There is no way I could keep our clients on top of change in the fund raising world if all I read were fund raising books and journals.
Here is a case in point from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal: How Many iPhone Developers Wear Wimples? For my faith-based, non-Catholic readers, a wimple is a cloth which usually covers the head and is worn around the neck and chin. Today, the wimple is worn by some Catholic religious women’s communities who don the traditional habit.
Sister Catherine is the prioress of the Benedictine Nuns of Holy Trinity Monastery in Oxfordshire, England, and though their main revenue source has been retreats, in the past few years they have developed a thriving business designing and hosting Web sites. Naturally, it was an obvious next step to begin developing apps for smartphones. Sister Catherine tells the WSJ reporter, “Our online outreach started as an expression in contemporary terms of traditional monastic hospitality. We provide a space there where people can learn something about the monastery and the things we do. They can interact with us; that’s why we have podcasts and video, etc. Certainly among the Benedictines, we tried to adapt the latest technology in every generation. We were very quick to adopt printing. I think the first book was Boethias around 1526 by monks in Glastonbury. That was the first purely monastic publication. And then in the 19th century, they all set up monastic printing houses.”
Here is the challenge to American faith-based fund raising organizations, both Catholic and non-Catholic; Sister Catherine says religion is always the early adopter.
Is your faith-based fund raising group an early adopter of new communications technology?
By the way, if you have trouble viewing the above article, drop me a line and I will email it to you.
-Mike
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