How Your Website Can Better Serve You and, (more importantly) Your Mission

Once a church or and school publishes their website it can become easy to forget about updating it, or, utilizing its real potential. First, use every opportunity possible to promote your website and be sure there is a reason to visit once visitors arrive. In this newsletter I will focus primarily on strategies that are primarily focused toward your parishioners/congregation, parent and students.

Remembering the purpose of the website is a good place to start. Everything a church or school does should be about evangelization, discipleship, and especially for a private school: enrollment and advancement. Therefore, knowing how to use your website for these purposes is important.

There are three challenges facing churches and schools today:

• How can we increase involvement or increase the engagement level of our parishioners, community members, students and parents?
  
• How can we communicate more effectively
  
• How can we reduce costs and increase revenue?

Used wisely, your website can produce real and meaningful results in all three categories. I will share easy strategies that will maximize the technology that is literately at your finger tips. Keep in mind that these are only ideas and the possibilities are limitless! All you need to do is dream and it likely can be done!

Involving of current members/students & families:

74% of Americans use the internet and 70-89% if these use it for get information and news. Here are suggestions for ways your site can meet this interest:

Have a section for faith formation and education topics. Teachers can post assignments and helpful links on various subjects.

Post faith-based articles, Catholic prayers, and bios of important saints that change with the seasons

Identify resources for those who may need support including grief counseling, respite services, mental health resources, or social services. Linking members to outside services sends a message that the Church cares about them.

Link to worthy off-site agencies such as Catholic Charities, the Mental Health Association, or other community program that works the meet the physical needs of our community

Add information and links about current events and Church teaching, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has many resources such as a pages for marriages and social justice

Over 50% use the internet looking for fun and have watched video clips or listen to podcasts. This percentage increases as the demographic gets younger. Can your website offer activities are fun for all ages?

• Create a video to promote future events
  
• Record the weekly homily or a message from the principal, pastor, or church member
  
• Plan ahead and create podcasts on the readings for Lent, asking students, parents, and other members to offer their own insights
  
• Everyone likes games! There are many free online games, with and without a religious theme that can enhance your site. Create your own trivia game and place answers elsewhere on your site or on Sunday morning. Offer a prize.
  

Other ideas for increasing membership involvement include:

Create a link to an online survey to ask about recent events, interests or ideas. Surveymonkey offers is an easy tool to learn and is free.

• Have a place to post prayer requests
  
• Do you have a virtual tour of your facility? Highlight the unique architecture, history, or accessibility of your campus
  
• Each teacher in the school or department/organization should have their own page on the site. Homework, meeting minutes and upcoming events can be posted.
• Provide Homilies/Sermons or other message for those who are traveling or spend the winter in warmer areas of the country or for the college student or alumni of the school, creating a Podcast (digital recording) is easier than you think!
  
• Provide links for families and individuals promoting opportunities and activities to serve the community; include a brief write up from others who have participated in the past.
  
• Ministry to the homebound can be extended through a parish website. Daily/weekly messages can be posted or a ‘contact form’ can be used to promote regular communication with those with limited access to face-to-face involvement.
  
• Create a ‘homework’ help page on a school site
  
• Parent Pages can also be a great way to engage new families in the school community.
  
• Install a bulletin board. With a bulletin board members can post all kinds of information such as: rides needed, babysitters needed, babysitting services, for sale or wanted items, tutoring services. These are only a few of thousands of possibilities!
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The more people feel connected to your parish or school, the more likely they are to participate and support your organization with their time, talent, and treasure.

Effective Communication

The message of your Church or your school is the best there is, how is it getting out there? The weekly bulletin or monthly school newsletter may be posted to your site, yet, there is still so much more to your mission than what is contained in there. 74% of all Americans use the internet and of these, 91% use email. Check out these ways your site can better use email:

Collect emails through your website from current households, seekers, school families, or alumni.

• Manage email lists properly and do not share emails with other institutions/vendors.
  
• Send news, announcements, or personal messages for birthdays, anniversaries, first day of school, etc.
  
• Invite visitors to your website via email when updates have been made
  
• Set-up an email discussion group

In addition to email, social networking is quickly increasing in popularity. 35% of internet users use sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. You, too can create a presence which can create a relationship between your parish/school and your membership as well as potential members.

Get on Facebook and/or other popular social networking site. Organizations can have a site and people become “fans” rather than “friends” but it works the same way. Each program update added to your group’s Facebook will forward to all its ‘fans.’ (Be sure to add this link to your website too!)

Does your site provide enough visual stimulation? Websites need to do an exceptional job explaining their mission and activities both in words and visually. It must be inviting, especially for the under 30 crowd.

Brief bios of staff with email contact information is important. Pictures will also enhance your message. (Note: Security is of utmost importance. Never provide contact information of those under 18 years of age. Each staff/leader listed should have an email connected to your church’s domain not a personal one; and telephone numbers must be for the church). Invite the youth already involved write for the web-site (final editorial approval rests with you!)

Post meeting minutes from various parish meetings: parish council, youth groups, seniors etc. These can either be accessed by anyone, or can be password protected so that only member of that group can view them. (This saves on postage and printing).

Saving Money & Increasing Revenue

Every website can save its owner money and generate revenue if the following are kept in mind:

#1 – Print less paper! Paper and ink prices are sky-high and most of what we print ends up in the recycling bin anyway! Get people in the habit of going to your website for program information, meeting minutes, and the parish/school calendar to reduce printing large quantities. Distribute a half sheet of paper (and email) to direct students, parents, and your congregation to the website for the latest calendar, program registration, or information. Compared to printing hundreds (or even thousands) of sets of calendars and other handouts this will save 100s of dollars.

#2 – Email program updates, newsletters, and forms to be completed rather than mail them. Allow for online registration, user can then print a copy for themselves. You can even have a form that can be filled in online and be delivered to you electronically. This will decrease waste and time. One organization with a 500-person mailing list saved over $3000 in one year by eliminating their 4xs a year newsletter and converting to an e-newsletter that they now send monthly via email and post it to their site. They saved money and time, while at the same time, increased the frequency of communication with their members.

#3 – Websites can be equipped to accept payments at low or no cost to you. Donations to the parish or school and fees can be collected electronically. This is more efficient in many ways. Invoices can be automated as well.

#4 – Once the learning curve has been rounded, using today’s technology decreases ‘man hours’ devoted to unproductive tasks (envelope stuffing, stamp licking, or running errands to the store for supplies that you no longer have to purchase.

#5 – Sell stuff. Does your organization have specialized clothing, gift items, or participate in the “Scrip program” ? Each of these can be set up to be sold via your website. The convenience is a plus to the busy adult who only remembers that they want to order something in the middle of the day when it is too late to send the form in with their child. Pay Pal and similar accounts are easy to set up for this purpose.

Each strategy suggested will require some-up front effort but the returns can be enormous. Maintaining these strategies is relatively simple and requires minimal effort. They can also be managed by people in your community.

Lakeside Web Services can help you to implement any of the above strategies at low or no cost to you. Please contact us for more information.

If you have a maintenance contract with us, Lakeside Web Services will never charge you for uploading a document, we will also provide you with a FREE installation of all requirements for any one of the above ideas!

 

Contact us to schedule a free no obligation consultation.