Update

It took 3 hours to complete uninstall all Office related products from the secretary's PC and reinstall Office 2003 without Outlook and then Outlook 2007 from Comcast and get it installed. -- it took several reboots between each uninstall and reinstall    Machine booted fastest with no Office apps installed.

First launch was still 2-3 minutes for Outlook to open and sat at not responding.  I had to go into the control pane; then mail to delete the previous files/location by removing the profile.  Create a new profile.  Finally it did respond and I was able finish configuration but it took another 5-10 minutes.  Once that was done exited/closed and restarted and it came up quickly.

None of the above would have been requires except there was a bad install of Office XP/2002 and/or Office Publisher separately that was creating problems especially on a Windows VISTA PC.  The PC itself has 2GB RAM and a fair processor so this sloooooooooooooowness was software based.

I switched the DNS servers for the LAN connection to Google 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and that seemed to also help.

I still need to install the 8x8 plugin for Outlook and lastly configure the autologin script I found which will help get it opened faster as well.

Vertical Repsonse (Email, Survey & Postcards)

http://www.verticalresponse.com/pricing/non-profit/

Options are pretty good.

Moving towards an ideal solution - longer term

Currently reviewing several Church Management Solutions (ChMS), CRMs, Broadcast Email/Campaign Marketing Provider, Broadcast Voicemail, Google Apps, Workflow Automation, Automated Customer Service, Survey Solution, etc. to develop an integrated solution for a denomination of churches to handle day-to-day process management of their offices, develop automated or standard work flows, etc.

Specifically preparing them to handle an increase of contacts directly or funneled through a separate web site/phone system that will be backed by a sizable and ongoing community outreach & advertising campaign.  Goal of the campaign is to develop interest and feed/assign prospective members/leads out to local congregations and have them be able to route, process, follow up and be accountable – all online enabled.  This includes tracking and follow up with people with both fall out of the process as well as people who then are transitioned to attendees and later members.

We may specifically need assistance in integrating one of the online SaaS Church Management Solutions (Fellowship One, Community Church Builder, etc) with a CRM and Google Hosted Email apps to track communication/touches out to members and record that to their record.

We are potentially looking for a partner to handle development work to bridge a possible ChMS with a more functional CRM and then automate some workflows in between.

Project Management | Task Management | Google Apps | Social Productivity | Manymoon

Silver bullet for simple Project Management & Gmail, Google Apps integration.

This really looks like it could be a FANTASTIC addition to the tool kit to help better manager projects and tasks that really don't fit into the ERP / ChMS tool but we really need to track/manage and integrate with calendaring and email.

Email This Page/Event/Post/Sermon/Blog Entry Feature

Really want to empower web site readers to be able to easily share items on the church web site.  Sociable plug-in may do this -- but want to make sure it is clear to every visitor and attached to all types of content types whenerever possible.  So "Email This"/"Share" page (or event or news item or sermon or blog post, etc.) that triggers a normal users email mailto: function or possibly records the entry into a trackable database.

Social Media Day

So I've been setting up new unique social media log-ins for St. Augustine's today under the email socialmedia@staugepiscopal.org.

Facebook Account
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter Account
Fickr.com Account
Ping.FM Account

Need to figure out best way to do RSS or Blog Update to post out to multiple simultaneous with links back the main St. Aug Site vs. staying on specific social media site.

Will take some experimentation.

Peter

Expensive tool need to look at further

http://www.unifyer.com/church/default.asp

Some churches are using this to unify communications.  Not sure on the exact functionality and what if any other tools out there may already exist or might be built-into an online crm or ChMS system.  If it is just a one-way tool to post to social network sites -- there are free ones of those.

PhoneTree, Phone Tree, Message Services, Phone Messaging, Voice Messaging, Appointment Reminder, Emergency Notification, Text-To-Speech, Church Communication, Lab Test Results, Phone, Call, Communication by PhoneTree

PhoneTree, Phone Tree, Message Services, Phone Messaging, Voice Messaging,
Appointment Reminder, Emergency Notification, Text-To-Speech, Church Communication,
Lab Test Results, Phone, Call, Communication by PhoneTree

Another outbound voicemail option w/texing too.

