Five business apps for your ministry
In my 15 years of running Stretch Internet – the leading video streaming provider in the collegiate athletic space – I had a front-row seat to the technology evolution that defined (and continues to define) the first part of this century.
The term “SaaS” (software-as-a-service) didn’t even exist when we opened our doors in 2003, but by the time we sold the business in 2018, I’d wager that I spent 80 percent of my work hours using cloud-based software solutions to track web development progress; engage with customers and vendors; prepare proposals, contracts and other sales documents; update and monitor strategic priorities; and hire and evaluate employees (among many other things).
Businesses can’t thrive without using technology to creatively and efficiently solve their day-to-day problems. Ministry shouldn’t be any different.
And, that, by the way, is exactly where the search for software should start – as a solution to a problem. As I engage with ministry leaders, I hear the same issues discussed time and time again. Below are five of the most common pitfalls for ministry organizations – along with software solutions that can come to the rescue.
Before you browse the list, two other important notes:
I haven’t randomly listed solutions from a Google search. These are all “tried and true” apps that my business used with great results.
Every solution on this list is affordable – and many have free versions. We know ministry budgets aren’t limitless!
Problem 1: Inconsistent communication
Solution: Slack
When’s the last time you started a conversation with someone via text, picked it up on an e-mail chain and wrapped it up during a quick chat in the office? Not a big deal until you’re desperately trying to track down some information from that dialogue – and can’t remember where to find it.
Slack solves that problem by providing a centralized messaging app that allows you to communicate with a variety of stakeholders.
You can, of course, use Slack to privately exchange messages with other individuals in your organization. But the beauty of the software lies in group management.
Create one private group for your leadership team. Create another one for your entire staff. Maybe you have a big Fall Festival event coming up – create a Slack channel intended strictly for communication around that event. Or, use Slack to create an “Ask Me Anything” channel and grow your organization’s transparency.
Slack is universal – it works just as easily on a laptop as it does on a tablet or phone. It’s as immediate as text messaging, but you have far more customization about how and when you get alerts (so that night owl on your staff won't wake you up when she sends her latest brainstorm at 1:30 a.m.).
Not too long ago, we got Pastor Jacob Boessling from Christ Greenfield hooked on the software as he leads the launch team for a church plant in Mesa, Arizona. Here’s what he has to say: “My team loves Slack. It allows us to communicate about projects on the go in a trackable and meaningful way. Year to year, the ‘channel’ feature will help us look back at previous projects to refresh our memories. We no longer text each other about work, so our work-related messages all stay in Slack. The software has increased our dialogue exponentially.”
Problem 2: Poor collaboration
Solution: Asana
Many ministry organizations make use of tools for creating and storing content (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and for communicating (Slack, ), but are missing the third “c” – collaboration. Project or work management software fills that gap, providing tools for project plan coordination and task management.
We’re not going to beat around the bush with our suggestion in this category. Asana is the clear winner, proving a robust – yet, simple – solution that’s incredibly flexible. We've used Asana for creating recurring weekly meeting agendas (and tracking follow-up tasks for the meeting); organizing a complex project plan that touches multiple departments and has timeline dependencies; and even planning a blog post calendar.
Perhaps the best part of Asana is the ability to view projects by list, by board or by timeline.
The possibilities for a ministry are endless.
Plan sermon content for the next year, assign sermons to different pastors, add notes with comments/ideas for each sermon – and allow everyone to view, edit and comment
Provide shared access to a digital list where your entire team can record problems, opportunities or challenges the minute they come to mind
Create a project plan for a major community event you’re hosting – assign tasks and deadlines, share updates with other stakeholders and even upload documents you’d like others to review
Develop the agenda for your strategic planning retreat and then take notes, record observations and create project plans
When you partner with Seven Marches, we provide Asana training as part of our service. Not only that – we even create templates that can be used with each of our “marches” to speed up your implementation. Additionally, since we’ve achieved “Certified Pro” status for the software, we can tap into additional resources and discounts.
Problem 3: No feedback loop
Solution: SurveyPlanet
If you’re planning, operating and executing without consistently taking the temperature of your various stakeholders, you might be headed down the wrong path.
