Power Church software company changes with the times

ASHEVILLE — As the computer has become an essential tool of work and communication, churches have increasingly looked to technology to stay connected with their members.

Local company PowerChurch Software has grown over the past 25 years by finding new ways to meet the needs of congregations.

The small software company started in Los Angeles offering churches the ability to produce mass mailers.

Now based in Asheville, PowerChurch has 13 employees and enables more than 30,000 churches nationwide to track contributions and attendance, send out mass e-mails and access accounting information remotely on the Web.

Next up: a Facebook-style social networking tool.

“In the beginning, churches didn’t want to use computers at all,” General Manager Jeff Campbell said. “But now I think people realize they really can’t do much of their work without it anymore.”

When PowerChurch produced its first program in 1984, people kept in touch by snail mail and landline phones, and many still did their bookkeeping on paper.

Offering computer software to churches was a tough sell at first, but the company’s vision proved prophetic.

Campbell climbed his way to the top of the company after taking a job in the mailroom in 1990. The company’s owner at that time decided to move to Asheville in 1992 after the Los Angeles. riots. Once in the mountains, Campbell was assigned to head up software development.

The company’s operations manager, Carla Bracalente, joined the company as a technician when it moved to Asheville.

Though Asheville is no tech capital, Campbell and Bracalente said they only need office space and Internet access for their company to thrive here.

“We don’t have to be located in an Atlanta or a Dallas or some big metro city. We can live in a place that’s beautiful and nice and has access to everything we need,” Campbell said.

New versions of PowerChurch software have changed with the needs of the company’s customers.

Currently, the program allows staff to gather and analyze attendance and giving, producing graphs to determine trends over months and years.

It also serves as an electronic calendar, helping larger congregations keep track of what facilities are being booked for what activities.

A more recent innovation was PowerChurch Online, a version of the program that can be accessed via a remote Web server, allowing staff to work from home.

“We’re meeting the need of those churches that don’t have a centralized office and use a lot of volunteers working from home,” Bracalente said.

The company serves congregations ranging from 25 to tens of thousands members.

A recent survey by the Campbell Rinker market research company ranked the latest edition of PowerChurch Plus as the highest in user satisfaction among church management programs.

Groce United Methodist Church in Asheville has been using the software for more than a decade to keep track of its 600-member congregation. “If there are some members who are out sick or haven’t been coming for a while, we have volunteers who follow up with them,” church administrator Jennifer Terbeek said.

The next feature PowerChurch users want is a way to allow members to connect with one another through a Facebook-like social network, Campbell said.

The planned version has “a number of Facebook features,” he explained. “There’s a friend feature, they have wall posts they can put up there, people can post their own pictures. It’s kind of a private church community that the church can use to foster community among their members.”

Article by Ashville Citizen’s Times