Jomona Williamson has worked with St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC, for almost 18 years. About a year ago, things shifted around a bit, and she became the full-time coordinator of MinistryPlatform and the manager of significant community events. An example of a major community event is a marriage conference that they recently hosted.
St. Andrews had been using ACS and The City for decades, and when The City’s sunsetting was announced, they started looking for a replacement and found MinistryPlatform. It seemed like a perfect fit; it was not a one-to-one replacement for The City, but it did everything they needed.
One of the reasons they chose MinistryPlatform was that it was the only one they could find that converted from ACS completely. Having been on ACS for decades before changing programs, they needed to preserve all of that historical information. The conversion process to MinistryPlatform went smoothly, and they love the change.
“We were going to lose much of our data, and we’ve been with ACS for decades. We didn’t want to lose our data. That’s important history for us. And that was one of the things that MinistryPlatform guaranteed for us; all of that data came over. And it did and is still accessible to us, and we’re very grateful for that.” Jomona Williamson, MinistryPlatform/Major Events Coordinator
For most of her experience with ACS, she spent significant time pulling reports. MinistryPlatform makes pulling that information much more efficient. It has saved a lot of time to create a quick View and pull any of the necessary information. A lot of that is because they have such good data entry processes.
When setting up MinistryPlatform for the first time, Jomona says it is essential to know what you need to be able to get out of it. MinistryPlatform has a very flexible reporting system where you can create views and easily share them with the people who need to use them. You can get anything you need out of it, but only if the data is there for it to read. So the first question she would ask any new potential MinistryPlatform user is, “Why are you looking for something new? What do you need to have that your current system isn’t providing?”
Jomona says another major bonus to MinistryPlatform is the fantastic team of support and programmers behind MinistryPlatform. She knows that no matter what she needs, a quick phone call, chat, or email is all it will take to get her answers. She also loves that they take the time to explain things to her.
“They’re perfectly willing to step in and be like, ‘just do this’ or ‘here it is’ and educate me on it. So it’s not just ‘here’s the bigger picture. Here’s where you can find more information. Here’s how this connects with that,’ which is, from my perspective, really important because I want to become more and more self-sufficient in how I engage and grow and how I use the platform, and I always feel like they’re very willing to help me with that.” Jomona Williamson, MinistryPlatform/Major Events Coordinator
When asked if there was a part of MinistryPlatform that made her job easier, Jomona responded, “All of it!” She says she doesn’t run into walls; she can do whatever she needs, whenever she needs it. One of her favorite things is when one of their more technical elders asks her if MinistryPlatform can do something in particular, she can always do it. It makes her feel super accomplished when she can get it to do something he hasn’t figured out yet.
Jomona says the learning process and implementation of MinistryPlatform have been very positive experiences.
“It’s been a very positive thing for our community. And so I would say. All of the things to track– and probably more things than you’re aware of tracking–you can do that in MinistryPlatform. That ability gives you the resources to serve Christ’s Kingdom in a way you wouldn’t do without knowing that information. And so I think MinistryPlatform is a great solution.” Jomona Williamson, MinistryPlatform/Major Events Coordinator
With MinistryPlatform, your community can be engaged, and data can be used effectively to manage your ministries.
To learn more about St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Click Here
To learn more about MinistryPlatform, click Here
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