Online giving enables parish support to continue

March 25, 2020

By Peter Finney Jr.
File photo courtesy of Catholic Community Foundation

Cory Howat, executive director of the Catholic Community Foundation of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, didn’t have to look far out into the horizon to see what was brewing with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic: Catholic church parishes closed for the celebration of Mass, possibly for several weeks, with limited ability to reach their parishioners.

In addition to the loss of direct access to the Eucharist, parishioners who normally support their church through envelope giving would find making that regular contribution more challenging, which could create a loss in the vital income the parish relies on to fulfill its ministry.
Emergency ramp-up

Howat and his staff, led by Ryan Adams, decided to make an emergency push to help parishes not fully utilizing a database system called “ParishSOFT,” which offers online donation collections through a customized giving page and also collects contributions made through texting with a smart phone.

Howat worked with ParishSOFT to waive a $250 set-up fee, and, within days, a dozen additional parishes signed up for the database program, Howat said. Adams visited several of the parishes to personally install it and train the pastors and staffs.

“This isn’t just for online giving,” Howat said. “It’s a platform that allows you to do forms so you can engage parishioners, and it overlays into social media. It helps a parish stay in touch with parishioners and get updates to their email addresses. We even tested it on several fish fries, where you could pre-pay for your fish. It gives the parish a lot of versatility.”

One parish on the northshore installed the program last week, and within a couple of days, it received its first online donations.

Howat said about 70% of parishes in the archdiocese are using ParishSOFT, but he sees those numbers growing.

“You don’t do this for the sole purpose of online giving, you do this as an invitation to ministry,” Howat said. “There are ways for people to get involved and share their gifts. You can keep track of all kinds of different ministries and your parish school of religion rosters. You can basically use website forms so that your website is more than just a one-way directional information and becomes more two-way directional, which gives input back to you.”

For more information, contact Howat at (504) 527-5778 or chowat@ccfnola.org.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at pfinney@clarionherald.org.