St Joseph's Parish in Clarkston is a vibrant and well-loved community hub — but the digital infrastructure underpinning its day-to-day operations was holding it back. With an ageing website, inconsistent email communications, and a manually administered parish lottery, the team was spending precious volunteer time on avoidable overhead rather than on the community itself.
The Challenge: Legacy Systems Straining a Busy Parish
A parish community has a surprisingly complex set of operational needs. Regular communications must reach hundreds of parishioners reliably. A website serves as the public face of the community and the first port of call for newcomers. And a fundraising lottery, however beloved, demands accuracy, fairness, and clear record-keeping.
St Joseph's was managing all of this through a patchwork of outdated tools. The website was difficult for staff to update, leading to stale notices and missed announcements. Emails were composed and sent manually with no consistent templates or tracking. The parish lottery was administered by hand — tickets logged in spreadsheets, draws conducted informally, and winner notifications sent via personal email.
The core operational issues were clear: an outdated web presence that was cumbersome to maintain; inconsistent communications sent from ad-hoc sender addresses; manual lottery administration leaving significant room for human error; and volunteer fatigue from disproportionate time spent on administrative tasks.
The Solution: A Cohesive, Modern Digital Foundation
Edderton Scott undertook a full review of St Joseph's digital touchpoints and designed a joined-up solution that addressed the website, email, and lottery in a single, coherent overhaul. The aim was not to introduce complexity, but to replace friction with flow.
The website was rebuilt from the ground up with a clear brief: easy to maintain by non-technical staff, fully responsive, and reflective of the parish's genuine warmth. We implemented a modern content management setup allowing notices, Mass times, events, and news to be updated quickly without any technical knowledge.
We established a proper email system with consistent branding, clear sender identities, and the ability to reach different segments of the congregation. Weekly newsletters, event announcements, and sacramental reminders are built from reusable templates.
The parish lottery was transformed from a paper-and-spreadsheet exercise into a clean, auditable digital system. Ticket sales are logged automatically, the draw process is transparent and verifiable, and winner notifications are sent without manual intervention.
Three previously isolated operations brought together under a single, manageable digital framework.
"The difference has been remarkable. Our website finally looks like it represents us properly, our parishioners are getting communications they can rely on, and the lottery practically runs itself now. The team has been freed up to focus on what actually matters — the people."
— Parish Administrator, St Joseph's Parish, ClarkstonThe Result
The overhaul has had a tangible impact across every area of the parish's digital operations. Communications now reach parishioners three times faster than before, with a marked improvement in open rates and engagement. Administrative overhead has dropped by 60%, with volunteers redirecting their time towards community-facing activities. The lottery system now operates with full auditability and zero manual processing errors, and the refreshed website has been warmly received by the broader community.