Success story: How churches are surviving the COVID-19 pandemic with innovative ideas

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Success story: How churches are surviving the COVID-19 pandemic with innovative ideas

Hit by COVID-19, followed by social distancing and lockdown, churches are experiencing challenges and are seeing significant impacts on their events. It has become challenging for them to host their Sunday Masses and keep their fundraising wheels turning. But here we will be focusing on some of the churches who have taken extra efforts and have used technology to beat the odds.

St. Martin de Porres – Brooklyn

  • They have meticulously designed their website with sections that prominently display the schedule of their online activities. 

Surely, their doors are closed but everybody is welcome to worship since they have shifted all their activities from offline to online.

St. Martin de Porres – Brooklyn Website
  • Organizing their Masses for Easter and Sunday through Facebook Live. This has helped them reach their community easily and safely during these trying times. Not to mention, Facebook Live is interactive and has the potential to reach hundreds of people. 
St. Martin de Porres – Brooklyn Facebook

The church went an extra step ahead and has linked their live streams and videos on the homepage of their website. 

St. Martin de Porres – Brooklyn live streams and videos
  • The church on their home page has displayed social media buttons that are large in size. This makes it stand out and is noticeable. 
St. Martin de Porres – Brooklyn donate now button

The church, through their efforts, was able to raise $14,677.59 in the past 3 months starting from February 1, 2020, to April 31, 2020. In the previous month alone, they successfully raised $5,485.00. 

St. Bartholomew

In this example, the efforts made by this church are a great example of how to reach a large number of people. They did it by embracing technology and using their website to the full potential.

  • This church sets a very good example by hosting their events online especially on Facebook Live. Their live streams get views in thousands – as you can see, this particular stream received 4.1k views. Once the live stream ends, the video gets saved on their Facebook page which is later shared widely by their viewers. This helps them expand their reach.
St. Bartholomew Facebook Page
  • Their homepage is a good example of multilingual communication. Apart from using only English, the messages, appeals, and information are provided in other languages as well. 
St. Bartholomew multilingual communication 1
St. Bartholomew multilingual communication 2

Not only on the website but the church puts in efforts to release their communications in different languages even on social media pages such as Facebook. 

St. Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church
St. Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church Facebook

The church got themselves registered with GiveCentral at the end of the month of March 2020. With our fundraising marketing strategy and resources.

n how to fundraise during COVID-19, they achieved their desired result. An increase in givings by 7 times in the month of April 2020 when compared to the cumulative funds raised for the month of February 2020 and March 2020 was seen for this particular church.   

Holy Child Jesus

Holy Child Jesus Facebook livestream

A Church with no online giving page till March 2020, they successfully raised $6,233.00 in the month of April 2020 predominantly because of a giving page that they hosted on our platform in March. 

Bottom line

These examples teach us that technology and a few changes in strategy can help us survive these difficult times. As you can see, going live on Facebook is something that the churches above have in common. Facebook live is an amazing tool especially during these times when social distancing is the norm. In case you are wondering how to set up a live stream for your church, we have all the resources to support you. 

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