The Challenge
Second Baptist Church wanted a new technology strategy. They needed a
solutionand a strategic provider that could grow with us and accommodate
the rate at which their people were adopting new technologies. Although
we had successfully implemented their own system before, they did not
have the resources to devote to building a solution of this scale from
scratch. So they decided on a buy/build approach. They selected a
software provider that could meet as many of their needs as possible and
then develop the additional software to fill the gap.
The Solution
After a year-long evaluation of various solution providers,
we decided on a product called iMIS by
Advanced Solutions
International (ASI). In our first engagement with ASI they
talked with us over a three day period about our needs, our
processes and what we relied on, not their product. Six weeks
later they had a working prototype of iMIS
tailored around our
church. ASI was able to provide us an enterprise solution with
the speed of an off-the-shelf product and the benefits of a
custom-built solution. Our relationship is new, however we can
already see “customers for life” does indeed describe the
personal and professional relationship found with the people
of ASI.
We decided to buy and build to maximize the equipping
potential that technology provides us. As a result, we were able
to accomplish the following:
1. Deploy the baseline functionality needed to track
people, families, activities, contributions, events, and
more in one database—iMIS. Out of the box,
iMIS
provided a customized interface for each staff
person…only displaying information pertinent to their role.
2. Centralized storage of information with flexible
reporting. We now have one place to track our
Worship numbers, event information, Bible Study and
Discipleship attendance data, etc. With this new solution,
we can now pull reports to see how Worship and
Bible Study attendance, membership and evangelism
is affected by various sermon series, weather or even
large community events. This helps us be strategic in
our church calendar and follow-up efforts.
3. Integrate our back office ChMS with our Web
site…giving each of our 200-plus Bible Study
Classes an online portal to create and maintain their
own Web site (as an extension of the church Web site)
and to facilitate the outreach, in reach and care of
their 12,000-plus participants. From this portal they
are able to post pictures, prayer requests, e-mail
visitors and members and see who has not attended in
the last several weeks for follow-up.
4. Integrate a custom Care and Prayer application that
converts e-mail prayer requests into traceable database
records with ministry workflows. This new
application handles the 2,500-plus prayer requests
received each month and facilitates the hospitalization
assignments and follow-up care of our people. This
module allows us to track feasible hospital visits,
ensuring that anyone who is hospitalized gets a visit
within 48 hours by a staff person or volunteer. For last
year, 2007, our staff and volunteers made 4,555
hospital visits, an average of 18 per day. This new
module will equip us to sustain this care as our church
family grows.
The Result
iMIS and its integrated modules are the
foundation for
future technology initiatives, particularly as we explore how
best to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies into our church
growth initiatives. As Jim Collins stated in his book, Good to
Great, "technology is an accelerator. It places the right
information at the right time in the rights hands." |
