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M-DAT Founders Address Mission Mobilizers

September 2008: M-DAT Co-Founders Peter and David Armstrong spoke last week at a gathering of mission mobilizers in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The luncheon was the monthly gathering of the Tulsa Missions Mobilizers Network. This group meets monthly, with a guest speaker, and consists of mission leaders from area churches as well as mobilizers from several agencies. The Armstrongs spoke about the M-DAT vision and resources, the current state of short-term missions and trends in short-term missions. The Q and A that followed continued the meaningful interaction.

M-DAT representatives speak at churches and other gatherings with some regularity.

Resource Name Finalized

August 2008: After gathering input through a brief survey, a name has been chosen! M-DAT staff have been working in earnest on a resource to help aspiring missionaries get to the field for more than a year. That website: PreparingToGo.com. Now in very early stages, core components of PreparingToGo.com will eventually include video interviews and tours, a readiness assessment, and a searchable database of sending organizations.

1 Million Searches

March 2008: We are pleased to announce that the 1 millionth search was performed this month on ShortTermMissions.com! We at M-DAT see this as confirmation that we're providing valuable information where people expect to find it. We're thankful that God has been blessing and expanding the ministry.

This number also reflects growth in the use of the site. Since the site's inception in December 2000, growth has steadily compounded; half of the 1 million searches were in the last two years. Despite reaching this major milestone, we still feel there's room for growth in getting this vital resource to the people who need it.

Input from Aspiring Missionaries Wanted

November 2007: In an effort to gather input that will help shape a new web resource for tomorrow's missionaries, M-DAT is conducting a survey of people who are considering becoming or in the process of becoming a full-time missionary. We encourage people to pass the survey along to people they know who are on the journey of becoming a missionary. Click here to take the survey!

Mission Trip Search Widgets Available

September 2007: Good news for Christian webmasters and bloggers--M-DAT has created a new tool to help mobilize website visitors to missions involvement. It is a ShortTermMissions.com search widget that can easily be customized and added in the side bar of any website. The widget is available at the following link:
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/mission-trip-search-box-tall.

Report Published

September 2007: M-DAT released a search summary report to the missions community that examines the roughly 80,000 basic searches made on ShortTermMissions.com from January through April of 2007 and shows the top search criteria people use when looking for short-term mission trips.

Ready for the Airwaves

August 2007: We just wrapped up production of a 30 second radio spot [listen to mp3] for ShortTermMissions.com. Building on a landscape of sounds from around the world, the spot informs believers of how they can go about finding a mission trip to serve on. Our hope is that five to ten Christian radio stations will play the spot late Fall or early Spring as a "public service" announcement for their listners.

If you work for a radio station or know someone who does please contact us.

June 2007: After a lengthy hiatus brought on by website upgrades, the monthly reports on search activity on ShortTermMissions.com are available again to our partner organizations.

The search volume on ShortTermMissions.com gives us the unique privilege of being able to monitor trends in the types of short-term mission opportunities people look to serve on.

Here are some interesting stats on the over 80,000 "basic" searches performed January through April of this year:

Survey Says...

May 2007: We seldom get to meet the people we serve face to face. So, we are excited to have the results in from our 2007 ShortTermMissions.com demographic survey (given to people who looked at an opportunity in the month of May). Here are the results from 636 respondents:

• 3/4 female and 1/4 male
• 14% are high school aged (14-17), 24% are college aged (18-21), 61% are adults (22-65)
• 72% describe themselves as having a "high interest in missions."
• 80% want to go on a mission trip within the year
• 1/4 are considering serving as long-term missionaries (i.e. they are going on a short-term with hopes of exploring whether or not becoming a career missionary is for them).
• 8% are youth pastors

M-DAT Staff Member Appointed SOE Interim Director

April 2007: M-DAT co-founder and director of agency services, David Armstrong, was appointed interim director for the Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Missions (SOE). He is continuing his work full-time at M-DAT.

M-DAT's involvement with SOE dates back to when the initiative was in its formative stages. David has served on several SOE committees since its launch. We believe the SOE will play a critical role in helping raise the bar in how short-term mission is done and see our involvement as complimentary to our ShortTermMissions.com service.

M-DAT Goes to Urbana

December 2006: The day after Christmas our staff headed for St. Louis, Missouri to participate in the largest missions conference in the United States--Urbana. This five day event, put on by Intervarsity, occurs once every three years. Roughly 20,000 young adults attend who have an interest in participating in God's global mission.

We were among nearly 300 mission agencies that filled a huge exhibit hall to grant attendees the chance to connect with opportunities and interact one-on-one with missionaries.

This was a key opportunity for us to make people aware of our services and recruit candidates for our staffing needs. We appreciated the opportunity to interact with students who had questions and needed council as they seek to follow God in mission service.

Website of the Week!

September 2006: A friend of the ministry alerted us, the Dallas Morning News selected ShortTermMissions.com as the website of the week in the Religion section. Not only did it appear in the newspaper, but it was featured all week long on DallasNews.com!