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2017 is the second year the Jesuits in Britain have run a friend-raising campaign in July called 31 Days of St Ignatius.

Friends and supporters sign up to receive a daily email during July.  The email drives traffic to the websites and services of the different Jesuit works and offers prayer and other resources to the reader.  In 2016 the province communications office focussed each day on a different apostolic work of the Jesuits in Britain: each of our parishes, social justice, volunteering and spirituality works had a day. 

“We interviewed people whose lives had been impacted by the work in question, to create an emotional connection rather than just “who we are and what we do” which would have become dull for the reader,” explained Jane Hellings, Director of Development & Communication at the provincial office.  “Alongside the stories about the Works we included prayers and profiles other  related material from our we resources.”

The 2016 campaign gained over 4,300 subscribers, over double the predicted number.  This was achieved by asking all the works to invite everyone on their mailing lists to subscribe.  Leaflets were put in parishes.  “We were really delighted with the response in 2016” said Grey Msonthi, Campaigns Manager, “especially as we finished with the number we started with, showing that there was little drop off and people stayed with the campaign.”  You can still find the 2016 campaign on the British province website http://www.jesuit.org.uk/31-days-st-ignatius

The team undertook a survey of the subscribers at the end of the campaign to find out more about what they liked best and if a repeat campaign would be welcome in 2017.  “The results were very encouraging” said Grey.  “The feedback showed that people were most appreciative of the prayer content so in 2017 we decided to focus on Ignatian spirituality and make the tone more reflective”.

In 2017 the campaign is hosted on the Jesuits in Britain spirituality website https://www.pathwaystogod.org/31-days-st-ignatius    “The theme for 2017 has been “My Ignatian Formation” Jane explained. “We invited 31 people in our networks to write a short piece on what their Ignatian formation – whether  in a school, parish, chaplaincy or retreat centre – meant to them and how it had influenced their life path.  We wanted to get a range of voices – young and old, male and female, Jesuits, co-workers, and others. People have responded very generously with their beautiful stories.” 

“The 2017 campaign worked more within our network of eleven schools to recruit subscribers with the result we have exceeded last year’s number,” Grey explained.  “In fact the number of subscribers is continuing to grow with new people joining – we now have 4,864!”

So many people who come into contact with the Jesuits know only about the one school or parish with which they have a connection.  “With these campaigns we have been able to show the breadth and depth of the work we do and the wider influence we have.  It has been very useful in introducing people to our online ministries which have a much bigger audience,”  commented Ruth Morris, Digital Communications Manager.  “The spirituality website has had 22,000 visits during July so far, and 2,500 of these came directly from the email in the first week of the campaign.”

The aim of the campaign has been raise awareness rather than to raise money.  Nevertheless a “soft ask” was made in 2016 at the end of the campaign and a few hundred pounds was raised.  Grey added  “this year we have asked for donations once per week and so far £2000 has been raised.  A more direct ask will be made on the Feast Day so we hope to double that.”

Sign up to receive bi-weekly emails from Jesuits in Britain with news and prayer resources; http://eepurl.com/2S8wn

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