Since 2010, a wonderful and generous catholic community of women in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, have been clients. We’ve spent a lot of time together sharing, talking, listening and, of course, eating. (If you’ve never been served a meal by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, you should drop what you’re doing right now and get yourself there by 5 PM).
Since first meeting, we’ve been working together in a very step-by-step (walk-before-you-run) type of approach to craft clearer, more concise communication to a very specific audience – younger and possibly tech-savvy women who may be considering religious life and vocation. Their problem was clear – declining numbers of sisters in the community and an increasingly urgent need to reach new prospective members. Articulating their message in the same ways were no longer reaching, and a new focus on outreach – communicating in new channels with a refined voice – was required.
After a significant amount of time helping the women in the SHS community get a handle on what a that focus might look like, including a social media focus, a new community “voice” and some positioning, we turned our collective attention to a brand new web presence. Getting one step closer to the goal of refined content, we first created a brand new home for their pre existing content, and a place for us to present some of the new materials and messages we’ve been creating together. This includes a collection of beautifully powerful imagery donated by Joey Kennedy (wonderfully art directed by talented local artists Randie Snow), along with aintegrated video campaign of very personal testimonial stories – coordinated by Erica De Angelis and captured / edited “in-house.”
With judicious use of precious resources, we had to find ways to minimize costs to provide a platform that the Sisters of the Holy Spirit would be able to sustain on their own in the future. Leveraging a friendly WordPress-powered website structure allowed us to stand up a new presence with minimal time and cost, while giving the Sisters a powerful new communication channel that is updated with ease.
