With 2019 almost in the books and 2020 around the corner, it’s likely you have some positions you are thinking of posting. You should plan to make 2020 the year of great hiring. How do you do that? By operating like the church next door. You know the one – the one with the engaged […]
Do you ever walk out of a meeting and find yourself thinking, “Did we actually accomplish anything in there?” Meetings can be a point of contention in any workplace – what are we meeting about? Why are we meeting so much? Who is in this meeting? How much time will it take? Running an effective […]
Magazine subscriptions. Chocolate sales. Caramel corn delivery services. We’ve all participated in these sorts of gimmicky fundraising schemes, hawked by companies that claim their particular product will raise tens of thousands of dollars for your Catholic parish. They tend to be some of the worst fundraising ideas ever. Here are four reasons to avoid them […]
Did you know the first email was sent 48 years ago? Every year we work with dozens of parishes that appear to be holding on to some of their original and, in many instances, outdated, unprofessional, though well-intentioned, email addresses. We see addresses like “admin42saintmark@aol.com” all the time. If this looks like something you’re still […]
Every year we are drawing closer to the moment when every man, woman, and child has an internet-enabled device on them at all times. Love it or hate it, that’s the way the culture is going. All of this begs the question – should your parish offer WiFi to guests? Here are a few points […]
We use emails for everything. We use email to ask questions, to delegate tasks, to confirm plans and to provide information to people who need it. If parish staff are the engine that runs a parish, emails are the gasoline powering that engine. If your staff follows good email etiquette, the engine hums along. If […]
Ever since Pope Saint John Paul II coined the phrase, the Church has been laser-focused on the New Evangelization. He promised this would bring about a new springtime for the Body of Christ. And there are a lot of tools you can use to bring this springtime about. Here in the CSM office, we talk […]
Many clergy, theologians, and lay ministers have been thinking about the Church’s response to loneliness. Study after study has shown that there’s an epidemic of loneliness in modern life. Life in Christ is the answer – joining the One Body that makes up the Church and experiencing true love and friendship. If you feel there are people […]
If you’ve ever wondered why your parish’s website isn’t getting better search engine results, take a look at your use of internal links. An internal link is a link from one page on your parish’s website to another page on the site. (External links are different: they point users to outside sites.) Internal linking is […]
We all have old email addresses we’re not proud of. Sure, there was a time when emailing your friends from “hockeydude83@aol.com” was perfectly acceptable. But there comes a time when we all bid farewell to our youth and get a grown-up email address. As parish staff, you’ve no doubt seen plenty of wild and confusing […]