Checklist / Tips for 70+ things to consider in a church web site

http://www.internetevangelismday.com/church-site-tips.php

1. Most church websites are designed entirely for their members, or unwittingly exclude non-Christians because of their choice of language and content.
   More  | Extra
2. A good church site must communicate with three very different target groups:
   More  | Extra
3. This ‘three-way stretch’ is a challenge, but can be achieved.
   More  | Extra
4. Take time to consider the needs and viewpoints of non-Christians.
   More  | Extra
5. Avoid all ‘churchy’ jargon and ‘Christianese’ language throughout the site, especially on the homepage.
   More  | Extra
6. Non-Christians may have negative images of Christians: boring, killjoys, judgmental, etc.
   More  | Extra
7. Christian outreach often fails because Christians do ‘megaphone proclamation’ from behind the protecting walls of their ‘ghetto’.
   More  | 2
8. A primary task of the website is to convince non-Christians of these four things:
   More  | Extra
9. Do not think of your church site in isolation, merely as a stand-alone online brochure.
   More 
10. Church is people: the home page should have at least one photo of a church member. This is absolutely foundational to good communication, yet infrequently done.
    More 
11. Internal pages on the site can include photos of both outside and inside of the church building.
    More 
12. Include some ‘meet our members’ pages.
    More 
13. All links, page titles, and sub-headings should sound enticing.
    More 
14. If testimonies are used, they should be completely free of religious jargon, exaggeration and sentimentality.
    More  | Extra
15. Consider a ‘New to this site?’ visitors link on your homepage. This enables you to offer a particular welcome to an outsider.
    More  | Extra
16. Games and fun stuff are attractive and make a site sticky.
    More  | Extra1 | 2
17. Consider adding some ‘bridging’ pages to the site.
    More  | Extra1 | 2
18. Involve your church members in praying and supporting the web design team, and ‘owning’ the site.
    More 
19. Demonstrate a specific welcome for people with disability.
    More 
20. Summing up: the overall impression of the site must of a gentle, loving, enticing welcome. But...
    More 
21. Sadly, it is this issue of welcome and assimilation that frequently breaks down.
    More  | Extra1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
22. The context of your country, area and culture may lead you to apply these principles in different ways. Analyzehow some very effective church sites are using them: Brandywine | Southside | Bridge | King’s Church | Atlanta |North Branch | Questions
23. Church websites are not the only form of web evangelism.
    More  | Extra

    Design

24. Your church site will be the first point of contact for many people in your community. First impressions count.
    More  | Extra
25. Do not place too much information on your homepage.
    More 
26. And all important information should be ‘above the fold’.
    More 
27. Avoid ‘churchy’ graphics – open Bibles, stained glass windows, doves, candles. And appeals for money.
    More 
28. Use at least one graphic of a person’s face on the homepage.
    More 
29. A 3-column layout is often the most suitable for a church site.
    More 
30. Never use an introductory ‘splash page’.
    More 
31. Every page should display the same overall appearance, with the same navigation options in the same place.
    More  | Extra
32. All links, menu options and buttons should be clearly identified as ‘active’ – they should change color when hovered.
    More 
33. If you use Javascript for any effects, ensure everything on the site still works for those with Javascript disabled.
    More 
34. Don’t use frames for site design.
    More 
35. Learn how to use ‘include’ files – a great time-saver.
    More 
36. Also learn how to use CSS.
    More  | Extra
37. Use colors correctly: understand how to choose a color scheme, how colors relate to each other, and what mood they communicate.
    More  | Extra
38. Don’t use patterned graphic backgrounds behind body text.
    More 
39. Consider a ‘liquid’ page design: the content should flow naturally and fit together, at any screen resolution (i.e. size of the monitor screen measured in pixels) or reasonable font resize by a user.
    More 
40. And don’t put ‘best viewed at resolution’ or ‘best viewed in browser Y’ on your website.
    More 
41. Don’t include ‘mailto’ email addresses in plain coding on the site.
    More 
42. Your site need not be large or complex.
    More 
43. Don’t leave out-of-date content online.
    More 
44. Use several people to proof-read for typos and poor grammar.
    More  | Extra
45. Make your pages printer-friendly.
    More  | Extra
46. Take time to assess your target audience, their interests, needs and circumstances.
    More  | Extra
47. Not least, pray – both for planning and implementation.
    More  | Extra

