Using Craigslist to Promote Your Church or Non-Profit Organization

Craigslist.org is a virtual garage sale, community portal, job database (and more) that was started by a man named Craig Newmark in 1995. Craigslist offers free listings for cities in all 50 states and in over 50 countries. It is stocked full
 of free advertising and marketing opportunities.

One thing that has amazed me lately is how many pastors and non-profit leaders that I meet who have never heard of Craigslist. As with any non-profit organization, usually the main way people find out about you is through a friend or family member. Sometimes as church or ministry leaders we become lazy and just wait for the people to miraculously come trough the door. There are however many free advertising opportunities that will help your organization to gain more recognition and Craigslist is one of the best. Listed below are a few things that you can do to raise awareness of your non-profit organization through Craigslist.

First you should find the Craigslist for your city or town. If your city is not listed then find the one closest to you. After you have located the closest Craigslist in your area, set up an account. This simply requires an email address and your choice of a password. After you have set up the account you can tweak your personal options to your liking.

After your account is set up and you are logged-in, go to the community section. In this section there are categories like activities, local news, and general. Chances are you have some event going on that you can post in this section weekly. In the general category you can post a generic blurb about your organization. Who you are, when you meet, where you are located, etc. You can also upload pictures to go along with your ad.

There is also a section called gigs. This is a great place to post your need for musicians, computer assistance, crews to help with special events and more. In the job section you can post any new positions that open up in your church or organization and browse for jobs for people in your church that you know are unemployed.

 
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Personally I think that Associated Content is evolving beyond and better than Craigslist. Here you can either stay anonymous or become world famous almost over night, whereas there seems to be a huge amount of pressure coming from the powers that be to shut down Craigslist because it is generating too much tax free revenue for the few at the expense of a larger and larger number of people. I foresee a day when Associated Content will out rank Craigslist in terms of number of daily visitors to their pages. A mass exodus from Craigslist could be well underway any day now! It has become inefficient, you have to keep posting ads all the time to keep your add from being lost. Here at AC you can express yourself with minimal censorship although I have not seen too many xxx rated stories and articles here, I find that AC is much more civil in nature than Craigslist.

Posted on 05/15/2009 at 3:05:59 PM

It's a very great idea that we are served by without paying anything as such you know nothing is free in the world and all the facilties you are giving are very good.

Posted on 04/21/2009 at 8:04:53 AM

Our church uses Craig's list for hiring, buying products, getting good deals, but I not sure about announcing events or creating web presence.. My daughter is Director of Communications so will suggest she check out Craig's list for this purpose. Great practical article for helping church organizations think outside the proverbial church box.

Posted on 08/17/2008 at 9:08:17 AM

Somehow I missed commenting on this one! I think it's a great idea!

Posted on 04/21/2008 at 9:04:29 PM

Great article - it's too bad that our area Craigslist is pretty much completely dead.

Posted on 02/06/2008 at 8:02:36 PM

I hadn't thought of this. Great!

Posted on 10/30/2007 at 4:10:00 PM

Good info. I first thought the Craiglist was a place for freelancers to find work. Who is Craig, anyway. And, how does he know so much? ;-)

Posted on 10/27/2007 at 5:10:00 PM

I've heard of craigslist, but I've not used it though. Sophie

Posted on 10/12/2007 at 4:10:00 AM

this is awesome~!!!!!!!!

Posted on 10/02/2007 at 9:10:00 PM

I've never heard of churches doing this. Very interesting!

Posted on 10/02/2007 at 6:10:00 AM

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