Web-based CCB 2.0 Successfully Connects People, Increases Communication, and Empowers Churches (Part 1 of 2), April 2008, Christian Computing Magazine (Cover Story)
by Lauren Hunter
Most people have heard of “Web 2.0” and know that it is relevant to their lives in some way, but saying just how can be difficult. According to Wikipedia, “”Web 2.0” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.”
When you put it in terms of “sharing information” and “fostering community”, suddenly websites, blogs, social networking sites, and web-based services seem to have more purpose, and start looking like real ways to encourage communication and positive change within your organization and beyond.
For Church Community Builder, provider of the first web-based church management software (ChMS), much has changed since its inception, but many things have also stayed the same. The basic concept of providing church management software over the internet as a service (Software as a Service—SaaS) has remained a constant trend, yet new technologies allow for more. This month, CCB “2.0” was released to market and represents the largest single enhancement of the CCB platform since its inception as a comprehensive church management solution in 2001.
“When we started to build CCB, we quickly saw that we shouldn’t invest in technologies that were not web-based. We knew that the internet was going to be the future, and we believed that the next generation of church management systems was going to be web-based,” says Chris Fowler, President and CEO of Church Community Builder. “We really believed that the internet was going to fundamentally change how you did business. The emergence of Web 2.0 confirmed this even more because of the vast possibilities for communication and collaboration.”
CCB was built to address the need that existed in churches to close the back door and get people involved. Both Chris Fowler and Jeffrey “Free” Grafton, original founders of CCB, were assisting New Song Church in Oceanside, California in the late 90s with church marketing and assimilation. They found that they could market their church and get people to attend, but saw thousands of people visit for a few weeks then stop attending.
“Because we didn’t have a way to connect with people that visited, people slipped right out the back door,” Grafton recalls. “Also, we had lots of people that were willing to volunteer, but no way to get people involved. We tried to make it possible for people to work and volunteer from home by opening up firewall ports to access the church database, but it was too complicated. People needed to get reports, make phone calls, and schedule meetings but the communication tools were so inefficient. We saw the possibilities with the internet and our wheels began turning.”
CCB saw that it was integral to build a platform that put systems in place to handle volunteer management and matched spiritual gifts to possible positions; they saw the need to make software that was usable by not just the church staff, but by everyone that was a part of the church community. Creating groups and providing communication tools to not only manage membership data, but foster real community and outreach was the goal.
What was eventually developed and brought to market, and is available now is a comprehensive and robust web-based application that includes three main components: church management, private member community, and website integration tools.
Today, CCB is actively serving over 750 churches around the world including pre-launch church plants on up to mega-churches with over 10,000 attendees.
CCB “2.0”
With the CCB “2.0” release, the primary focus has been to enhance the overall user experience through adoption of many of the new standards of the Web 2.0 paradigm. A more intuitive, less complex user interface helps CCB clients do ministry without getting in their way.
In addition to the significant user experience enhancement, CCB “2.0” also incorporates some noteworthy new or improved functionality and features that help church staff and lay leaders alike perform the vital tasks necessary to reach and retain more people for their Kingdom-focused mission. The following list represents just a partial view of these exciting new developments and enhancements:
- Improved Event Management with email invitation feature and attendee tracking
- Streamlined Contributions entry and Financial reporting
- Simplified Individual Profile management
- New “Involvement” dashboard that provides a quick snapshot of where and how people are plugged in to your ministry
- Enhanced Group Management features (discussion boards, volunteer matching and participant interaction)
- “My Friends” feature facilitates greater “connectivity” and ease of communication between peers and colleagues
- Upgraded Process and Workflow management which helps track new visitor assimilation and any other process that helps you “do church”
- New Report Sharing allows designated leaders and staff to access frequently used reports without contacting the system administrator
- Improved “WebLinks” that easily integrate CCB data into your public website
Another great technology upgrade present in CCB “2.0” is the use of AJAX, which means that the whole page a customer is working in doesn’t have to refresh each time they go to a new screen just a small portion of it. This makes the web-based application feel more like a desktop application.
CCB feels strongly about providing the best customer support possible and taking customer requests and suggestion into great consideration as they improve their product. They’ve added many features and enhancements that customers have requested and are getting great feedback on the new system.
“We consider ourselves the editors of what our customers would want. This is what we do—every update or upgrade request is considered in the context of our focus and strength and ends up being added to the system if the request is in alignment. When people ask for something new or improved, we always ask what problem the customer is trying to solve,” comments Fowler. “The biggest fact is that the internet has changed so much since we started, we don’t want to remain stagnant, there’s so much innovation. We really wanted to reinvent our user-interface and retool along the way. In addition to what the user sees, lots of foundational system architecture affects the things that CCB can help people accomplish. As much as we’re changing the UI, we’ve also modified the architecture for development
behind the scenes.”
In the future, CCB plans to focus on adding even more communication tools such as RSS feeds, text messaging, calendar synching, and other features that leverage tools like Google, Yahoo, Flicker and others that people are adopting at a rapid pace.
Stay tuned for next month’s continuation of this article for a discussion on web-based vs. web-enabled church management software and how this affects the IT department (or volunteer) at your church.
