In February, the Communications Working Group (CWG) at Diocesan House launched a survey on information technology (IT) use in the Diocese of California. The purpose of the survey was to begin assessing the IT capacities and needs of parishes in the diocese. The survey asked for information about how congregations maintain and use membership and pledge information as well as financial data.

 Of the 83 congregations in the diocese, 62 responded to the survey. Windows users (mostly Windows XP) accounted for 72% of the respondents, Mac users 23%, and a few congregations reported being cross-platform. Most respondents say that when they have IT problems they either find a way to solve the problem themselves or rely on knowledgeable parishioners or friends to help; only 12% say they use a paid consultant or company for IT support.
Nearly all the congregations that responded have a website (98%), usually designed by a church employee or a volunteer. 70% produce an electronic version of their newsletter, most commonly distributed by attaching a PDF to emails or by posting a PDF online for download. The programs congregations use most frequently are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Intuit’s Quickbooks or Quicken, and Microsoft Outlook or Entourage.
The survey also asked about how congregations handle membership information and pledge and financial reporting. Membership information is usually tracked by a paid staff member (54%) or clergy (26%). Many different methods are used to keep track of church members, from paper-based records to Excel spreadsheets to dedicated commercial software like ACS and Church Windows. The most important aspect of a membership tracking system, according to the respondents, is ease of use. 59% report they are satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their current system, while 41% are not satisfied, although generally users would like to see better integration with email and with other information management systems, such as pledge management and financial reports.Pledge and financial information is typically maintained by a volunteer through Quickbooks or Quicken, Excel, or dedicated commercial software such as ACS or Church Windows. 72% of congregations report they are satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their current system. Again, the most important feature is ease of use; the ability to automatically generate regular statements is also important. However, many users also say that they would like to see their information management systems integrated.Finally, the survey asked if respondents would be interested in a diocesan-based shared system to manage information, such as a hosted server with terminal capacity at the parish. 45% said they would be interested such a solution, while 23% said they would not be interested in such a solution and 32% said they would need more information before deciding. These survey results provide the CWG a place to begin planning a technological direction for the future. It is clear that parishes that cannot afford enterprise-quality IT support or software are challenged to find methods that work for them. Despite the variation in IT capacities across the diocese, nearly all respondents ranked technology as very or somewhat important to carrying out their ministry. Technology is clearly an integral part of building the Beloved Community, and so the CWG will be seeking ways to make IT more accessible to all DioCal congregations. 