Accelerating the Dynamic Church : Value

2007 OnDemand Conference

jhook — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:50:00 GMT

One of my commitments to our partner churches is that Fellowship Technologies will stay current on what is happening in the overall software and technology industry. I came from that market and want to bring the best business and technology concepts from the commercial world to the church world. Along that vein: we are currently moving Fellowship One to be more Web 2.0-like; we are building our new functionality on a new architecture (MVC) that will allow us to develop new functionality rapidly and be more agile; and we are committed to put custom reporting tools in your hands so that you can directly access the data. And that is just the start!

One of the ways we all stay up on technology is via the Internet, through articles, blogs, etc. But that is not enough! I believe it is imperative to attend technology conferences and events to learn, affirm and network with others within the industry. One such conference is SIIA’s OnDemand Conference.

I wanted to attend last year, but chose not to due to the cost and timing. This year I took the plunge and made the trek to San Jose last week. I am glad I did!

In short, the opportunities and challenges other SaaS’s and their customers have are very similar to what we all together are experiencing. There were numerous presentations about: how processes are essential to successful application change; what was once hard to accept concepts about data being stored off-site are becoming non-issues; and it is not just a way to deliver software over the web more cost-effectively, it is about collaboration across departments, business partners, even competitors; and putting the customer at the center of the experience.

I am convinced that Software as a Service is the future of many application solutions, especially for the SMB (small and medium-sized business) market. By the commercial definition, that includes nearly all churches. The total cost of ownership, the integration capabilities via the Internet and the future of computing, all point to the fact that this is the way. Like other forms of new computing, it may that some time to truly take hold, but the value proposition is enormous and, in the long run, cannot be denied.

Grace to you,

jhook

Good Software Stewardship?

Jeff Hook — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:20:00 GMT

Sometimes we come across a church that puts a halt to a software selection process because they come to the realization that they may not need a new church management software solution. Why? Because they find out that they are underutilizing what they currently have. Of course, many times they are encouraged to not look for another solution by their current vendor who claims the system they have can do exactly what Fellowship One does, they are just not using those features. It is rarely the case that this is actually true. But the church must go through the process of looking at what their current vendor has before buying off on another purchase. Case in point: why buy new if you are not using what you currently have? Maybe you do not need a new system to get the benefits you are hoping to get with a new system if your current software has the capabilities; you are just not using them!

Now my contention is that there is perhaps a reason why a church is not using its current system to the max that still requires a change – maybe the system does not do what you need it to do to support your ministry; or perhaps it is not user-friendly; or costs too much to maintain or breaks when you do try to maintain or upgrade it; or performs so poorly it is practically unusable! If any of these are the case then shopping for a new solution is warranted. However, many times a system is not used to its full extent because the staff does not have the discipline to change or learn something new or even, heaven forbids, the staff has become lazy or complacent.

If this is the case, changing systems will not provide the benefits desired no matter what solution is in place; the staff is not willing to do what is required to get the desired results. It is like the athlete who wants to win the Olympics but is not willing to do the amount of training required to really compete. Becoming a “world class church” is similar to becoming a “world class athlete,” it does not happen without doing the right things, doing the right things right and then doing the right things better. Continually!

As an example, I will use a tale of two churches who are both current customers of ours. This is an actual case study of true circumstances, but I will spare the names to protect the innocent. However, there probably more than one church of each type within our customer base. Do not be offended if you think I am using your church as an example; if it is your actual church, I did get permission.

Both churches held a “Fall Festival” as an outreach event into the community and to show a less “gruesome” way to celebrate Halloween. Both churches subscribe to a Fellowship One edition that allows for “check-in” of any and all activities. However, only one of these churches chose to “check-in” their Fall Festival. That church checked in nearly 2,000 attendees to their event; more than what they serve during their typical weekend services. The other church chose not to conduct “check-in” at the event even though their license agreement encourages them to do so – it does not cost anymore!

The church that chose to conduct “check-in” put their best foot forward because they showed their community that it was technologically savvy and showed that safety of their kids was job #1; but more importantly, even before the event was over, because of real-time attendance tracking, they knew that 92% of those in attendance were 1^st time visitors to their church. 92% - I would say that was a successful outreach event! The church that did not conduct check-in can only guess at how many attendees were first-time visitors and can only surmise as to whether its event was successful at bringing in new faces.

