Youth Work USP

What is your Youth Work USP? What do you bring to the table that other young people’s activities don’t?

Often completely alien to the compassion and chaos of the youth work world is the cold and competitive rigours of business. The latter is where USP – that’s unique service provision or unique selling point – comes from.

You might believe that business, sales and marketing strategies should have nothing to do with Christ-saturated youth ministry. You may believe that I’m leading you into a callous, sub-biblical and secular world of professionalism. You may also believe that I’ve simply watched too many episodes of The Apprentice – which might possibly be true!

The truth is, however, that you are probably already employing such strategies – albeit under the guise of mission statements, vision casting and prayer meetings. Business uses different language to ask effectively the same question: how can we best steward resources to have the biggest possible effect?

USP is key to this and incredibly important to nail if you want to succeed in youth work.

If you cannot clearly articulate and communicate what it is that your programs uniquely offer to young people that is above all the other trappings of the world, then they have no reason to join you.

If you can’t say loud and proud what makes your offerings so much better than a Friday night on the slosh, or a Sunday morning xbox fest, then it could account for why you only have three people showing up!

Too many youth programs hide their unique services and values under generic activities that are also provided by just about every other competing activity. Live music and entertainment can be gotten from loads of places – it’s called youtube and a sneaky pint.

Your Youth Work USP

What is it you do that other potential activities don’t?

– Do you offer a safe and compassionate community where outcasts are welcome and accepted?
– Is it direction on how to connect to the maker of the universe?
– Are you giving opportunities to feed the poor and help the homeless?
– Do you give help becoming a holistic person?
– Are you offering the key to fulfilment found in Jesus?

What is your USP? Find it, nail it, and clearly communicate it!

The USP of one of my groups is a welcome invitation to be part of a family that takes care of each other and seeks truth together. This means my ‘youth group’ works for ages 11-25, and is full of both fun activities and spiritually searching worship and study.

This USP attracts many young people who feel isolated and rejected in their own family, and it attracts those who are interested in philosophy and spirituality more generally. The USP drives what we do each night and helps form the culture of questioning, mentoring and peer-to-peer care outside the meeting times. We’ve seen many young people saved from this group!

If you want to attract spiritually aware, community producing, open-to-Jesus young people – then ‘market’ that as your USP in all of your publicity materials. That niche will be on the lookout and they will come!

Once you have developed and grown those young people, then you can set your sights broader as young people will always attract more young people. Too many of us do that backwards – start with an impossibly broad club that competes with secular groups and then try to niche it down. We overfeed on hype which seemingly works well for a couple of years (without a lot of commitments to Jesus to show for it), then we crash, burn and close down.

Find your USP! Be proud of it. Market to it and develop those who come. Then you can build a broader mission strategy off the back of that community. Winner.

More info

If you’d like to think about how to find your USP, check out an article I wrote for leadanyone.com here. If you’d like personal help developing your USP, understanding how to more clearly articulate it or building a group off it, then get in touch via the training page. Thanks!