Our Sustainability Model – 2020 And Beyond
How Is iWorship.co.za Able To Provide Free ?
When we talk about providing free resources for "Christians of Today" we simply mean providing tools and content that we use daily, based on current technology.
Whether you're searching for media to use in your upcoming youth event, tips on how to manage your musicians better or research on a specific topic you are led to teach on next, you will probably start with Google, right?
I won't duplicate the actual mission of iWorship.co.za as a platform. Read about that, along with whole "good vs bad of social media" scenario here, where we explain the ultimate endgoal in a bit more detail.
This article will help you understand and hopefully partner with our sustainability program.
And Partner
In order to continue development and introduce more types of free resources, we need time, money and other resources.
The good news is that our strategy makes it easy for everyone to partner with the vision, in whichever way you choose.
The Elephant in The Room
Yup, you guessed it. However, while we do need money to be sustainable, I believe that the Lord has given us a solid strategy to take care of this one.
We currently utilise 4 main methods to generate a sustainable income, the first one being an actual business model.
With around 15 years of experience in various fields, we decided to make our own expertise available to you.
There are several types of services that you already use or need, paying someone to have it handled for you.
By simply moving some of these services into our care you are immediately contributing towards the future of the platform, probably saving a substantial amount at the same time.
1. Monthly Services Everyone Needs
Website hosting and maintenance is a service required by just about anyone in business, ministry or otherwise.
We can help you with that and more...
Depending on your current needs you may be looking to expand into new aspects of the online world, such as:
- Website Hosting & Security
- Website Maintenance and design
- Church Management & Admin Software
- Audio production and/or online publishing of your audio
- Video production and publishing of weekly sermons
- Graphic design (eg. social media cover art)
These are just a few examples of services available as an all-inclusive package, at surprisingly cost effective price plans. These services are not invoiced separately, but included in your monthly hosting plan. You have the power to choose which service you need and we deduct the time spent from the labour hours dedicated to your account. As simple as that.
Even from the lowest monthly plan, your website hosting service includes complementary services valued at more than R1000p.m. I'm not talking about imaginary value of services that would be free in any event. I am talking about software and services that our web sponsor actually pays for on your behalf.
At the same time, while paying for a service you really need, you gain a number of benefits for your business or ministry. Based on your current plan, donation or sponsorship, your community profile will receive various "partner badges" to reflect our appreciation of your support.
Certain levels of contribution also qualifies for featured placement in some of our most premium sections, like premium advertising spaces, main landing pages and other high-traffic areas. We figured you are helping us survive, so why not return the favour by placing you in in view of the audience you need to reach.
These placements apply to both businesses and ministries, or any nominated cause or ministry you want people to know about (Subject to our qualifying criteria).
Be on the lookout and show some love to communuity profiles sporting these Badges...they are the reason for our continued existence and development.
Our hosting ecosystem is managed by MyWebsite.co.za and is a fully managed solution. From the moment you submit your order, everything from installation to server maintenance and security updates are done for you.
What is the free websites initiative and how can I take advantage? View "The iWorship.co.za Platform Explained" for more.
2. External Advertising Partners
Within certain services you may see advertisements from time to time.
If they are of interest to you, please do watch the video or click through to services advertised, as we would earn a small commission from it.
No matter how small the income, it assists us in maintaining the free services we provide. All attempts are made to keep the adverts relevant to you and without spam.
This form of income may also include "affiliate referrals", where we may suggest items that we believe will specifically benefit you as a christian. While the cost will be the same as buying directly, a percentage or referral commission will be paid to us. No cost to you, one more way to help iWorship.co.za be sustainable!
3. Internal Advertising Partners
We are rolling out an internal advertising program.
While all kinds of adverts popping up across Facebook, Youtube and everywhere in between can be super frustrating, the right advert at the right time can be a home run for both the advertiser and the viewer.
Our aim with the internal advertising program is to carefully identify and feature services that are particularly aligned with the general needs of our community.**
What types of service would ministries or christian-driven businesses need?
- Printing
- Radio and other media advertising
- Audio and Visual Equipment
- Building contractors
- Glass Replacement Companies
- Recruitment Agencies
The list of services we all actually need at some point in time can be very long. If you work for such a company, let them contact us for special introductory rates.
On that note, we are giving special attention to recruitment agencies, seeing that just about everyone at least knows someone who needs a job.
We are dedicating a featured space on our site for a Job Board. Any recruitment agency signing up with JobBoard will have access to their own portal where they can add as many job posts as they wish. That's unlimited placements for one ridiculous monthly cost. For Life.
During our launch period, recruitment agencies will lock in to a super low monthly fee, valid for life, as long as their subscription remains active. When the pricing increases after the initial launch, these early adopters will continue on their special tariff, regardless of the new pricing (Subject to Terms of Use policy).
