Resurrection Catholic Parish – www.Resurrection-Catholic-Parish.org

When Fr. Bill Moisant approached WWD he had an idea for a new church website that might allow parishioners to interact online in a more meaningful way. He explained that one of the biggest assets of his church community was its parishioners and the many ministries it had. He thought that by enabling parishioners to participate online he could enrich and expand the parishes ministry reach.

What Fr. Bill was describing was an online community or social network geared to the needs of the parish and its members. A special type of website that would allow participation of members that shared a common interest and belief. Flexible enough to accommodate privacy when needed but open enough to foster discussion and participation.

Objectives

The objectives of the new community network:

• Connect people to serving opportunities based on interest or gifts
• Accommodate privacy concerns
• Post prayer requests or needs
• Means for member communication and messaging
• Event scheduling, registration and management
• Join and interact with ministry groups

Target Market

Parishioners, potential new parishioners, past parishioners, other interested Catholics

Services Employed

Strategic Website Design
Social Networks

Results

WWD created an online community for Resurrection Catholic Parish to enrich and expand its ministry reach. The project was centered on creating a Community Network focused around the church community (members), groupings of people (ministries), and relationships forged through participation (discussions/comments) in a way that would lead to spiritual growth.

The online community was built using the Ning social networking platform. The website is public and can be viewed by anyone on the internet but requires membership for participation. Membership requires correctly answering a question about the parish staff in an attempt to reduce spam. Approved members have their own page and profile including a comment wall and other profile information as well as private messaging with other members. Members can individually control privacy over most aspects of their participation. The Home page includes a Welcome Center for new members where Community Guidelines and a New Users Guide helps new members learn where to start. Photo uploads and blog post are disabled except for designated members. Audio uploads of weekly Mass recordings are available for listening.

One of the most important aspects of the online community is the Ministries area. There are 48 ministries that parishioners can join, some of which are private. Ministry Leaders are ministry members that have been given administrative privileges to control the information on the their ministry page. This includes making the ministry private, including discussion forums, and deciding if comments are allowed. Website members are free to join any ministry as long as it’s not private. Ministries focus the discussion to a specific interest shared by ministry members

Social Networking Success

Website visits dramatically increased during the first month the website launched (July 2010) compared to the month prior to launch (June 2010). In addition, over 150 members joined within the first month after website launch.

Site Usage Comparison June 2010 vs. July 2010

Customer Comments

“Willamette Web Design did a terrific job with our parish website! The participatory nature of the online community is allowing our parishioners to engage in new and wonderful ways. In particular, the Ministries area is attracting new members that are collaborating in ways that are furthering our ministry reach.” –Fr. William Moisant, Pastor

Does your current website and internet marketing strategy do this?

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