Client: Julie, Vestry Leader at St Aiden's Episcopal Church
Location: Olathe, Kansas
Client's Challenge: Dozens of members requiring a centralized point of communication.
Solution: Unison.io, a group organization and communication platform.

How did you hear about Unison.io?

We were looking for a platform that we could use just inside our church. We were still using a lot of pen-and-paper sign-ups, and information was getting missed, so we knew we had to move to something more digital.

I happened on Unison.io through a quick online search over a year and a half ago, and I instantly wanted it. I thought it was great. Unison.io provides us streamlined in-house communication in a format that even the seniors can relate to, and keeps all of the history of our communications. If we ever need to go back and find something we missed, it's there.

What kinds of groups are you organizing in Unison.io?

We have the main congregation, which is everybody, and then underneath that we have different subgroups, such as the Daughters of the King ministry. We also set up different subgroups for all the different ministries, which allows each ministry to manage themselves.

For example, we have a subgroup that we use to coordinate food deliveries for our Food Ministry. For that subgroup, what’s really helpful is texting capability, because a lot of times we need instant notification of delivery or something that's been canceled.

Recently we had to conduct a search for a new priest, so we set up a private subgroup that was just for the search committee. It was great that we could set just that one subgroup to be private, but still have everyone in the congregation in one system.

Did you do any training or onboarding for Unison.io group leaders?

Yes, I sat down with all of the ministry leaders and just brought up our Unison.io group on the TV and walked them through it. Additionally, I put links on our website to the Unison.io Help Center because the documentation there is very good. It's very clear and easy to follow.

What Unison.io feature has made the most difference for your congregation?

As an Admin, I can maintain all the email addresses in one place, and have a history of communication. Yet our congregation members just think it's a regular email going out and they can treat it like a regular email. To me, that's the best feature because of my audience. It's easy to use so nobody backed down when I said we're bringing in this new platform.

At first, I was afraid that everybody would kind of cringe at us implementing a new online tool, but once they saw it, people were like, “this is just like normal email!” But for the admins and the group leaders that really want to use all those other features, it's so much more! I just really love the whole thing, it's been really good.