eCatholic Year in Review 2022

January 5, 2023 by

Josh Simmons

eCatholic Year in Review 2022: Expansions and innovations

As another year has come to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the early days of eCatholic…I just wanted to help as many parishes as possible communicate, inspire, and engage more effectively. Seventeen years later, my dream of helping as many as 50 parishes has expanded to all corners of the world as we now are blessed to serve over 7,000 parishes, dioceses, and schools!

Although we’ve grown beyond my wildest dreams, our mission and focus have never changed: Helping YOU fulfill your mission through simple tools, beautiful software and phenomenal service.Thank you for allowing us to serve you this past year and for all the ways we are blessed to serve you in the future!

Perfecting the products in our suite…sweet!

1

Launching the New CMS Interface

Change and improvement are imminent as time marches ahead…and our digital tools at eCatholic are no exception! Back in February, our Product Team hosted a webinar to showcase changes to the user interface for the eCatholic website platform. 10 months later we’re still thrilled with the updated design.

But why the change? The old interface served us well, but a facelift gave us a chance to hit the refresh button, get creative, and allow our developers to work in some changes that will allow for new growth in the future. ;)

2

Alternative Font Packages for Free Website Themes

One of the core elements that we focus on at eCatholic is creating tools that are “simple”. With that in mind, 2022 saw the dawn of alternative Font Packages. Our team did the hard work in order to provide multiple font choices that are accessible through your site’s Design Studio rather than your CSS code. No more code, no more confusion!

3

Donation Form Updates

Since the launch of eCatholic Online Giving & Payments, the landscape for online giving has changed drastically. This year, we got to take a step back and make some well-deserved changes to our donation form, which helped us reimagine the giving experience all around.

New features for the Donations forms included more options for the frequency of recurring gifts and the ability for donors to elect to help offset transaction fees. And to top it all off, we made a few style changes to the form as well, all in the hope of providing a seamless and enjoyable giving experience for you and your donors.

4

New Family Explorer for eCatholic ChMS (formerly GabrielSoft ChMS)

Our website and online giving tools weren’t the only products getting significant updates this past year. After eCatholic ChMS joined the eCatholic product suite in 2021, we immediately planned for a few additions to go live in 2022.

Now that 2022 has closed, it's awesome to see how many improvements we’ve made to eCatholic ChMS from when we began. Here are just a few of the upgrades that our team of talented developers worked hard to introduce:

• Multiple eCatholic website modules that provide a seamless connection to send data from your website directly into your ChMS account.
• The Family Explorer, which made it easy to customize your view in ChMS and sort through your data more quickly.
• Streamlined tools for the Religious Education Registration process that help organize and track students and their journey towards the Sacraments.

Dishing out new and exciting resources for customers

1

New Resource: Weekly Training Webinar

As a user of our eCatholic platform, you’re considered part of our family! Keeping in mind that our family is constantly growing and changing, our Support team wanted to ensure that we were providing regular training opportunities available to anyone who needed a jumpstart (or even a refresh!) on how to use our website tools. Check it out for yourself!

• eCatholic Weekly Training Webinar

2

New Service: Homepage Makeover +

Our original Homepage Makeover service was created to provide an easy design update for long-time eCatholic customers. But over the years, we’ve received requests from customers who want a little extra help beyond redesigning their homepage. So, we re-evaluated and launched a remix: the Homepage Makeover +. See what’s included below (warning: it might be the perfect fit for your website!):

• Homepage Makeover + Service

3

Oodles of new custom design websites

Speaking of great website designs, I can’t forget to highlight the amazing strides made by our Custom Design Services team in 2022. This year, we helped launch sites that connected people from all around the country - and even around the world. Take a look…

• Papal Visit to Bahrain Website - Our team was contacted by the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia (AVONA) to help design the official website for Pope Francis’ visit to the Kingdom of Bahrain. See it for yourself: bahrainpapalvisit.org
• #BishopsBigGame Website - eCatholic helped the Diocese of Los Angeles and Cincinnati use the Super Bowl LVI, to fundraise for Catholic Education. Read more about this awesome idea here and be sure to visit the website too: bishopsbiggame.com
• Best Websites of 2022 - And, of course, I won’t forget to mention our annual blog post that shares our favorite eCatholic websites that went live in 2022. We love sharing great ideas and designs for your own digital evangelization needs. So, dive in, and see what new inspiration comes for your own site!

 

 

Innovation at home plate: the moment that made 2022 a grand slam.

A brand new eCatholic.com

Back in 2018, we set out to create a brand new type of eCatholic website, a place where we can inform, inspire and engage our customers - and not just with our digital tools. We spent the time building up a resource hub of blog posts, webinars, and other tools that would help you succeed in your Catholic parish, school, or ministry. But last year, we decided it was finally time for a major update to the brand that we worked so hard to build.

After 2 months of hard work and communication between most of our interior departments, the new eCatholic.com was launched in June, and turned out better than we ever imagined. When you visit, be sure to check out some of our favorite updates!

• A newly minted mission statement and product wheel on the homepage.
• A stellar navigation menu that helps you easily browse the site.
• New images, buttons, and animations to create a fun and engaging experience.

Here’s to the future!

2022 was an amazing year, but I can’t wait for you to see and experience what we have planned for 2023...it’s going to be a year like no other!

From all of us at eCatholic, thank you for being a part of this journey with us. It is our joy to be a part of your journey too!

May God’s blessing be upon you and your loved ones in 2023!