Census Validation Toolkit

Business Solutions Parish Toolkit # 1:
Validating Census Data 

Definition:  It is important in our parish communities to know who our people are in order to plan for services to meet their needs. ParishSoft has been selected as the standard parish information management system for all of the parishes in the Diocese of Camden. This software, however, is merely a tool to be used in managing the information. Keeping the information as current and accurate as possible is a process that should be addressed periodically in every parish. 

Approach to Implementation:  Production of family registration forms, distribution of forms for verification, distribution of blank forms for non-registered families, and accurate recording of information into the database are all key steps in this process. Standards for Family Groups, Workgroups and Member Status should be implemented in order to consistently record data in useable groupings. 

Roles and Responsibilities:  A parish census coordinator should be identified and will be the key coordinator for this process. While the parish census coordinator is key in this process, the pastor will need to express the importance of gathering such information to the congregation and various volunteers will be needed to distribute registration forms after mass. You may also want to recruit and train volunteers to update the data in the ParishSoft database. These volunteers will need to have some computer and data entry skills. 

Training:  The parish census coordinator should be a trained user of the ParishSoft system. If volunteers are used for data entry, they should be trained in adding and editing family and member records. 

Expected Resources:  Paper, postage, volunteers and time are the key resources required to make this process happen.

If you need more information or assistance with Census Validation, please contact:
Marianne Linka
Director of Business Solutions
mlinka@camdendiocese.org
856-583-2820

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