In this opening session I cover some of the following (some in more details then others). The text is included here for reference, as well as on the planning document if needed.

Origins story 

Expat Media Pro was founded in April 2015 by Tim Cowley while he was living in Mozambique. As a church planter, but yet also a media producer and specialist experienced in video, photography, web & graphic design, he recognized that there were unique opportunities to help various other ministries, non-profits and businesses throughout the region (Malawi, Mozambique, etc). However, he didn’t feel that he was available to take on the number of clients that were seeking help due to church planting responsibilities.

Had he been launching again to the field, he envisioned more of a hybrid approach where he could still be attached to an organization (thereby providing team structure, community, and non-media related work) but also given freedom to follow a variety of media projects that could assist other ministries and non-profits in the larger region. This could be an income to help supplement donor funding while giving added fulfillment of being fully utilized in his media skills. Having a professional identity outside of “missionary” is also helpful and needed in many regions.

Early Individual Projects

During the first few years after “Expat Media Pro” was created as an identity (2015-2016), Tim served clients like the U.S. Peace Corps with documentary photography projects in Mangochi and Blantyre, Malawi. He helped film original material for Little Zebra Books in Mozambique and scripted and edited the revised entry about the Yawo people of Malawi and Mozambique for Joshua Project. He was also involved at this time with media projects for Fundacao Missao Paulo Mocambique, Mandimba Alliance for Mozambique Africa, Global Interaction and others.

Graduate Studies

During the formation period, Tim was enrolled in a Masters of Arts in Digital Storytelling distance program through Asbury University in Kentucky. Several of the self-guided courses for credit were able to be focused on the formation of Expat Media Pro along with direct oversight from Asbury academic advisor Sarah Hogencamp. ExpatMediaPro.com went live in April of 2015.

Relocation & Fiscal Sponsorship

After 13 years in Africa, Tim and his family moved to Portland, Oregon in February of 2016. After considering Allegro Solutions and becoming aware of umbrella organizations that provide fiscal sponsorship for Christian outreach efforts, Tim signed an agreement with Visions Made Viable’s Roger Morton for fiscal sponsorship allowing Expat Media Pro to be a project that is able to raise tax-deductible donations as a project under VMV. (Allegro Solutions was the fiscal sponsor for Visual Peace Media while Visions Made Viable was fiscal sponsor for Little Zebra Books).

Frontiers Overlap

Professionally, Expat Media Pro overlapped with Tim’s responsibilities from 2016-2017 as a recruiter for Frontiers. He paid specific attention to those with media backgrounds seeking to find ways for them to get involved with Frontiers projects, or others depending on personal interests.

EMDC

EMDC, in April of 2016, was an obvious place to connect with individuals looking for media opportunities while also connecting with numerous groups looking for these kinds of people for projects. EMDC is a missions-focused annual media conference held in Thailand and the Netherlands attracting upwards of 900 people as of 2020. This became a great source of encouragement and inspiration. Over the coming years Tim co-presented with Zachary King of Reach Beyond a 3-day training in social media while also becoming part of the leadership team and organizing the mini-film, mini-preview festival showing. A lot of ongoing strong connections were made at that conference that continue to the present and are built upon each consecutive year.

If you want to be added to the update list, email Steve Baughman <steve_baughman@sil.org>. Our mini-film, mini-preview festivals can be viewed here:

2019 using password “EMDCfilmnight2019!“

2018 using password “emdccm2018”

2017 

Sick in Africa

As Tim’s graduate studies came to a close, he began to finalize the first episode of his documentary series, Sick in Africa, having followed and filmed multiple stories in 2015 of Yawo Muslims who navigated a complex health journey due to various illnesses. His fundraising at the time was done through a mixed system using Frontiers and Visual Peace Media (now defunct) and only brought the project over fiscally to Expat Media Pro when Visual Peace Media closed for good in 2018.

Ebook

Sensing a need for ongoing training and a way to share the lessons Tim learned in Africa, an ebook entitled Marketing Your Overseas Non-Profit was written and designed in 2016 to help expats working with various non-profits around the world. A survey was created and sent out to understand more the needs of expats serving mostly in non-profit capacities.

