Crafting a Brand Story that Connects

Bill Roberson knows the struggle many ministries face: how to clearly communicate your mission in a way that inspires action and connects deeply with your audience. With over 20 years of experience in nonprofit ministry and organizational storytelling, Bill has guided countless organizations in aligning their message with their mission to drive meaningful impact. At Focus on the Family, he spearheaded initiatives like the groundbreaking SeeLife 2020 campaign, leading the transition from an in-person event to a digital movement, engaging hundreds of thousands and championing the cause of life.

A passionate advocate for equipping the Church to lead in discipleship and family preservation, Bill specializes in helping ministries craft compelling, Gospel-centered narratives that resonate. His approach blends strategic clarity with practical tools, empowering leaders to engage supporters and grow their mission.

Embracing Natural Hair Care

Erin is a mom to four beautiful children both by birth and adoption. She has had the profound privilege of mothering children from different cultures and has learned many important lessons along the way...like taking care of natural, black hair. With several mentors at her side, Erin has become proficient at navigating hair care and has grown a deep love for caring for her kids in this way. She wants every foster and adoptive parent to know that if she can learn the skill, then anyone can!

Transformational Leadership & Effective Board Leadership

Wally serves as the Area Director for Mission Increase Ohio. He has over 30 years of experience in the areas of leadership, organization, and financial development. Wally is passionate about helping organizations fulfill their God-given potential. He holds a BA in Economics and Business from Wittenberg University, as well as a Master’s Degree in Christian Leadership Development from Alliance Theological Seminary. Wally resides in Springfield, Ohio with his wife Anne. They have two grown children and 3 grandkids.

Lessons Learned from Serving Vulnerable Families

Johnna Stein serves as VP of Creative Resources at Promise686, she’s also a TBRI Practitioner, an award-winning children’s writer, and debut author of Untangling Hope, a realistic novel about foster care for kids aged 9-13. About 10 years ago, Johnna and her husband became foster parents and have cared for more than 30 bonus children. They try to keep their home and hearts open to the next child or young adult who needs a soft place to land. {Johnna loves coffee, boxers, underdogs, reading, and playing games. She loves helping churches find their fit in the child welfare continuum and developing resources to equip them to serve.}

Networking for Life: Family Preservation and the Pro-Life Movement

With over a decade of experience in the pro-life feminist movement, Chaney is passionate about making connections between organizations because only together can we help women find health, wholeness, and holiness.  In addition to writing and speaking, she currently works as Assistant Executive Director of Heaven's Gain Ministries, which helps families experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia majoring in Architectural History and Sociology. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband Patrick and cat Amy named after Amy Coney Barrett.

In in for the Long Haul: Volunteer Support

Heather is Director of Volunteer Support and Training at Together for Good. She lives in Minnesota and has been married to her best friend for 17 years, and is a mother to 7 children, through birth and foster care. Heather is passionate about equipping and empowering believers to care for children and families with excellence. 

Creating your coach toolbox: Offering you the tools to maximize personal growth and team effectiveness & The Crisis of Fatherlessness

Ken Norwood is a North Carolina native with thirty years in the non-profit leadership arena. Ken graduated from Clemson University with a career in the packaging industry as a sales rep. After an international mission experience, Ken left his sales career to create a faith-based community outreach to serve at-risk youth and single parent families. Here Ken discovered his passion for creating innovative collaborations that served the needs of the “least”, those marginalized and most vulnerable within society. This dedication and focus thrust him into the public policy debate centered on Welfare to Work programs and national faith-based funding partnerships.

In leadership roles within Focus on the Family, Compassion International and The Navigators; Ken has been blessed to learn from ministry leaders in applying important lessons in servant leadership, developing unique experiences with donors, establishing core strategic engagement, and utilizing his passion for vulnerable children and families to serve the needs of family preservation ministries.

Faithfully Building a Church Culture of Family Preservation: shifting from a program mindset to a ministry mindset

Navy Schrock serves as the Director of Ministry Engagement for New Mercies Ministries.  In her role, she helps grow church partnerships across Northern Indiana as well as collaborates on communications, volunteer, and fundraising strategy.  A graduate of Purdue University Fort Wayne with a degree in marketing, Navy has had the joy of working closely with multiple nonprofits in a variety of work experiences and loves helping support Christ-centered organizations in their messaging efforts. 

Navy calls Fort Wayne, Indiana home and enjoys spending as much time as possible with her family, friends, and church community.  Good stories and podcasts, exploring fun places downtown, and traveling anywhere with mountains are a few of her favorite things!   

Why Can’t They Pull It Together? & Faithfully Building a Church Culture of Family Preservation: shifting from a program mindset to a ministry mindset

Christie Mac Segars, LICSW serves as the Senior Vice President of Domestic Services at Lifeline Children's Services, the largest evangelical child welfare and adoption agency in the United States. She received her bachelor's from Samford University and earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Alabama. During her 20 years of child welfare and social work experience, the Lord has grown her understanding of the value of being made in the image of God. With the goal of equipping the body of Christ to bring gospel hope to vulnerable children and families, Christie Mac leads Lifeline's numerous domestic ministries and partnerships throughout the United States and collaborates with Lifeline's International team serving in 19 countries. She regularly speaks to national groups to bring a better understanding of how pro-life and faith-based communities can come together to care for vulnerable women and children through adoption, foster care, and family preservation work. Christie Mac and her husband Croft live just outside of Birmingham, Alabama and are parents to three daughters, lla, Elizabeth, and Harris.