Sign up to be informed as soon as JobBoard launches.
**Christian ministries may create 1x free job placement per month and automatically qualify for reduced rates on any part of our advertising program (Strictly minitry-related. Business oriented adverts may not qualify).
4. Monetary Sponsorship
Are you someone who enjoys sowing into important projects?
There are two ways you can choose to get involved:
- You can sow directly into this ministry in the form of a private donation or by sponsoring toward a specific need we currently have.
- Optionally, you can nominate an organization or ministry of your choice and sponsor them for one of our monthly service packages.
Choosing the second option could benefit you in 2 ways:
Both you or your business, as well as the ministry you are sponsoring may be featured as co-sponsors. (See details above). If you'd like to remain anonymous, please let us know when you pay towards any sponsorship.
If you'd like to sponsor one of the specific needs we have in the list below, simply click on that item and go ahead. You may also be featured as a co-sponsor of iworship.co.za.
We are thankful for every seed sown into iworship.co.za and pray for a generous harvest.
Feel free to contact us for a list of specific financial needs we currently have.
That's it for the financial input. We look forward to standing with you as partners of this ministry.
Human Community - Driven By Humans
The platform and its free resources are constantly expanding. However, the rate at which it grows depends greatly on physical labour, so we need a couple of volunteers to help keep our performance aligned with our vision.
PHP Developers
Most of our ecosystem revolves around Wordpress for the sole reason that it is nearly infinitely customizable, can serve just about any need a website owner could ever have and it's security can be enhanced to a great extent.
While the public release is in its infant shoes, thousands of hours have gone into development and we've reached that pivotal point where we need to start delegating responsibilities. If we are aiming for stable growth without compromising the user experience, now is the time to work together.
Community Managers and Moderators
Managing a public community can have its challenges and needs to be monitored and sometimes moderated on a regular basis.
It would be great if we can have a few knowledgeable persons who can help ensure the content submitted is biblically sound. You don't have to have a doctorate, but should have a solid foundation in the Word and should have an accurate understanding of the Word.
I know that even the idea of what's accurate is debatable, that's why "the more the merrier". Hearing the Word from different perspectives is not always a bad thing!
If you are willing to assist with in any of these roles, please reach out to us.
Content Creators & Guest Authors
A core part of the vision for iWorship.co.za has always been to edify the Body of Christ, helping individuals grow into the liberty of Christ.
It has never been the vision to go at it alone, but the platform has never been truly ready, until now. So if you have a passion for teaching the Word of God, sharing a testimony or providing resources for any area of the Christian's life, you are invited to join the editorial team.
The main categories or subjects for immediate publishing include:
Standard Articles:
- Christian Foundational Truths
- Christian living in the world of today
- Biblical Principles To Apply in Life and Business
- Spiritual Growth in General
- Bible Knowledge and Understanding
How-To Tutorials:
- Audio & Video - Technical stuff
- Audio & Video - Skills Enhancement
- Music in the Church - Organization & Structure
- Musicianship - Skills Enhancement
- Website, Social Media & SEO - Design and Enhancement
- Audio & Video Post Production
- Live streaming and forms of Broadcast
Full-Fledged Online Courses with Certificate of Completion:
- Similar to the subjects above
- More structured and in-depth
NOTE: You don't need prior experience in course/syllabus creation. We will work with you to create course-material.
We have a fully functional Learning Management System ready to deploy.
Please note that our aim is to provide everything, or as much as possible at no charge, but we are aware that some folks may not be able to provide their course material at no cost.
In such cases we will these courses available as paid courses. Paid courses will work on a revenue sharing model to assist us in further development and maintenance of the platform.
Content Curators & Editors
This is much like an author (or creator of content), with a difference in focus and source of content.
A curator is typically someone who has knowledge of great sources of content that already exists. In stead of creating all of the content in the article yourself, you would write something like a summary or introduction of this great piece of content you know about and then providing a link to the already existing article.
Our aim is not to try and take over the world, but to be a community filled with resources. As long as it is biblically sound, we'd like the entire community to find it with ease. The more resources we can provide access to, the better for everyone.
If you'd like to assist as an editor, ensuring proper formating and spelling/grammar in the community resources, please also reach out here.
Translators
We aim to be accessible to as many people as possible, so translation is an important part of our Roadmap.
We are aware of people from these native tongues who would like to access the resources with better understanding:
- Thai - Volunteer translators needed to assist with accuracy
- Afrikaans - Ons het jou hulp nodig om akkuraat te vertaal!
As we become aware of the need for specific languages, we will add them here and on our Public Roadmap.
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