya, Bo and Sierra Leone.

In the Philippines, online training was conducted for 27 communicators from the three episcopal areas. Training also explored AI opportunities and ethics with the Manila Episcopal Area, creative communications in the Davao Episcopal Area and Baguio Episcopal Area as well as collaborative creation and development of social media and digital guidelines for the Philippines Central Conference.

114,375 UMConnect messages were sent, many helping to create awareness for Mpox presentation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mapping efforts continued to ensure that all local churches were accounted for, with each added into the comprehensive Find-A-Church online directory. 808 churches were mapped in Africa and now 95% of PCC churches are mapped.

The team attended 9 events during which they took time to listen to attendees, share insights and educate about the role of communications in The UMC. UMCom also continued to further church communications via broadcasting methods with assessment of a radio tower in Liberia and emergency communication kits created in the Baguio Episcopal. The agency also established partnership with the Office of Civil Defense in the Cordillera Administrative Region (OCD-CAR) in the Philippines to provide communications during emergencies and in the aftermath of regional disasters.

UMCom equipped church leaders to communicate effectively through training opportunities and marketing resources.

The Local Church Services Team provided marketing and communications support to over 1,200 local churches in the areas of branding/logo development, social media strategy, websites, promotional outreach and more.

Work highlights included 147 leaders participating in month-long coaching communities, 300 Zoom licenses provided to help congregations connect and 267 banners supplied to share messages of hope and love and to combat hate and racism. The team also offered specialized marketing and communications support to local churches affected by disaffiliation, helping them to reach new people in their communities.

UMCom’s Training Team provided live and on-demand training opportunities to assist church leaders in being effective communicators.  The UMCTraining website saw 3,022 training sessions, offered six multi-lesson and nine microcourse new eLearnings, hosted one facilitated course and one live AI webinar and welcomed 96 participants to a Revitalizing Your Church’s Social Media cohort.

Marketing and advertising efforts coupled with public relations and creative strategy expertise and promotion of giving effectively raised awareness of the denomination's mission and ministries.

The Promotion and Advertising Team's efforts garnered more than 149 million impressions through paid social media sponsored ad campaigns and 3.5 million+ impressions via Google ads. National advertisements targeted around Easter resulted in nearly 12 million online impressions. Promotion of the #BeUMC campaign message reached 18.4 million people and saw 12,000 mentions and 52,300 interactions. The team also managed the sharing of information collectively to more than 234 thousand newsletter subscribers.

The team also assisted UMC partners with disaster response efforts to assist people impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States and Typhoon Kristine in the Philippines. Geo-targeted ads in the U.S. led to more than 26 thousand link clicks, 1.2 million+ reach and nearly 3.9 million impressions. Social media ad buy efforts in the Philippines saw a reach of  543,516 and 1.3 million+ impressions.

The Public Information Team worked to create positive media coverage and provide a voice for the UMC in major media outlets and local news. General Conference-related work resulted in 245 million+ potential unique impressions of media coverage. Additional efforts included pitching 17 stories not related to General Conference and providing 34 media assists. Overall press coverage for the year included The New York Times, Associated Press, Religion News Service, The Christian Post, USA Today network papers and local newspapers, TV affiliates and websites.

The agency offered public relations expertise for more than 17 projects, collaborating with church entities on media training in areas such as pitch tactics, crisis prevention and response strategies. The team exceeded 1 million social media engagements and garnered nearly 53,00 new Facebook fans.

The Creative Strategy Team provided strategic thinking, creative direction and creative execution for internal and external clients, completing 123 projects and delivering 806 assets in 2024. The team tracked 2,450+ hours, and saw a 23% increase in external client hours and played an important role in visual support at General Conference.

The Connectional Giving Team elevated awareness of and played a prominent role in securing financial gifts for The United Methodist Church’s special giving structure, helping to reach $48 million in designated giving and $94 million in apportionments. 2024 also saw work started in development of a forthcoming church vitality campaign.

UM News delivers informative, up-to-the-minute stories, commentaries and analysis of what's happening in the church around the world, while Ask The UMC provides accurate and knowledgeable answers to questions about everything United Methodist.

UM News produced more than 875 stories in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Korean, including in-depth reports from the historic General Conference, which voted to end decades-old bans aimed at LGBTQ members and greenlit regionalization, among other big changes. The team also provided coverage of the fallout from General Conference in places like Nigeria, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.  The team also published more than 95 commentaries in the various languages, representing different perspectives on issues facing the denomination.

Outside of General Conference coverage, the news team covered the major breaking news of the church throughout the year, including the church’s response to natural disasters, immigration, climate change, mass incarceration, the conflict in the Middle East, property disputes and other issues. UM News spotlighted evangelism efforts, global health initiatives and stories of United Methodists living out their faith in interesting ways. Information shared to their 46,000+ triweekly or nearly 35,000 Friday-only Digest e-newsletter subscribers.

For the year, UM News had 3,396,355 total page views and 2.38 million sessions.

Ask The UMC handled approximately 9,348 queries by email, live chat and phone in 2024. The team also continued its series addressing misinformation ("Is The UMC really...?") and created a new series ("The UMC really is...") addressing the realities of The United Methodist Church after the 2024 General Conference, as well as continuing to add new materials to its ongoing individual FAQ series.

In collaboration with other teams, the News and Information Team provided training in Tanzania and organized a pre-General Conference livestreamed orientation.

From conception to delivery of the finished product, our Production Services team put their creative expertise to work to meet the diverse audio/video production and post-production needs of a wide range of clients.

In addition to their extensive work around General Conference, in 2024, the Production Services Team produced a variety of internal and external projects in the studio and on-location, including livestream events, interviews, presentations, Bible studies, book recordings, virtual meetings, features, how-to videos, promos and more amassing to 12,280+ hours of staff time.

Throughout the year they supported the production needs of other teams at United Methodist Communications, as well 13+ church entities. In all, the team completed 50+ projects. The work included several explainer and story videos for church seasons, features on NOMADs ministry, Korean soccer ministries and the production of 7 Bible study projects for UMPH.

Through Kingswood Productions, the team provided production services to 12+ outside clients, generating additional revenue to be used for communication ministry.

Technology plays a key role in delivering messaging developed by UMCom and information supporting the denomination's communication needs.

In 2024, the Digital and Web Development teams’ initiatives resulted in  significant improvements across UMC.org, UMNews.org and ResourceUMC.org, in regards to performance, accessibility and user experience enhancements to encourage increased engagement.

The Find-A-Church platform was modernized to provide scalable, accurate and user-friendly search capabilities through a migration to the Salesforce platform.

Efforts to increase content accessibility by providing an alternative way to consume information resulted in the implementation of BeyondWords, an AI-driven text-to-speech feature that has seen an average of 60 hours of audio content listened to per month across supported pages. UMCom saw an uptick in its Lighthouse Accessibility analysis scores with UMC.org at a 6.7% increase, ResourceUMC.org at 8.1% and UMNews.org remaining consistent.

The team saw a nearly 85% reduction in errors and 59% decrease in warning which enhanced both user experience and internal workflows. Work of the team also led to significant improvements in SEO, mobile experiences and analytics.