    Your church webmaster/team

48. A church webmaster or team needs a clear job description.
    More The church should encourage the webmaster or web team in their back-room role.
49. What if there is no-one technical in your church, to take on the webmaster role? You can use a pre-designed template system. These also answer the problem of what to do if the only technical person in the church moves on, leaving a website that no-one really knows how to update. Follow ‘Extra’ for a listing of providers and how to assess the features they offer.
    More  | Extra
50. A larger church site can benefit from ‘CMS’ – Content Management which enables multiple users to keep the site updated.
    More  | Extra
51. Learn from others. Help is only a mouse-click away.
    More 

    Readability

52. For normal body text, use black font on a white or near-white background.
    More 
53. Do not used fixed font size in your coding.
    More 
54. Therefore make all font sizes relative, so that users can resize text if they wish.
    More 
55. Choice of fonts is important. The Verdana font is designed for computer monitors, and is widely perceived as the most readable for body text. (Note how upper-case I is distinguished from number 1 or lower-case l.) Test it yourself: view this page in helvetica | arial | default sans-serif | default serif | times new roman | restore verdana.
    More  | Extra
56. Understand how to make your site user-friendly to color-blind and visually-impaired visitors. color tester. More 

    Testing

57. Test your site from a technical viewpoint in different browsers, and at different screen resolutions.
    More 
58. Also test your site with real first-time users. Remember, you know your site backwards. They do not.
    More  | Extra
59. Find non-Christians to critique your site. Yes, non-Christians! They are your primary target audience.
    More 

    Navigation and usability

60. Good navigation allows a first-time non-technical visitor to move round your site easily.
    More 
61. Good navigation gives visitors constant clues to fulfill the vital requirements: ‘Where am I, where have I been, and where can I go’. Many websites, of all types, fail to be effective because they lack a good intuitive navigation system.
    More 
62. Do not offer too many links in your navigation menu.
    More 
63. You can use ‘paper prototyping’ to plan different ways of structuring links within the site.
    More  | Extra
64. Make sure your pages download quickly.
    More 

    Being found – online and physically

65. The title tag in the head of your homepage, which should contain the full name of the church, plus town, state and country.
    More  | Extra
66. Your church name, street, town, area/state, country and phone number should also appear in unabbreviated form in a small font in the footer of your homepage (or preferably every page).
    More 
67. Submit your church site to main search engines and secular directories.
    More  | Extra
68. Make every page of your site a logical entry point to your site.
    More 
69. Framed pages present problems to being listed in search engines.
    More 
70. Ensure the church URL is easy to remember. Take every opportunity to give it a high profile.
    More 
71. Make full use of press releases to local newspapers and radio stations. These should always include your URL. Larger churches can consider publishing regular news using an ‘RSS’ feed.
    More  | Extra1| 2
72. Include clear directions for finding the church. Give details of parking, public transport links, and a map.
    More 

    Responding to emails

73. Ensure that every day, someone reads incoming emails to the church.
    More 
74. Some people may be emailing for help on serious life issues.
    More  | Extra
75. It need not necessarily be the pastor or pastor’s secretary that does this, especially out of hours.
    More 

ACS People is back up and running

I called ACS and the file was ready -- they did not email or it was "lost". Downloaded and imported the backup. Learning the system while updating the member record information to the office copy.

There is a lot of work to be done to sync and improve the data we collect and back fill in things that should be recorded so that they can be reported. Then we need to standardize how certain items are recorded.

One area I already see as a huge impediment to communication to the 18 - 40 (or even older) generation is they don't get emailed or mailed items since they are often listed under the parents physical address or email. I have to learn the process to split them out of the household but keep the familial connection.

