The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas is part of the Episcopal Church, a Christian community of 2.4 million members in America and abroad. Each Diocese, or geographic region of the Episcopal Church, functions under a bishop, currently the Rt. Rev. David M. Reed, who has jurisdiction over the entire Diocese. In West Texas, their 87 congregations include parishes, missions, a church plant and a worshipping community. Recognizing their cultural diversity in South Central Texas, their members are diverse, and their worship is increasingly reflective of their bicultural communities.
The Challenge
Before using FellowshipOne, the staff at the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas used two different systems that didn’t “talk” to each other. Caroline mentions that their data was incorrect, and they had over 20 years of band-aides to collect and keep information. She states, “Everyone had their own spreadsheet of information. So when leadership changes happened at a church (which occurs every year for the laity), there were at least seven different people or places where changes needed to be made.”
The Solution
To solve the problems they were facing, the staff and clergy at the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas identified their needs and then ranked them by “critical, important, and nice to have.” Next, they shopped vendors online and evaluated what other dioceses and churches were doing. Caroline says they had about five different companies they were looking at to meet their needs.
They ended up selecting FellowshipOne Go for their church management software (ChMS), FellowshipOne Giving for their online giving platform, and FellowshipOne Calendar to help with their scheduling. She states that “the applications were easy to use, could be designed to fit our needs, and most importantly, could do everything we needed in one connected platform.” Because FellowshipOne is an integrated solution, it helps coordinate everything this diocese needs in its daily operations.
Caroline is especially pleased with how FellowshipOne was able to address their challenges. “We can group people, places, and committees and have registrations with or without payment. We are now able to share calendars and have volunteer shifts and schedules. We are also able to find information because our data is now clean. All of this is no longer a mystery that one person holds.”
The Result
The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas had thousands of records; of the 50,000 records, 20,000 of them were “bad data” or incorrect. However, with just a few clicks in FellowshipOne, they were able to clean up all the data easily.
Caroline mentions that “the biggest issue was finding information and who had it. Now, we all have the information at our fingertips; we can access it through the mobile app too!” FellowshipOne’s church management platform is designed for effective, long-term success in church administration. Caroline and the team are seeing this firsthand, allowing them more time for ministry with a suite of tools that enable many tasks to be automated and accessible online.
One of the most significant benefits of using their integrated FellowshipOne Giving platform is that their donations have increased from an average of $150 per month to an average of $17,000 for the various ministries and registrations which can be easily seen in the FellowshipOne Giving Dashboard. By making giving easy for the donor with multiple digital giving options, they have experienced growth in generosity.
A Heartfelt Recommendation
Because of Caroline’s experience with FellowshipOne, she highly recommends this solution to other churches and dioceses. She says, “If I can help others understand and move forward to a solution that will help them avoid headaches, bad data, and being sold stuff they can’t use, count me in!”
Caroline appreciated how the FellowshipOne team took their time, stating that the sales, technical, and customer support teams were kind, supportive, understanding, and very patient from the beginning through implementation and data conversion. She mentions, “Even after we started using FellowshipOne Go and Giving, along with the calendar, your help desk has been amazing at answering questions and helping us find a way.”
Moving Forward
If you’re looking for transformative applications which combine people, places, events, registration, and donations all in one system, FellowshipOne is the solution for your ministry. According to Caroline, she says the team is “amazing to work with, and frankly, made me a believer that you can have everything you need in one place.”
FellowshipOne church management is an easy-to-use, integrated cloud-based platform designed to help streamline your ministry so you can focus on engaging and empowering your church and community, not administration. Contact us today to learn more about how our church software can move your mission forward.