The real key to growth and determining success of the Fall Festival for the first church mentioned will be to track how many of those people actually make it to church within the next month and then how many are still there in six months. From that, the church can determine its ROM (Return on Ministry) for that event for that year which will help determine if that event was a good use of funds and whether none, less or more money should be budgeted for the next year. The second church mentioned cannot do any of that analysis because it did not capture who attended in the first place. There are perhaps other ways to capture the information (roll cards, etc.) but none more accurate and efficient than at the POS (Point of Service).

Everyone can make better decisions when they have more and better information. I encourage you to take the guess work out of the decision-making process at your church by capturing, tracking, and analyzing as much information as you can. Capturing the data does not need to be laborious. A check-in station can be used as a POS device for more than just “children’s check-in.” By checking in all of your church’s activities, you build a foundation of data that can help capture how successful an event is and how “plugged-in” people are – now that’s measuring assimilation! Using all the capabilities of your church management system will help you truly know whether it is the right one for your church or not. It also allows you to get the most "value" out of your solution. It is just good software stewardship!

Grace to you,

Jhook

Cost Considerations – Part 3: Value

Jeff Hook — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 02:09:00 GMT

In part 3 of my 3 part series on software cost consideration I will address the value-based pricing concept and explore why the value that the software provides is more important than the out-of-pocket direct costs, or for that matter, the overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

When considering what software solution to buy, the real measurement to take into account is the “value” that the organization or people within the organization receive from the implemented solution. Case in point, we find that many churches have had our competitors’ solutions in-house for several years, yet the solution is so underutilized (meaning that it is not being used for one or more reasons: too hard to learn, lack of availability, does not do what the users need, etc.) that no matter how cheap the system appears to be, the church is over-paying because it provides so little value.

The problem with the value concept for software justification is that it varies significantly from church to church because what individual churches value varies greatly. The components or line item categories are usually transferable across churches, but the level of value will differ. Some of this variance is attributed to what “value” the individual church places on certain capabilities.

Let me present some examples to help clarify:

What “value” do a church and its congregation place on being able to “quickly” and safely check-in children for Sunday services?

It affects the brand of the church – how people perceive the church and the Sunday experience. There is definite value to the brand; but if the church does not understand branding, the value is not perceived.
It affects the convenience provided to the congregants. This also affects the Sunday experience; especially for first-timers. But if the church is not focused on seekers, then visitor first impressions are not valued.
It affects the security that a parent “feels” when they drop their children off for the first time in an unknown church. Again, seeker sensitive churches value that first-time experience so much more than inward focused churches.

What “value” does a church derive from being able to offer activity registrations from the church website?

If the church does very few during-the-week or special activities, then the perceived value of this feature is smaller than for a church that conducts a lot of activities and is looking for a better way to administer them.
We recently received an email from a customer that claimed that Fellowship One WebLink saved their church over 1,000 man-hours in administering one of their activities. Now that’s value!

What “value” does a church assign to the accountability of being able to track whether congregation contact items are followed up quickly by the right people?

Believe or not, some churches do not place value on this kind of accountability – so having such a feature in the system, although I would consider it part of the value proposition of why we cost what we do, is not considered when determining the cost-justification of a new church management system.
To other churches, this is huge value because they believe that caring for their congregation needs in a timely matter one of their primary jobs. But if a church does not culturally appreciate a quick follow-up to information requests, then no matter how much we “preach” its importance, it is viewed as superfluous functionality.

What “value” does a church associate with the church staff and volunteers being able to easily access its information from anywhere there is Internet access?

If the church staff works from home a lot, or travels a lot, this can be of significant value.
I was recently at a conference where one of the church staff was actually half listening to the conference and half doing F1 work via the wireless network. She was getting value.

I could go on with example after example of how a church management system can provide value to any church. But the value is particular to the church’s behavior, culture, focus and the implementation of the system’s capabilities. For any given church, if all of this value could be captured and documented, then the justification for a web-based church management system would be easy. But because it is particular to a given church, it is more difficult to provide a standard set of savings guidelines. And some of the savings are not savings at all, but actual “value creation” – value above and beyond what is currently done.

Take a look, what do you value? Is it the same thing that the congregation values? Can you increase your congregation’s experience by capturing some value that you are not even seeing at this time? Or are you walking over dollars to pick up dimes?

Grace to you as you go out and give value,

jhook