Website Guru Interview with Christian Computing Magazine, Part 2

In Part 2 of Steve Hewitt's interview with Aaron Winn, website guru for AmericanChurch, Inc., Aaron shares the insider's view of Radius Web Tools, built for ministry.

CCM: What led to the development of a web solution geared toward churches?

ACI: Unlike some church website solutions, Radius Web Tools was not originally built just for churches. In fact, Radius Web Tools was built in the early days of content management systems (nearly a decade ago) for a Christian university. It was so powerful and worked so well and met with so much success that local ministries asked for a simplified version they could use themselves. When these requests began to increase, the Radius Web Tools team spent the better part of a year building the user interface now enjoyed by ministries across the nation. Its genesis as a powerful software engine lends a great deal of stability and extensibility to Radius Web Tools that allows it to power websites of only a few pages with a single editor to its current record site of over six thousand pages and more than one hundred editors.

CCM: What makes Radius Web Tools so easy to use for ministries?

ACI: First of all, Radius Web Tools is a content management system. This means that it's specifically designed to allow normal people - not just Kligon-speaking programmers [laughs] - to edit their own site just like they might edit a word processing document on their computer. But what makes Radius Web Tools different than many other content management systems is the quality of its user interface. This sounds a little technical, but we all understand how important a user interface is when we get into a car that we're not used to driving and can't figure out how to adjust the seat or turn on the windshield wipers. When you get into a car with a superb user interface, everything just seems to work how you expect. We take this for granted every day, but thousands of hours of work go into designing a web editing interface like Radius Web Tools that is not only powerful but also easy to use. In fact, it's so easy that the vast majority of editors using it today have absolutely no training!

CCM: What makes Radius Web Tools different from other website software available to churches?

ACI: The real difference is the way Radius Web Tools balances power with ease-of-use. This ease-of-use allows even the most timid editors to add pages, blogs, podcasts, photos, slideshows, etc. without feat of "messing up the site." Its power allows more advanced users to edit in HTML, add Flash snippets, embed widgets, and social media feeds and more. Radius Web Tools also offers one of the fastest deployment times available. For ministries in a hurry, a new website can be deployed within 5-10 minutes of submitting the request. So, a ministry can literally be editing their new site within about a half hour of deciding to deploy their new site! 

Website Guru Interview with Christian Computing Magazine, Part 1

Recently, AmericanChurch, Inc. was highlighted in the September issue of Christian Computing Magazine. Following is an excerpt from the cover story interview between editor in chief, Steve Hewitt and Aaron Winn, Radius Web Tools guru for AmericanChurch, Inc.

CCM: What are the greatest challenges ministries face with their websites?

ACI: In a word: under-utilization. Sadly, most ministries under-utilize their website; they simply don't take advantage of the powerful tools available to them to communicate with and engage their communities. Some ministries have websites that were started years ago and are difficult - if not impossible - to update. Others don't utilize a website at all because they think it's too technical or too expensive for them. This is complicated by the fact that there's a pervasive misperception floating around out there that a programmer is still needed to maintain a website. To be sure good programmers are required to start a website, but maintaining one can easily be done by any pastor or secretary with solid communication skills and comfort with basic computer skills (like word processing, etc.).

CCM: How does Radius Web Tools address these challenges? 

ACI: Radius Web Tools is one of the premier website services for ministries on the market today. What differentiates Radius Web Tools from many of the other services out there is how easy it is to use. I've personally met and interacted with the Radius Web Tools team. They're all active in their own churches and so they understand the importance of a reliable, easy-to-use website program that allows ministry leaders to maintain a meaningful website without having to first earn a degree in computer programming.

Radius Web Tools addresses the challenge faced by ministries with outdated websites by making the upgrade quick, painless and quite easy. It helps ministries without any website at all "dip their tow in the water" by providing both DIY and turnkey website solutions that are surprisingly affordable. But the great thing about Radius Web Tools is that you don't have to sacrifice features to get a truly affordable and usable website solution. The single comment we hear most often by new users of Radius Web Tools is "I can't believe how easy this is!".

CCM: What are some of the key elements of Radius Web Tools, and how do they benefit churches?

