Extending the mission of the church...
DFC provides key communications tools to dioceses and other judicatories, as well as to each of the individual organizations that make up these communities of faith. Here are just a few examples of what this can mean to your organization.
Here is what The Right Rev. J. Neil Alexander has to say:
"Our experience with DFC has transformed our entire diocesan communication strategy. We're now able to get more information into more people's hands more efficiently day by day. DFC is changing the way we do business in the Diocese of Atlanta and our mission and ministry is benefiting immeasurably."
Diocese of Kentucky
"Our website design was out of date and the site was clearly becoming unmanageable as demand for up-to-date information exceeded the capacity of our staff and budget. It took the Episcopal Media Center's DFC to transform the site and really get things going." - Mary Jane Cherry, Communications Director Diocese of Kentucky
Solution - www.episcopalky.org, powered by DFC with new website design
We helped identify three key areas of online communications that the diocesan staff could pursue. After an initial build out and deployment, we began the ongoing training and support that we are known for. We understand that delivering a set of tools is not where the job ends, but rather is the beginning of something new. With your DFC deployment we deliver a system that is shared with each member of the Episcopal community. For example, each parish and organization in the diocese has access to the same powerful website technologies that power the diocesan web portal. In most dioceses, during the first year of deployment more than half of your parishes will start to use the system to power their websites. In Kentucky, within six months of launch about half of the parishes in the diocese are using DFC, and those joining continue.
"We have been so glad to be able to offer DFC throughout our diocese; it has been very well received," says Mary Jane Cherry. "Our website visitors have grown from less that 200 hundred visitors per month before DFC to over 2,500 unique visitors last month. Not only does our site look much better, but about 30% of the people that visit our site can now search for a parish, read news and stories about them and then get driving directions." Mary Jane Cherry
St. Benedict's Episcopal Church
St. Benedict's, a new church plant in the Atlanta area, was starting from scratch. Within one year, St Benedict's had to grow from zero to over 200 members before beginning worship. "We knew from the start that a vigorous communication effort was required and that the cornerstone of that effort had to be our website. Because the Atlanta Diocese was a DFC member, we immediately had the communication tools and the support we needed to reach out to our community and build membership." - Lang Lowrey, Vicar of St. Benedict's
St Benedict's initiated their communications program by creating a well-designed, informative website that had immediate impact. In addition, using the newsletter technology offered by the DFC, they were able to immediately provide news and information to their growing community. St. Benedict's website attracted over 1,900 unique vistors this last month and the electronic newsletter has a subscriber list of 300+ that is still growing. The result? St. Benedict's has become an integral part of the community it serves with energetic programs and mission efforts. Over 225 people attended St. Benedict's first Sunday worship service in January 2008.
"Not only did the DFC provide the tools and training we needed, they also provided communications consulting that was invaluable. They helped us design and implement a complete communications plan and showed us how to execute that plan going forward. Without DFc we would not have been able to accomplish what we did." - Lang Lowrey, Vicar of St. Benedict's
