Marketing your church

[EricCKS]

I don’t know if this is the correct forum but will give it a try.

Does your Catholic church/school do anything to “market” what you are about to parishoners etc?

I volunteered to be on our Catholic school’s marketing team. It is my opinion we need to do more to show our faith within our school is alive, not just living. My goals are three fold. #1 I want to increase enrollment. #2 Get those parents whose children attend our school to begin attending Mass if they do not… the number is significant.
#3 Care for those parents who are activily involved in the church and school. It may seem like alot but the above three goals overlap to a degree. Where if you get people to do one thing, it becomes easier to do another.

What have you done? T-shirts with catchy slogans, direct mailing. Social events? Did it work? What did not work?

Thanks
Eric

 

[Tonks40]

Funny you should ask! I just came back from my parish’s Stewardship meeting. Stewardship by definition is using our God-given time, talents and treasures to serve those in the parish community and around us.

We recently held a Ministry Fair. The concept was to hold an event (in our case, it was on church property at the school’s playing field) where all the parish’s ministries, groups and organizations (MGOs) gather in one spot, have booths, and make available information for the ones who come to Mass and are interested in becoming more involved in parish life. We held it on a Sunday during all our Masses, and invited people, through announcements at Mass, bulletin notices, fliers, etc. The feedback we got tonight was that the fair was very successful. MGOs were amazed at the amount of sign-ups and new members they got, and they’ll will actively be involved in making sure they do get involved. This is just one way we advertised to our parishioners about what happens at our church.

Tee-shirts worked great! As far as events go, we have our weekly bulletins, and many times, we do have speakers making announcements at Mass. Many times, we do have a booth outside in the parking lot manned by a MGO to promote their group, and have people available to answer any questions. These ideas has been met with limited success, but like I said, we were astounded by the wonderfully positive and plentiful responses we got from the parish community!

Be as creative as you can. Make sure you get your pastor’s approval. Be enthusiastic when making presentations to the parishioners. And above all, be prophets. We as active members in the church want to show the real reason why we so willingly and sacrificially serve the Church - because we are people of God, and that should be reflected in your enthusiasm and attitude.

If you want any more ideas, here’s our parish’s website:

St. Rose of Lima, Chula Vista, CA