About Global Leadership Network
The Global Leadership Network runs one of the world’s largest Christian leadership events while engaging churches as host sites and nurturing a donor base. After a season of disruption, the organization needed sharp focus across B2C tickets, B2B host sites and fundraising. Fervor delivered a Brand Impact Assessment (BIA), Ideal Advocates™, validated messaging and a runnable plan, then helped GLN “graduate,” equipping its internal team to carry the work forward for sustainable, long‑term growth.
A Movement with Many Audiences
The Global Leadership Network (GLN) is best known for the Global Leadership Summit (GLS), a multidecade movement that has reached roughly four million leaders. In a recent year, 65–70k people attended in the U.S., and a nationwide network of about 450 churches served as host sites. While approximately 95% of attendees identify as Christian, they span distinct contexts—church, ministry and marketplace—creating both opportunity and complexity.
~4M
leader reached
65-70k
U.S. attendees
~450
host churches
Audience mix: ~95% Chrisans across church, ministry, marketplace
Dual engine revenue: tickets + donors (~40% from donors)
GLN’s revenue model reflects that breadth: ticket sales drive operations alongside a significant donor component (around 40% of revenue). This means communications must work simultaneously for three constituencies: individual attendees, host churches and donors. It’s an uncommon load for any marketing team.
Fervor + Global Leadership Network
Too Many Messages, Not Enough Focus
By 2022, those multiple tracks had produced messaging sprawl. GLN was “trying to be all things to all people,” and campaigns accumulated “dozens” of CTAs competing for attention. Post‑2018 reputational challenges and COVID’s impact on live events had nudged the team toward casting the widest possible net—well‑intended, but ultimately dilutive.
“We were inundating our audience with inconsistent and unfocused messages. We were trying to do too many things.”
Without a clearly understood primary customer, the organization struggled to prioritize where to aim copy, creative and budget. The turnaround required naming who mattered most and building everything else outward from that center.
Fervor Helped Idenfy Ideal Advocates and a Sharper Promise
Together we aligned on a pivotal truth: serving the senior pastor of a local church is the ministry’s greatest passion and the keystone to the Summit’s growth. That singular concept reframed planning calendars, campaign goals and content tone. Next, we consolidated a long list of potential personas into a lean set of Ideal Advocates™ who would help us reach those senior pastors. Through interviews and survey testing, we validated them and their preferences so the language would land.
We codified a message map and three brand pillars. As Robert shared during the interview, “our team felt so heard by the Fervor team,” and “the three brand pillars that Fervor came up with were spot on and we still reference those pillars today.” The BIA translated their plan into channel‑ready guidance so GLN could run their marketing efforts immediately.
Strategy That Becomes a Playbook You Can Actually Use
Fervor began by mapping business objectives (tickets, host sites, donors) to an audience hierarchy, then refined Ideal Advocates through stakeholder interviews and survey validation. We pressure‑tested messaging with that research and iterated the pillars and copy accordingly. The Brand Impact Assessment assembled it all—positioning, competitive analysis, message testing, channel plans, budget and team structure guidance—into one executable playbook.
Implementation happened in parallel with an internal rebuild. Whitney Putnam, VP of Marketing & Communications, notes: “Fervor did a really good job with the BIA. Where Fervor brought a lot of clarity for who we are talking to. Over the years who you talk to can morph or get diluted, Fervor helped solidify. In the meantime Fervor helped us continue to serve our customers really well during the transition.”
We overlapped web and campaign support, advised on org structure and transitioned channel by channel to ensure GLN could truly graduate.
Early Wins, Durable Behaviors
Turnarounds take time and GLN has chosen a marathon mindset. Robert explained: “we’ve seen a significant increase in churches signing up to host the Summit which has laid a strong foundation for growth into the future.” Inside the department, Ideal Advocates and the brand pillars are literally posted on walls and used to pressure‑test campaigns: “which advocate are we serving?”
Perhaps the quietest yet strongest impact is onboarding speed of GLN’s marketing team. Whitney shared that the Brand Impact Assessment “has been a cornerstone for her and her transition to taking on the leadership of the marketing function here… getting up to speed more quickly and having clarity around who our customers are, what our messaging should be.” Competitive clarity also improved; centering on purpose‑driven leadership sharpened differentiation against look‑alike events.
Strategy, Implementation, Partnership
“We are still using Ideal Advocates today… our marketing team has them posted up in the office, and we keep coming back to them. When we talk about campaigns, initiatives, and messaging we’re going back to ‘which advocate are we serving?’” – Robert Yi
“Fervor was an extension of our team. I felt supported by every person I worked with at Fervor, I feel like they brought clear, smart strategy to the table. They brought quality work and deliverables to the table. But really and truly it came down to all of the people on the Fervor team. I knew that they were in our corner.”
“We level set where they were and showed healthy sustainable growth.”
“Healthier today than they were yesterday.”
“While building sustainability inside they had a partner working on the outside.”
Measured Steps Toward Meaningful Growth
Host Sites: +14% year-over-year growth
With a combination of acquisition and retention, they reactivated and expanded partner locations through a refreshed outreach, toolkits and a consistent engagement rhythm.
Internal Capacity: Built to Sustain in 24 months
Fervor embedded as part of the team to rebuild roles, processes and reporting, then tapered to an advisory role as GLN confidently took the wheel.
Organizaonal Clarity: Targets + Messaging, locked in
A shared language and focused audience strategy—plus a trusted guide to keep it aligned—turned scattered effort into coordinated growth.
Outcome: Priceless.
Graduate to Sustainable Growth
Ready to move from chaos to clarity—and keep it that way? Fervor embeds as a true extension of your team, not just a vendor. In the early phase, we shoulder the load where you have gaps: establishing your messaging hierarchy, building a prioritized marketing roadmap and leading day-to-day execution across channels. We set the weekly cadence, define roles and approval paths and stand up the tool stack you’ll keep using—dashboards, content calendars and campaign templates. With GLN, that meant serving as a larger part of the marketing team while they rebuilt internal capability and capacity: we wrote and refined the core story, launched campaigns, documented workflows and coached new hires in real-time.
As your capacity grows, we don’t just “handoff”, we taper intentionally. We shift from owners to co-owners to advisors, moving responsibilities to your staff with clear playbooks, recorded trainings and measurable checkpoints. Creative briefs, channel plans and reporting templates become yours; we stay focused on higher-leverage support like quarterly planning, message stewardship and optimization reviews. By design, our involvement scales down as your team takes over more. The result: a durable system, a confident team and a marketing engine you can sustain long-term.