Step One: Gather your people to create your
Website Team!

Identify two to three people in your parish who will be responsible for maintaining your website for the next twelve months.

Ideally, your website team would include at least one staff person (who would have ongoing website responsibility attached to their role) and at least one volunteer lay-leader in your church (either a vestry person or someone else within the parish with interest in communication and online presence). We also recommend that it would never fall solely or even primarily on a clergyperson to maintain the website.

We recommend that volunteer commitments have end dates (think one year at a time) so that no one gets burned out from the parish assuming that they’ll continue in their specific volunteer role in perpetuity. Of course volunteers can choose to reprise their role for as many volunteer terms as they feel willing and able to do if it is still in alignment with church culture and priorities.

Step Two: As a Website Team, complete “Prepare for Website Build” on the pre-launch checklist.

You can download a PDF version of this checklist here or click here to make a copy of the checklist as an editable Google doc. Completing “Step Two: Prepare for Website Build” on this checklist will be the most time-consuming part of the process for your team. Hang in there!

Step Three: Loop in diocesan staff.

Complete this form to confirm that your Website Team is ready to meet with diocesan staff!

Step Four: Schedule and attend initial build meeting.

Once you’ve submitted the form in step three, diocesan staff will review your materials and reach out to you to schedule a time for an initial website build meeting. Your whole Website Team should attend this meeting so that everyone is on the same page. Plan on one hour for this meeting in which diocesan staff will review your materials and ask any questions they may have to help them in the build process.

By the end of the meeting, the diocesan staff member will let you know when they can schedule the two-week initial build phase of your site at the end of which everyone will need to plan on a “turning over the keys” meeting. Keep in mind that staff workloads may mean that your two-week build phase may need to be scheduled to begin a few weeks after the initial build meeting, so it’s important to plan ahead if you have a firm deadline for your website to be completed.

If three business days have elapsed since you’ve submitted your form and you haven’t yet heard from a diocesan staff person to schedule your meeting, please send a nudge email to communications@cnyepiscopal.org. 

Step Five: Initial Build Phase

While diocesan staff work to build your website, take time as Website Team Members to review the church website tutorials here.

Step Six: Handing Over the Keys

Once the diocesan staff has built your site with your provided content and specific goals in mind, you’ll have another meeting with the with them to tour the site, transfer the domain, and begin initial training. Unless there are major problems or gaps, at that time, the “keys” for the website will be in your hands! Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly maintenance will be the responsibility of your website team.

The Process