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October 21, 2020Ordinariate parish communities in the U.S. have game-changing opportunities for growth and evangelization of their flocks by adopting two critical tools: an eCatholic website and Flocknote. And during the pandemic, having these tools is more vital than ever.
As a member of St. Alban’s Catholic Church, the Ordinariate parish community in Rochester, N.Y., I’ve had an opportunity to have hands-on experience with both these tools and to see the difference they have made. There are other great technologies out there, and more coming down the pike, but what I'm discussing here are the results I've seen based on actual experience with the Flocknote and eCatholic platforms.
Let’s start with eCatholic: Every church needs outdoor physical signage that is attractive and inviting enough for a person to cross the threshold. The digital signage of the church, the website, is no different. In fact, it’s even more vital as the digital realm is where people are going to check out your church first.
The beautiful thing about eCatholic websites is they are highly adaptable and easy for parish volunteers to design, update, and deploy. The website’s interface automatically adjusts to whether the visitor is using a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone. The eCatholic templates are always updating, so your church can have a site that is engaging, beautiful and inviting them to check out your community. The ACS website is an eCatholic website, and the results speak for themselves in my view.
The rule of Catholic websites is less is more. Most Ordinariate communities would only need the eCatholic basic package ($20/month for up to 25 pages according to the pricing page), because people want to have essential information they can get to quickly.
If you need help making all your content look beautiful and organized, the great thing is that eCatholic has plenty of talented people to help you get the job done. Perhaps most importantly of all, they have excellent responsive customer service to work out any challenges along the way. I’ve worked with them in transforming St. Alban’s website and the ACS website, and can assure you they are a joy to work with.
Second, consider adopting eCatholic Payments – Parishes today need to have a robust online giving platform. We’re living in a generally cashless society (greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic) that is going to go walletless. The US does not have “Tap & Pray” collection plates like churches in Europe but we’re headed there because few people are routinely carrying cash. And parishes need to realize that they’re missing most potential givers unless they offer a way for people to give their money according to the mode that they spend it.
Any number of giving platforms can integrate with an eCatholic website, but I can recommend from experience eCatholic Payments as it integrates easily with the website and is designed to serve the needs of parishes. It’s smooth and easy process for people who land on your website, which is how they expect it to be. People lose patience if giving to the church is more complicated than online shopping. And again, it makes life easy for your parish’s authorized finance personnel on the backend, especially when it comes to sending out those annual tax-deduction receipts or quarterly pledge giving updates.
All-in-all, eCatholic has plenty of additional services from homepage makeovers to digital stewardship services that are aimed at making your parish community succeed in its mission. That’s great news.
Most importantly, get Flocknote.
My parish St. Alban’s came out of New York’s lockdown with more parishioners than we had going in – not only did we sustain the flock, we grew it. There are a lot of factors that went into it, but without a doubt a huge part of the reason is Flocknote.
Flocknote is an awesome service allows you to reach your flock directly via text message and email. Both are extremely vital tools, and you want both. Email allows your parish to communicate directly with your flock for regular messages and segment the audience. You can organize audiences from “Everyone” to the “Bible Study” or the “Zoom Evensong” groups. Flocknote also has settings so you can require permission/authorization for people to join. It also functions as a great intranet. It’s a great asset for a parish that wants the best Safe Environment communications practices.
The text message service is another vital tool that works well to immediately reach people in a targeted way: from everyone on your list to the people on the prayer team. We’ve used it to remind people about Holy Days of Obligation, special events, and when Mass is cancelled. People have routines, and can forget some announcements: that Flocknote text message reminder “No Mass tonight – Father is at the Ordinariate Clergy Assembly. Please keep our bishops & priests in prayer!” can save your parishioners time and make them feel closer as a parish community. The text service makes a real difference that I’ve seen up close as we’ve had a number of events where I realized “we really needed to send a Flocknote text reminder for this one.”
Is there a balance to using Flocknote emails and texts – absolutely! But the great thing is that Flocknote has great people sharing their knowledge of best practices. The Finding Uno podcast is a great resource to answer these questions. And the Flocknote staff are regularly holding online training sessions for parish volunteers, whether they’re new to Flocknote or seasoned veterans like myself.
Flocknote again is very easy for parish communications volunteers to learn and operate. You don’t need a manual to accompany it and tell you how to use a digital product. And even if you get stuck or have a question, Flocknote (as you might have guessed) has wonderful, responsive customer support. The product is highly oriented toward your parish succeeding in its mission to keep the Body of Christ united and spread the Gospel.
Flocknote pricing is on a sliding scale depending on the size of your contact list. It starts free for under 40 member contacts, $8/mo. for 41-50 members, $14/mo. for 51-70 members, $20/mo. for 71 – 100 members, $33/mo. for 101 – 200 members; $46/mo. for 201 – 400 members, and it goes up from there as well. It’s truly worth the investment, particularly when more people are showing up to your parish to hear the Gospel and are contributing to its support. And Flocknote’s tools allow parish volunteers to see who’s engaged and who’s not, so you can make sure your messages are still relevant to people on your list.
Bottom line: Adopting these products is my advice for Ordinariate parish communities based on real, personal experience with eCatholic and Flocknote. It’s a powerful combo. Now, if your parish has a beautiful website and online giving combination that is working great for you, then build on that success. But at the very least, based on my personal experience, I can tell you: get Flocknote. It’ll transform your mission – and in my view, really help expand the Ordinariate – and above all help you stay connected to the people you’re forming to follow Jesus Christ.
Peter Jesserer Smith is the ACS Vice President and Webmaster. As a journalist for EWTN's National Catholic Register, he also covers technology developments for the Catholic Church's evangelization.