UPDATE: Completed the first round of changes transferring info into the database from the maual edits to the office's copy of the member directory.

Google Apps for Enterprise/Non-Profits

Looking into features, cost and configuration:

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry about Google Apps for Non Profits.

U.S. based non-profit organizations with current 501(c)(3) status and under 3,000 users can now qualify for the Free Education Edition of Google Apps. If you represent a U.S. non-profit organization with more than 3,000 users, please refer to this website:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/nonprofit/index.html

We're working hard to expand the availability of the Education Edition to International non-profits, so please stay tuned. In the mean time, international non-profits are welcome to sign up for Google Apps Standard Edition or Premier Edition, both currently available in many languages worldwide.

If you think your organization qualifies, and you already have a Standard Edition account please go to the following site to upgrade your domain to Education Edition:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/request.py?contact_type=nonprofit

This is an automated response. We currently don't offer Sales Support to Non Profits interested in the free Education Edition of Google Apps.
However, If you are interested in the Premier Edition of Google Apps please submit your question here: http://www.google.com/a/contactsales
(Please select your 'Organization Type' as Business) and a Sales Representative will get in touch with you regarding you question.

There are multiple resources listed below that can provide you with information about Google Apps.

Your best resource for finding answers to your questions is to use the Google Apps website at http://www.google.com/a Our website maintains a compendium of all the information collected by our Sales and Customer Support Representatives in the Help Center which can be accessed here: http://www.google.com/support/a/?hl=en

Another way to get more information and ask questions directly of a live representative from Google is to attend one of our regularly scheduled webinars. These presentations will give you a more detailed understanding of the product. You can find a list of all upcoming presentations and register at: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/seminars.html

We also have some automated presentations in which you can learn more about the process.
Automated Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY2bpr1TAA4
Automated Presentation:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/online_seminars/apps_overview/premium_seminar.html

If you are ready to sign up for Google Apps, here is a helpful 'Six Steps'
guide to sign up:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/resources/setup/
If you need Professional assistance with this implementation, Google Apps has many partners who can help you with Deploying Google Apps. You can get more information about these partners here:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=77133&topic=10744

We also have more resources available for self help through the Google Groups for Google Apps where you will be able to talk with other administrators about Google Apps:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps?hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/google-apps-apis (Group meant for the Google Apps developer community)

Please note that you will have access to Google Apps Customer Support if you are a qualified Non Profit organization and are signed up with Google Apps Education Edition. To see all options to get in touch with Customer Support please visit:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=60830

Thank You,

Google Apps Team

Sociable Plug-in Adds Graphic Links to share

"The Sociable Plugin is something we at BlogPlay.com offer to bloggers. With this easy-to-install plugin, your readers will be able to share your posts with the rest of the world.

Whether they are on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, BlinkList, or any other social network/sharing site, the Sociable Plugin will allow your blog to be connected to the social media stream, making your content known to the world.

Don´t take our word for it, over 500,000 downloads show that bloggers around the world trust this plugin."

http://blogplay.com/plugin/

WP & Sociable - Branded Link shortener

This is a hack that lets us use our own shortened links as well as keep the longer Search Engine friendly links (makes the search engine think you've got 2x the pages - which helps with results).

Doing a custom short link helps prevent confusion when getting an email that says http://bit.ly/A5Fsfz8 vs. http://www.staugepiscopal.org/news/our-news-item-name-is-super-long-this-morning-and-it-cant-wrap-well-which-means -for-text-email-readers-it-would-break. Users might think it is spam or a virus site or something else if they don't see the familiar URL.

This plugin would allow us to use http://staugepiscopal.org/AS5fg01 in content that the social module spits out to places like facebook and twitter.

http://xioup.com/blog/356/make-sociable-plugin-use-your-url-shortener/

ChMS next steps... Revive ACS People

I am going to try and see if we can revive ACS People as soon as possible before heading too far down the ChMS & CRM discussion.   Plus we really need to get the membership data in some database to manipulate it for outreach i.e. be able to get it synced with office version of the directory and then be able in the near future to email, mail, phone call, etc.  Plus once it is in there and updated -- will be easier to export and import into another ChMS if we make that decision.