As part of our Messaging March, Seven Marches provides a framework for regularly gathering feedback from a variety of constituents. Software can help with multiple feedback tools, though surveying software is the quickest and easiest to implement – the low-hanging fruit of feedback.
There are a number of survey tools out there, but we like SurveyPlanet best, because it has a free plan with robust features. You can easily create multiple types of questions – ranking questions, multiple choice questions and essay questions to name just a few.
Churches, Christian schools and non-profits should also consider using survey tools to collect NPS (Net Promoter Score) data. A tool that’s become increasingly popular in the business sector over the past several years, NPS surveys generate a single number that provides a snapshot of their “customer” satisfaction.
And, it’s simple to collect the data. Organizations simply ask their stakeholders a single question along these lines: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [organization] to a colleague or friend?” The responses are divided into categories of “promoter” (those who provide a rating of 9 or 10), “passive” (rating of 7 or 8), or “detractor" (rating of 6 or less).
The ratings are tallied to calculate a single net score between -100 and 100 that helps an organization track its satisfaction level. Better yet, since NPS is so widely used, it’s easy to find benchmark scores to compare your organizations to others.
So, here’s the question: as a church or school or non-profit ministry, you might not have “customers” in the traditional sense, but wouldn’t you want to know if your constituents are willing to recommend you to their friends and colleagues?
While you can use SurveyPlanet and other tools to conduct NPS surveys, there are other options (we like Delighted) that focus solely on NPS, and can automate custom “drip” campaigns that allow you to easily track your NPS score over time.
Problem 4: Uninspiring metrics
Solution: Klipfolio
Metrics are good. We like metrics. (As long as there aren’t too many of them – that can dilute the focus and take your eye off what truly matters most). What we don’t always like are spreadsheets full of color-coded rows and columns and endless arrays of numbers.
Unless you’re in accounting, we’re guessing you feel the same. At my previous organization, I discovered the quickest way to lose people’s attention during our weekly meeting was to flash a spreadsheet with the weekly metrics update. That’s why we switched to Klipfolio.
Klipfolio integrates with Google Sheets (not to mention Excel files or 100+ cloud-based software applications) to seamlessly turn your rows and columns of data into pretty pictures.
Better yet, those pretty pictures help spur action – it’s easy to see a single dashboard with green (good!) or red (not so good!) indicators to understand what might need attention. So, you can quickly build a single-page dashboard with your most important metrics and easily capture and display the trends. Some organizations even display their dashboards on a TV in a shared space, so the key measures are always top-of-mind.
In the Seven Marches mPower Model, we encourage our ministry partners to establish the specific gains (which include measurable outcomes) associated with each goal. For example, one of our partner churches had a “Golden Goal” of starting a small group ministry. Among their measureables for their goal were:
Numbers of groups
Number of total members in groups
Number of completed Bible studies across all groups
Number of pastoral care issues reported to leadership staff
Each of those metrics can be updated in Google Sheets on a weekly or monthly basis, and then connected in Klipfolio to graphically display the progress (and how close each metric is to the goal).
Churches might also want to consider Church Metrics, a free – but more limited – option available through the Life.Church Open Network. It’s a simple tool that allows you to track the basics like worship attendance and giving. But it lacks live integration with Google Sheets and other cloud-based apps. Or, take a look at churchlytics, which is more of a tailored, white-glove service.
Problem 5: No documented “people processes"
Solution: BambooHR
Unless your organization has 20+ employees (and maybe even then!), you probably don’t have a full-time person person devoted to HR. That means you’re generally scrambling to:
•Centrally manage job openings and track candidates
•Create an organized and efficient on-boarding process for new hires
•Maintain an active database of employee contact info
•Create a repository for legally required employment forms
Before you outsource your HR needs to an agency, or think about hiring someone to help, consider software as a solution. The option we like here is BambooHR.
I used the software for a few years at my former organization – and it made a dramatic impact, not just in terms of better processes and systems, but also in the way prospective and new employees viewed our organization. We were able to create streamlined workflows for new hires and send an e-mail that provided them with everything they needed to know (and complete) before day 1.
Bamboo also includes an add-on feature that allows you to conduct 360-degree performance reviews – you can automatically have peers provide periodic and confidential feedback on their team members to get a more complete picture of an employee’s performance.
