Church of England
Facilitating connections for churches across the UK
The Client
The Church of England is an historic Christian faith organisation with roots going back to the Roman Empire. It is divided into more than 40 individual dioceses that, while linked, are essentially independent organisations operating under their own management.
The Brief
The goal of this project was to create a centralised contact management system, a single point where each individual diocese could store contact details for everyone from a bishop to a church warden or the headteacher of a local CofE school. The idea was to bring consistency and create economies of scale by commissioning a joint system to replace the various individual systems that were being used.
The Challenge
Because each diocese was using its own form of CMS, the real challenge was to find a solution that would work for everyone and get them on board with a new system. Also, because the hierarchical structure of each diocese is different, the system needed to be customisable.
The Solution
There was no off-the-shelf solution available that would do everything that the Church of England needed it to do, so we created a bespoke solution. This allowed us to make it customisable, with core data plus the ability to add unique fields where necessary.
We also made sure that the system was highly functional, giving users the ability to export data, creating mailing labels, save created searches and build searches to highly advanced criteria (e.g. finding all females of a particular age bracket working within a specific job role). Another great function was the ability to send out email, which now has an average of 90,000 going through the system each month.
Since its launch, we have continued to maintain the system and adapt and grow its functionality based on feedback from the CofE’s user group. Later iterations of the system have included the ability to add custom reports, document storage and auditing of data.
The Verdict
“With this team, we have been highly successful in getting this IT project adopted across the Church of England. Because we don’t operate within a ‘head office and branches’ scenario, there’s no central management structure, so it's just a case of getting everyone to sign up. We’ve already got 34 of the 42 dioceses using the new Contact Management System, which is incredibly good engagement.”
“Their style of working is different to other developers we’ve worked with too. They have a genuine desire to build something that is going to be liked and used, and they’re not afraid to challenge the brief to make sure that’s what is delivered. And they’re genuinely nice people to work with too!”
- Fraser McNish, Director of Data Services, Church of England
-
![24-7 Prayer Lection Mobile App IOS Screens]()
24-7 Prayer Lectio for FamiliesA mobile app to engage the whole family in prayer -
![Living Out Brand Identity Website Screens]()
-
![Energize Tablet Lesson Builder Screen]()
-
![ReSource Magazine]()