Christian Colleges

Having felt a calling towards using media in missions during his college years (at Cedarville, Ohio 1991-1995), Tim began to visit Christian colleges in order to share his vision of media missions. Moody Bible Institute invited Tim to participate in their missions week in October of 2016 as it was focusing more of its attention on media and in December of 2016 he visited Corban University in Salem where he spoke to students in the media department. He has also spoken or visited with media department staff or students at George Fox University, Point Loma Nazarene, Biola University and Northwest University.

Missions Conferences

Local missions conferences also seemed a natural place to talk about media in missions and he presented workshops at Seattle Missionsfest in October 2016 as well as Mission Connexion in Portland in January of 2017 & 2019 and Student Connexion in Portland in November of 2018.

Organizational Growth

The first person to be called an Expat Media Pro was Josh Burton. Based in Arizona, Josh was attending Arizona State University and interested in missions. He and Tim met through Josh’s mom who worked at Frontiers. 

In May 2016 the “candidate” position was created for media/missions-interested people who were looking for potential opportunities. This included Darin Dunn (who Tim met at EMDC in Chiang Mai), Anni Graham (a photographer and TCK finishing up studies at Simpson), Mason Unrau (met at EMDC, a student at Prairie Bible in Canada) and Josh Burton. Nathan Bartz (TCK and son to Bob Bartz whom Tim met at EMDC) became a candidate in October 2016.

After a good initial chat and connection in Chicago at Moody Bible Institute in Oct 2016, Kayla Dutton (now Newport) joined Expat Media Pro in December 2016. Kayla grew up in Greece as a missionary kid and is a photographer and filmmaker. She came to Portland in Sept 2017 to help with some of the visioning while Theresa Hodge (in Spain with ) joined us through Zoom though she is not raising funds through EMP. She is the first person (other than Tim) to begin raising funds through EMP.

By mid 2017 a multi-tiered participation approach allowed for the following: 

1. “Expat Media Pros” (fundraising & vetted through EMP)

2. “Associates” who we network with but don’t have a stake in EMP

3. “Candidates” who are seeking placement in short or long-term capacity

The advisory board at the time included Tim Cowley (founder & EMP), Kayla Dutton (Candidate & EMP) and Therese Hodge (Associate). By October of 2017 Tyler Shaum, Brock Lockenour and Aaron Betts were added as “Candidates”. Upon graduation, Josh married and moved to California and seemed to lose interest in media missions work. 

Ian Lammi grew up at the crossroads of Europe and Asia in a family involved in great commission work. Nine years ago he felt that God may be putting Japan on his heart, specifically with a goal of using his art skills. He joined YWAM and moved to Japan and has been officially a part of EMP since Jan 2019 to help with support raising & community.

James Taves joined EMP in March of 2019 after a good face-to-face chat between Tim & James in Indiana. He is currently working on a film project in Vanuatu. 

Craig Forrest of Matchstick Media joined up in March as well. He does a lot of speaking and training.

Jordan Rowland was cleared to raise funds in Sept 2019. He plans to support various ministries in the Caucasus region in 2020 and beyond.

Jacob Mau, a friend and colleague of Tim’s through the leadership team of the Refugee Highway Partnership North America, also joined in September 2019 with plans to continue producing a podcast focusing on the stories of challenges faced by refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. His first series was crowdfunded and is working on formalizing fundraising for series 2 and beyond through EMP.

I feel like we are beginning to see, five years into this venture, in what ways EMP is being used:

1. As a tool to help creatives raise funds through non-profit means (though it is usually only one of several methods each independent creative uses). It is often combined with membership in a mission agency (Frontiers, YWAM) or through crowdfunding places like GoFundMe.

2. As a networking place to learn about job opportunities, groups in need of media help overseas (or more local), tips and tricks on media-related matters, travel info, etc.

3. As a way to match up content creators with editors through NGOstock.com (though not currently being done well).

4. As a way to help share a vision with students and others who want to use their media skills in missions and/or ministry.

And here are some ways that it is NOT being used:

1. As an official-looking agency to lend credibility to a creative working overseas. Instead, it often supplements the organizations that have been set up simultaneously (like MatchStick Media or the Beyond Soundbites podcast).