ACI: Radius Web Tools offers a host of "content" tools including unlimited pages, enewsletters, blogs, podcasts, photo galleries, FAQ's, flipbooks, etc. Rather than restrict usage based on congregation size, everyone pays a low flat fee to use as much as needed. Radius Web Tools also includes a powerful online calendar tool that allows for complex recurring events, detailed descriptions of events, grid views, list views and filtering by user-defined categories like men, women, youth, etc. Also included is a powerful email module that allows ministries to send unlimited enewsletters at no cost and easily manage their own email accounts at their domain.

To read more excerpts from the interview with Aaron, come back on Thursday, October 27th.

Helping Churches Improve Communications

AmericanChurch, Inc. continues to focus on helping churches improve communications. In that effort, an ACI team hosted a communication breakfast in Columbus, OH entitled “Church Forward: Relevant Communication”.  Church leaders within driving distance were invited to Worthington Christian Church, where national communication expert, Scott Vaughan presented three segments covering different areas of communication.

Scott’s presentations covered the following topics: Communication Management (inner-office management and relationships), Generational Communication (communicating with different ages), and Congregational Apathy (how to get people to pay attention to promotion).

Some important take-aways that any church interested in better communication can benefit from included the following:

• Good communication is not automatic. It requires strategy and management.  An effective communication manager will coordinate a buffet of methodology and messages to reach people and move people into action.
  
  To accomplish this, the church manager must be at the executive level, rather than clerical level. He or she needs to be kept in the loop at all times.
  
• Statistics overflow in the area of generational communication.  It is important to consider the generalities of people within their generation, but equally important to look at their “world view” and design communication around a group’s beliefs about life.
  
• One thing is clear. There is not one fool proof method to achieve good communication. Communication requires telling your story often, in many different ways, using a variety of media.

Scott Vaughan, president of Communications, LLC, believes that every church in every community is unique, was created by the Holy Spirit, and belongs to God. Successful churches are those that embrace vertical and horizontal communication strategies, building relationships with God (vertical) and others (horizontal). Through these relationships, the work of the church is accomplished: People are introduced to Jesus and are discipled into a 'love and serve' relationship with Him.

Scott emphasizes the methodology of effective communication, and AmericanChurch, Inc.  provides the necessary tools. ACI’s products and services are designed to help churches increase giving, improve communication and develop strong communities.

Please visit www.americanchurch.com to see how ACI can help your church or organization. 

Are EFT and ACH the same?

Many people seem to have a misconception about electronic giving. We hear many church administrators say they already offer electronic giving or their members are already giving electronically. In most cases what they mean is that some of the members use their bank’s “Bill Pay” feature to process contributions to their church electronically.  There is a difference between the electronic process used by banks and that utilized in Online Giving.

When a member arranges to process the church donation using his/her bank’s Bill Pay service, he/she is simply instructing the bank to issue a check on a certain date for the specified amount. The bank mails a paper check to the church which the church staff has to process like any other check received during the Sunday Mass. This process is commonly referred to as EFT – Electronic Funds Transfer.

In Online Giving, there is no check issued by any bank and the member’s donation goes directly from the member’s bank account to the church’s bank account. It is transmitted over the ACH network. The term ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. ACH is an electronic network of financial institutions in the United States. It is managed by NACHA – Electronic Payment Association, a nonprofit organization with over 11,000 members that manages the development, administration, and governance of the ACH Network.  

So why would anyone switch from EFT to ACH for church donations? In the first place, there is no risk of losing a check in the mail in ACH process. Secondly, the bank deducts the funds from the account on the scheduled date although it may take 5 to 7 days for the check to reach the church. If the check is lost, there is no way for the church or the member to know. The church member may be under the false impression that he/she has given to the church whereas the church may think the member simply forgot to give since the donation is voluntary. In the case of ACH transaction, the church will know what it should be collecting if the member has set up recurring donations. Also, it also does not have to process a paper check which in some cases adds to the cost. The ACH transfer takes no more than 2 to 3 days and can be traced easily.

Thirdly, Online Giving has several features, such as scheduling pledges and recurring contributions, choosing the date to give and frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) suspending or cancelling future donations, etc. The EFT payment option offered by banks generally does not have as much flexibility as the ACH option offered by Online Giving.

As the volume of checks steadily declines, it is going to increase the cost of issuing and processing them. The ACH option is the most flexible, secure and cost-effective way to donate and is a true win-win situation for both the church and the member.   

Article written by: Vijay Jeste, Product Manager, Our Sunday Visitor