We understand it is hard to leave something you are familiar with and like. However, a unified approach to data will provide consistent stewardship of parishioner's data, efficiency gains for your parish and the diocese, and the best foot forward as we walk with Catholics in our region on their path of discipleship.

Even if you don’t feel you need certain database features at this time, in order to have consistent stewardship of parishioner’s data, and the ability to report at scale, everyone must be on the same system.

The needs of small parishes are being considered and multiple review team members are representative of small parishes.

Yes! Throughout this process, parish feedback has played a critical role in the scope of the project and vendor selection. Everyone will have the opportunity to provide their opinion on the two finalists.

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The diocese will cover the cost of implementation. The diocese and parishes will share the ongoing cost of the database. Exact pricing won’t be known until the final vendor is selected and negations have occurred. However, we are estimating a parish may pay between $1-$2 per household record annually.

Ongoing costs will begin when your scheduled migration phase commences. Costs will be billed as part of your regular monthly insurance & benefits costs.

While the details of an exact roll out plan are not yet finalized, it will occur with parish cohorts migrating in phases, likely to occur over a period of a couple years. We will take into consideration current database contracts and particular parish situations when scheduling parish roll-out. If you are interested in being an early adopter, let Rachel know at rlangdon@dio.org

There is never a convenient time to migrate to a new database, and very few people would describe it as fun! However, the hope is that a little extra effort put in now will bear great fruit in the long run for efficiency gains at your parish and across the diocese.

With a change from a program that you may have used for many years, there will be differences in processes and reports, and a learning curve should be expected. However, we plan to provide a great level of support and training to mitigate the stress and confusion that can come with a project like this.

The goal of implementation is for a seamless transition to the new platform.

With the goal of one household record for the entire diocese, along with the fact that many households have multiple parish touchpoints, there will be some sharing of basic contact and engagement information between parishes that are relevant to that household.

However, certain aspects of constituent data will be locked down based on a user’s permission settings. For instance, minor children's names and financial information will only be granted to users that have appropriate permissions to view.

Yes, we are not the first diocese to take this approach.

The parishes and chancery of the Diocese of Austin have been on the same CRM for the last 20 years!  The Archdiocese of Seattle has also had all parishes on one system and are currently underway transitioning parishes to a new software, with the goal of chancery offices joining them. We have been in regular communication with contacts at each to glean information on how they have navigated and accomplished this process.

Further, multiple Catholic software vendors are creating and offering products for this model due to growing marketplace demand of dioceses across the country.