2. As a creative agency in which we collaborate together on a particular project.

3. As an effective tool to funnel creatives into mission agency needs directly.

Connections Made, Groups Served
partial list, gives an idea of the kinds of connections we are making

• Dec 2018 - a group working in India doing Bible translation was in need of a whiteboard artist who could help them illustrate Bible passages for an Indian language for a localized video project. Through this group we found someone based in Australia, then later Ian Lami picked up the project.

• Mar 2019 - The Refugee Highway Partnership North America was in need of a graphic designer in March 2019 to help them design something for their upcoming roundtable conference in Toronto coming up in October. Thanks to this group they found someone!

• Mar 2019 - Tim was able to help edit together 5 videos for Missio Nexus' On Mission virtual conference (Allan Matamoros, Von Golder, Jeff Neely, Nate Scholz & Brian James). They were able to serve 1,500 viewers from 33 countries!

• 2019 - Casa Compasiva A.C. in Oaxaca, Mexico linked up through our group with a student videographer, Bryant Hyun at Azusa Pacific, who was able to shoot and edit

• 2019 - Jim Meyer of Gemstone Media referred a project to us focusing on the Roma people of Kosovo, sponsored in part by the Kosovo Ministry of Culture. It appears that someone from within our Facebook community may end up directing it.

• Aug 2019 - I heard from Brethren in Christ World Mission who was looking for a videographer to shoot b-roll and interviews with a Muslim background believer in Mangochi, Malawi. Grateful for my friend Muti who put me in touch with a friend of his based in Lilongwe.

Branding

Considerations

1. What are some things that come to mind with our current logo?

2. How does it help our cause? Or hurt it?

3. What are the positive and negative elements of the name?

4. Does the tagline make sense?

5. Is it time for a refreshed logo? Tagline? Name even?

The branding behind Expat Media Pro focuses on a few things:

1. It is mainly focused on “expats”, or those living outside of their home culture

2. We are all involved in media in some way (video, photography, graphic design, social media management, journalism, etc.)

3. We bring a level of professionalism to our work that separates us from others

The logo I chose did not have much thoughts into it, especially since I was mainly aiming for my own needs at the time; it was simply an inexpensive fast design using tailorbrands.com.

Looking at our core values and reason to exist, I believe it is important that we maintain the following elements:

• Cross-cultural in focus (mainly, but not exclusively in all we do... This does not necessarily mean it must be overseas especially as the diaspora is now all around us.)

• Decidedly Christian, but cautious in how and where we share this in public due to the fact that we may have EMPs working in sensitive locations

• Creative arts focused, but within limitation. For example, do we not attempt to act as a hub for music and theater, etc. How do we distinguish ourselves?

• We all agree to not participating in creating media that has a negative imagery focus, staying away from ‘poverty porn’ and similar styles

Feedback:

Wordsmith something that covers the overall network we are trying to build. Expat Media Pro becomes a project underneath the larger network, a means to help creatives from the U.S. get projects done.

Words that were tossed around include: Global, international, nations, peoples, Creatives, design, digital, Value, honor, love, dignity, Faith, opportunity, League, collaborative, network, society, collective, partnership, Common good, serve church, Identifying needs, solving problems

Possible new names could include: Global Creative Guild, Global Creative Guild of Disciples, Global Apostolic Creatives Guild, Global Apostolic Creatives Collective, Global Creatives Collective, Global Digital Media Disciples, Collective of Global Creatives in Mission, Disciples in Global Media Outreach (GlobalMediaOutreach.com already taken), S.I.M.P.L.E. - Society of International Media Peoples Looking to Engage, Global Media Teams

In terms of thinking this through from the larger perspective of the network we are trying to build...
“Expat” is an insider term and doesn’t account for the people we are trying to reach out to and work with in other countries
“Pro” would leave out people like Von who don’t feel that they fit that monicker. Seems to indicate payment is forthcoming.

Available domain names include: simplecreatives.net, .org or simplecreatives.partners or .group. | GlobalCreative.media, .club or .group