ACS People has been down for the count at least a year when the office PC died and the replacement came with Vista.  At that point ACS People was not being heavily used and they did not have a Vista compatible version.

I’m thinking about taking a day maybe tomorrow to try and get this one solved if I can download the software.  If I can’t and need to wait for a mailed/shipped disc – will be later in the week/when disc arrives.  

I may have to look into a short term GoToMyPC type service if we only have one license for the People module and it must remain in the office.  Unfortunately the data is so out of date and if its on the Church sectary's PC that means considerable data entry may need to happen.   My free time is mainly when my kids are in school/office open -- but that may be when she is working.  

Goal is to get the data in sync & updated with the manual church directory and to be able to categorize current active attendees separate from Visitors and Lapsed members/attendees.  What this allows us to do is communicate and give tools to current members as well as allow us to try and develop a plan to reach back out to lapsed and previous visitors.

UPDATE: Ed just sent me the ACS info, links to download 10.x and support credentials.  We do have the ongoing support at the Preferred level and cost is ~$85/month.  St. A's owns:

9010

People Module

Active

9015

Contributions Module

Active

9110

General Ledger Module

Active

9120

Accounts Payable Module

Active

9975-DOS

Parochial Report Module - DOS

Discontinued

9067

Parochial Report Module

Active

Tool & Process: Automating/Simplifying news item submission into a Blog/News post

Email Automation for News Items
I'm not sure how well this would work as setting up a public email alias posted for submitting news item to then (spam cleanse somehow) and then forward to the "secret" email address as well as the news editors email address and then the blog software would auto create a draft blog item in an unpublished state.  Editor would get his/her notification and would log into the blog software to edit and publish the item.  Obviously SPAM cleanse before bothering the blogging software is CRITICAL if this was to work.

Voicemail Automation for News Items
Adding a custom phone number with google voice and linked account to send email notification with transcription of the callers messange that then inside google voice could be set to forward as email and use the above email automation for and email which would contain the transcripted message to be a new unpublished news item in the system to be actived/updated.

Tools: Email Campaign Mgmt - Diocese using iContact.com

http://www.icontact.com/

Tools: RSS to Email Notifications

One area that might help close the gap for distributing news/updates to the congregation is offering a service that when a user opts in will check the RSS feed i.e. News & Announcements -- will auto-email them or digest and send all the ones that happened in a single day.

• Feedmyinbox.com
• Feedburner.com

Tools: Email blasts, Groups and Campaigns

This is another area where the main piece of software selected may not have this needed functionality or enough of it.  Several different solutions exist but the overall all goal would be to integrate it so it is easy to track all customer contact attached to that one record natively or worst case data from the email campaign software can be batch processed back into the primary system.


There are a number of major, minor and open source options if we need to purchase this function outside of the main solution including: 

• Constant Contact

Tool: Contact Scraping

Sometimes people come in back doors, go sideways, use personal accounts, email some address outside the normal process and capture.  That is when you want/need contact scraping tools. 


Information scraping tools: Contact Capture or LinkedIn that scans the emails in a users desktop and addresses listed as contacts in your account and automatically batch add them to the system.  Ministers, office staff and all other church computers could have this done a semiregular basis.

• Broadlook Technologies - Contact Capture, Eclipse, etc
• LinkedIn

Trouble ticket / Customer Service better than CRM?

Would Customer Service / Tech Support Trouble ticketing solution with strong email integration be a part of the solution?  It has several strengths...

• Routing
• Email Integration / Workflow
• Follow Ups
• Queing
• Reporting and Key Metrics
• Automatic processing, reassignment
• Escalation
• Trouble tickets
• FAQ systems
• Customer Record, User Records and Individual Contact Item records

Depending on the CRM or ChMS solution -- this a separate internet/email savvy trouble ticking solution with automation, logic, queing and reporting might be interesting "plug-in" to fill gaps.