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A Higher Calling…Notification Systems Move from School to Parish Office
(as printed in NCEA's Issue Gram Fall/Winter edition Feb 2012)
The saying goes, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." In this case, what's good for the school is good for the parish. Church leaders across the U.S. are learning how one of the most useful communication tools for schools can help drive increased parishioner involvement.
Since 2002 Catholic schools across the U.S. have embraced automated notification services such as SchoolReach. These systems empower school principals to reach their entire parent community with a timely recorded phone message. First adopted for school cancellations and emergencies, automated school notification systems are now routinely relied upon in a myriad of situations. Uses include meeting reminders, tuition reminders, fundraising, event planning, rumor abatement, and grade-level announcements such as graduation, field trips, Confirmation, and First Communion. New uses for these powerful notification systems are found all the time.
Pastors and parish administrators have taken notice of the systems' power; often recipients of school messages themselves, parish administrators are now embracing automated notification systems to help manage their parish business.
One prime area of use is within the Office of Religious Education. The Office of Religious Ed, responsible for running the religious education courses for parish youth who do not attend the parish school, are frequent users for class cancellations, meeting reminders and other notices. Because these classes most often meet during the evenings, parents need to be contacted with up-to-date information during the day. Reaching parents during the work day can be challenging, and a broadcast notification system which delivers recorded calls, emails and text alerts is the ideal solution. With unlimited phone numbers per person, SchoolReach can call people at home, work and on their cell to ensure messages get to them in a timely fashion wherever they are.
A church is comprised of many ministries and groups, such as Adoration, Altar Society, Servers, Mission Groups, and others such as Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent De Paul, Fish Fry Committee and Athletic Associations. Each of these consists of a leadership team and members. Where there is a group of parishioners there is a communication need.
Many of these organizations find it increasingly difficult to staff critical positions and they are being asked to do more with less. Systems like SchoolReach are the embodiment of "doing more with less" and can empower a single ministry leader to help organize and coordinate the effort of their members. For example, making one call to twenty Adoration members to fill a last minute shift opening makes the task significantly easier on the leader and increases their willingness to serve.
Finally, yearly capital campaigns such as the Annual Catholic Appeal and local fundraising efforts can benefit greatly from an automated notification program. While direct appeals are best made personally, there are many applications within development campaigns - such as kickoff and deadline reminders, meeting reminders, and event reminders/invites that lend themselves well to automated notification.
Whether you have SchoolReach for your school, for your church, or for both, SchoolReach is honored to support the mission of Catholics everywhere. We are a proud partner of the NCEA and we hope to see you in Boston at the Annual NCEA Convention this April. Stop by the SchoolReach booth (B 1004), pick up your complimentary copy of the latest edition of Financing the Mission: A Profile of Catholic Elementary Schools (one per school), and see our commitment to the Catholic market firsthand.