Soul Care & Shepherding your Volunteers toward Resilience

Melody is a mother of 5 children and has been joyfully married to Jeff Marshall for 20 years. She is the Co-Executive Director for My Village Ministries, a local expression of family preservation, and the Co-Executive Director for Upstream Collaborative, a nationwide collaborative of family preservation ministries. Before this, she has pursued work that allows her to serve vulnerable families in many different capacities. From being a house parent to at-risk teens, to a Paraprofessional for children with special needs, Melody has seen God work all things in her life towards joining the Lord in His heart for the marginalized, the orphan and the widow. It is her great joy now to be a part of mobilizing the church to care for socially isolated families in crisis.

Slow Down + Start Well

In 2018, Ali and her husband, Josh, heard a call from the Lord to repent and follow Him by caring for the lonely and hurting in their community, and together they began serve in family preservation as ministry leads, coaches, and as a host family for My Village Ministries. In 2022, Ali gratefully accepted the opportunity to join the My Village Ministries staff as the Community Coach Lead Supervisor. Ali feels passionate about learning and utilizing the most recent trauma-informed practices to train volunteers to coach families well so that the church can fulfill its mission to proclaim the Gospel and serve the socially isolated. Josh and Ali live in Worthington, Ohio with their three children and various smelly pets, and have been given the opportunity to host 28 children in their home so far through My Village Ministries.

The Pro-Life Movement is Family Preservation

Morgan serves with My Village Ministries in Columbus, Ohio as a Community Coach Supervisor and oversees the Expectant Mother Program. She has helped develop the ministry over the last two years, and has seen exciting growth amongst both church engagement, and Pregnancy Resource Center partnerships. Morgan is passionate about Family Preservation, and is excited to see the church mobilized to serve the socially isolated pregnant moms who chose life. Morgan lives in Gahanna, Ohio with her husband Joel and their four children ages 8, 6, 4, and 10 months. Joel is a pastor at a church in Gahanna, and Morgan loves serving alongside her husband within their local church context. 

Shepherding your Volunteers towards Resilience

Lori has worked with My Village Ministries since they started and is currently a Community coach Supervisor. She grew up as a missionary kid in Colombia, SA and God grew a heart in her for vulnerable kids as her parents hosted a sibling set who were rescued from the streets. She worked for a social enterprise that hired people coming out of incarceration, human trafficking, domestic violence and saw God grow her for parents and families. She is happily married to Phil and they have two girls, Lilly (5) and Ella (1).

Hair Care

Amanda Larry is a freelance artist, wife and Mom. She currently resides in Columbus Ohio with her husband Jeremy and 4 kids.

Gospel Tools & Slow Down + Start Well

Payton recently earned a Master’s in Social Work and has several years of experience in community and clinical counseling. She resides in Columbus, Ohio working as a Community Coach Supervisor and Mentorship lead with My Village Ministries. Through many years volunteering with Young Life as well as through the equipping of the church, she has become passionate about discipleship and encouraging people to discover the fullness of life that Jesus has on offer.

Asking Families, "Do you want to get well"

In 2013 Jeff Chaisson and his wife Frances, co-founded a non-profit to help families at risk. Jeff had over 20 years of social services experience in Florida working with youth struggling with substance abuse and families in the foster care system, while Frances having spent many years working in the project management field. Their backgrounds combined with a passion to make a difference, allowed them to establish a ministry focused on family preservation in their community. The ministry was started in their home and grew quickly. Then in 2016 Salty Church brought them on to their team so that this ministry could continue the mission and  expand to reach many more families in need. The ministry, which is now known as Salty Family Services continues to grow at a rapid pace. Their mission is to Rescue, Serve and Empower families to prevent child abuse and neglect. Since 2016 Salty Family Services has reached over 2000 families and impacted over 3700 children in Volusia and Flagler Counties of Florida. 

Faith in Action: Breakthrough Strategies to Revolutionize Donor Acquisition, Engagement, and Retention for Faith-Based Nonprofits

Arreva has served the nonprofit industry for over three decades, providing ExceedFurther, the first fully integrated and automated All-In-One software platform for Online Fundraising, Donor Relationship Management, Healthcare Hospitality, and Auctions.  Founded by David Blyer, CEO and President, and Susan Packard Orr, Chairman and CTO, this innovative software solution integrates multiple applications into a single unified database, eliminating the need for data transfers between different systems.

ExceedFurther's online applications automatically flow all relevant information into the ExceedFurther donor relationship management system. This system allows you to automatically send custom thank-you acknowledgments and receipts to donors, capture all relevant information into the database, and send notifications to you and/or your entire staff about specific donors and their transactions.

With ExceedFurther, nonprofit organizations gain a single, unified view of every interaction with every stakeholder, providing a 360° view of donors, supporters, and relationships. This holistic view delivers highly valuable, actionable insights and data to guide best practice strategies now and as you scale. This integration enhances donor acquisition, engagement, and retention, and significantly boosts site engagement by keeping donors on your website during every transaction and interaction.

Church Panel

Happily married to his wife, Erin, of 16 years and a father of 4 lively kids, Phil resides in Columbus, Ohio. He has almost 20 years of experience serving vulnerable families/children including being a foster, adoptive, and host parent. He currently is the Co-Director of My Village Ministries out of central Ohio where they seek to accomplish family preservation through biblical hospitality. He also serves as the Co-Director of Upstream Collaborative which is a national collaborative that seeks to better equip family preservation ministries to protect, preserve, and strengthen families through the local church. Additionally, Phil has served as an elder for 5 years at Awaken Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Gospel Tools & Worship Leader

Kimball has been involved in Christian ministry since shortly after he came to Christ as a teenager. He helped plant Awaken Church in Columbus, OH in 2010 and serves at Awaken as a pastor. Through his teen years his commitment and heart for the gospel was formed as God rescued him from a chaotic and sinful life. He’s been involved in evangelistic ministry primarily towards young people since that time. Kimball and his wife Christine have 5 kids (Rowan, Aria, Sienna, Jude, and Margot) and also run a business together.