Q: What features of Mission Pathways’ software are the most beneficial to you?

I like the ability to do so many things with the Participants database. I’ve been using it for Following Christ course in Christlife™. It has made it very easy to take attendance, to keep track of groups, and to keep track of food and other volunteer functions. What’s more, when we had to suspend the program due to COVID-19, I was able to get out the notification emails in about 2 minutes, as opposed to the several hours it would have taken me to do each one by hand. 

Q: Why did you decide to use Mission Pathways?

It was recommended to me by one of the people with ChristLife™ as an easy way to track the effectiveness of the program in terms of increased parish participation. We saw the value of it providing the hard data we need to measure the programs we offer.

After 41 years in public education with a special ed background, thinking in terms of data-driven decision-making is pretty much part of my DNA. After talking to the people at Mission Pathways, I was confident that their software would fill the bill, and so far it has done well.

Q: What advantages does Mission Suite have over how you did things before?

Before using the software, I had the information, but it was not all in one place, rather it was scattered throughout several Microsoft and ParishSOFT™ applications. The Mission Suite allows me to pull information together much more quickly and to perform tasks like group emails much more efficiently. In addition, I feel that it will give me the tools to track information over time regarding the participation and success rate of parish programs, which in turn will help with data-driven decision making about future programs.

Q: Any additional comments?

I see this as a valuable tool help us get an idea of how much our outreach and faith formation programs are impacting the lives of our parishioners. Have we created a hunger in them to learn more and to share their faith more widely? Are we attracting people who may not have been actively engaged before? Who is participating in our RCIA program?

All in all, I hope that using this program becomes a way that we can serve the spiritual and faith formation needs or our community in a more effective way.