Hello Friends - and welcome to November! I’m David Hively and I’m one of the Program Support staff at ELCA coaching. Thank you for the good and faithful work that you are doing in empowering leaders who power the church. By now, I hope you’ve heard us mention that we will be asking you to provide us with some data from your coaching work in 2022. In just a moment, I’ll be covering exactly what data we will be asking for, and how we intend to collect it.But first - I want to talk for a moment about why we are doing this: Keeping track of your coaching relationships is an important habit to develop - not only because that information will be critical if you decide to seek ICF certification, but also because it gives you a chance to look back on your coaching and celebrate the good work that you’ve been a part of. Second, this data will help us evaluate our progress in our efforts toward diversity, equity, inclusion, and wholeness in our work together. Every step of growth begins with an honest assessment of where we currently are. And, as Jill had mentioned previously - the information we are asking you to share will help us tell the story of how we are investing in people and the impact that we are having on ministry across the country. These statistics will be examined by the people who make budget decisions in our office. And in turn, that affects the ability we have to pour back into our leaders and into you as coaches. So here’s the plan: On or about December 15th, every coach that we have an email address for will be sent a link to a Google form. That form will be available until Jan 15th of 2023 and will ask for totals for the year in the following categories:Number of coaching relationshipsNumber of coaching hoursCoaching relationships with: people outside the ELCA, young adults, youth, Latine, African Descent, Asian, Arabic or Middle Eastern, Native or Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ people. We’ll also ask about coaching relationships in the wider community and with people not connected to a faith community.  If you’ve been using our data collection tool that we rolled out this summer, these numbers will already be automatically calculated for you - they will be at the bar right at the top of the spreadsheet. Also, the full list that I just read off, along with a few helpful definitions are all available in the FAQ document that’s linked in this video’s transcript and email. One thing that I do want to stress about this data: We take your clients’ privacy seriously. We recognize that in certain circumstances, even the demographic information of your clients can be sensitive. That’s part of the reason that we are asking for the data in this way - anonymized by you, the coach, and presented only in aggregate. We know anecdotally of the incredible ways coaching strengthens the Church, and helps us live into the ELCA’s vision to connect with new, young, and diverse people. This data will help us more fully tell that story and be better equipped to walk alongside you in this important and meaningful work. Keep changing the world one coaching conversation at a time.