CareerNetworkMinistry.org

CareerNetworkMinistry.org (hereinafter, the Site) is the official website of the Career Network Ministry (hereinafter, the Ministry) located at https://careernetworkministry.org

History

Earliest attempt

Gary Ihar installed the first instance of WordPress in early 2016. This instance featured a WP-Meetup plugin developed by Ryan Flannagan. This plugin fetched event information from the meetup group of the Ministry and created posts for each event. The plugin provided an event calendar for displaying upcoming events on an event page. 3-5 upcoming events were also featured on the Site pages as a widget.

The Site visitors could RSVP for the upcoming events while just clicking on the buttons published on the Site. If someone was not a user of Meetup.com, or not a member of the group, the plugin directed this user to the registration pages.

The plugin crashed the Site several times. Gary Ihar and Ryan Flannagan exchanged several emails, but when it became clear the plugin developers abandoned its development projects, leaders of CNM Digital Services at that time, Gary Ihar and Sergei S. decided to move on to other options.

First enterprise-level site

While being inspired by Dr. Mallard Owen's vision to equip the Ministry with enterprise-level technology, the team launched a new version of the Site. The version was built on a Liferay instance and featured the video introduction of the Ministry on its front screen. To ease the video upload, later just a short snippet of attendees walking in the Ministry's hallway was left; the complete video was available on the "Watch" click.

The version didn't survive the major crash of the technology in 2016.

Second enterprise-level site

In late 2016, Alex installed an instance of Odoo and the team configured email service using the Yandex.Mail product. The security was partially backed by a Let's Encrypt certificate.

Natly drafted a new layout based on recommendations of several attendees of the Ministry and requirements collected by Gary Ihar from Bob Korzeniewski. The landing screen featured a quote of an executive of the U.S. Department of Labor,

the Rolls-Royce of faith-based job clubs in the United States.

Natly also installed an additional component to manage files in order to allow for publishing and downloading presentations. Gary Ihar and Romanof worked on a project to integrate meetup event announcements into the Site until the project was abandoned in mid-2017. By that time, Dr. Mallard Owen left the Ministry and the need in enterprise-level technology had faded.

Benchmarking

The Team will consider the following resources for the best practices to be incorporated:

1. Career Connectors - A Phoenix based group that runs their Jobs Club as a separate non-profit (501(c)3). They are active in multiple Churches - different model - some training but more of a Job Fair structure. https://careerconnectors.org
2. Roswell United Methodist Church (RUMC) - They have fully embraced their Jobs Ministry as a core part of the Church for the last 25+ years. Lots of media and print have covered their success story. They do no have a separate website that I know of - this link is part of the Church's website but worth reviewing. https://www.rumc.com/jobnetworking/
3. Neighbors helping Neighbors - Website is very busy - but these guys have been a very active Jobs Group and expanded their model to other locations. Might be something of value. https://www.nhnusa.org/index.html
4. Career Confidence - The local group run by Robert Brandeau. They keep it simple but communicate pretty regularly. https://www.career-confidence.org
5. 40 Plus DC - A Job's Group in the city - offers some free services - but then upsells paid services. Has been around for a long time! http://www.40plus-dc.org