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2008-11-18 issue:

Task force formed for The Mennonite

Cost-cutting measures include switch to different paper, 23 issues next year.

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

The board of directors for The Mennonite, Inc., wrestled with changing readership patterns of Mennonite Church USA members, accepted a Sept. 30 financial report showing a record level of contributions from readers and responded to an initiative by the Executive Board to create a task force to consider a plan that would move The Mennonite into the Executive Board’s new communication and fund-raising department. The TM board met in Dallas Oct. 24-25 so members could attend the new congregation established by board member Esther Vasquez and her husband, José.

The board learned that declining circulation for The Mennonite is being offset by increasing circulation for several new Internet periodicals. TMail, a free weekly ezine launched one year ago, now has more than 1,000 subscribers and began generating advertising revenue in September. The magazine’s new Web site, launched in June 2007, is setting records for page views each month and began generating advertising revenue in October. The Web site set a record with 10,109 total visits in the month of October. Meno Acontecer, a Spanish-language ezine published once each month in collaboration with Mennonite Education Agency, has 301 subscribers after six months.

The Internet projects are the result of the TM board’s decision two years ago to invest in the “digital” side of news reporting. But The Mennonite magazine—which generated the funds to develop the ezines and Web site redesign—continues to decline in circulation, with slightly more than 10,000 subscribers in November. Circulation manager Rebecca Helmuth reported that the primary reason former subscribers give for not renewing their subscription is the cost.

In response to this trend, the board recommended several actions to cut expenses: switching to a less expensive paper beginning in January 2009 and reducing the number of issues distributed each year. Beginning in 2009, there will be only one issue in July and one in August—the months when advertising is low and many subscribers are on vacation.

However, in years when there is a biennial convention, a second issue will be published in July that covers the convention.

The TM board also responded to an Executive Board proposal to locate The Mennonite within the Executive Board’s new communication and development department. A proposal to form a task force to negotiate such a change emerged from the review of The Mennonite at the Sept. 19 meeting of the Executive Board. In response to the Executive Board proposal, the TM board adopted a statement that says, “The work of the task force should be to describe an editorial policy, the nature of a possible editorial board and how the governance of The Mennonite will operate under the responsibility of the Executive Board, in line with the mission and purposes of The Mennonite as described in the Mennonite Church USA bylaws.”

In other matters, the board agreed to publish three more issues of OurFaith Digest in 2009 and budgeted for a magazine circulation consultant to meet with board and staff members at the March 2009 board meeting.

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