In the last few months ChurchDesk has experienced some major events and we would like to take this opportunity to tell you all about it. Firstly, over the summer, we obtained a substantial capital injection from an internationally recognized investment group. This investment came on the back of significant recognition of the product and the value we have created for our customers. As well as this we have made further investments into our team and have recently employed three new country managers with vast experience and ambitious profiles that will further enhance our local focus. Finally we are happy to announce our new office in the center of London. Our UK customer interests are continuing to grow and this office will serve to meet these demands now and in the future.
We want to empower the church with great tools
When we founded ChurchDesk in 2012 it was with the aim of strengthening the church with digital tools to support the work of the church. We wanted to not only help the church with their administration work but we also wanted to give the church the ability to reach out to more of their members. In 2013, as ChurchDesk grew, we established an office in Hamburg. From this office we work with many churches around Germany. Now we are happy to announce that we have come to London! Our customer numbers continue to grow in the UK and our new office will give us more resources to cater to this rapidly expanding market. We currently enjoy close co-operation with over 1000 churches and our solution is helping to optimize and modernize the work of our members. This is benefiting not only the church but its congregations as well.
International recognition and further investment
Over the summer, we received significant global recognition for the results we have created thus far with our churches. The well renowned investment group, Mangrove Partners, invested £1.5m into ChurchDesk. This investment provides us with the opportunity to further improve our product and orginisation. Mangrove Partners has extensive experience in building international IT companies and among their many successes is that of Skype. Mangrove was instantly impressed with our product and our vision for helping the church improve their day to day working life. With this investment brings the ability to take our product to the next level and to hire strong, experienced staff to strengthen and develop our product further.
Michael Jackson, from Mangrove Partners writes here about why they decided they wanted to be a part of ChurchDesk...
Strengthening of our management team with a local focus
We are happy to welcome our three new regional managers, all with very strong profiles and relevant experience that will continue to grow and improve ChurchDesk. They will be responsible for the future growth of our three biggest markets, with specific local focus on our churches and users in that area.
Elliot Robinson
Elliot is our new country manager for the UK and comes from a glittering career at Zendesk. Zendesk, which is listed on the New York stock exchange, develops software to manage customer support services. The company was originally founded in Copenhagen Denmark and has grown to a team of over 1000. Elliot was an integral part of Zendesks journey in the European market and gained vast experience in doing so. We are happy to have his knowledge and abilities here at ChurchDesk UK.
Yann-Frédéric Meyer-Ciolek
Yann-Frédéric, or Freddy as he is affectionately known, is our new country manager for Germany. Freddy joins the Hamburg office from Yelp. Yelp is also an American based IT company and at Yelp Freddy was responsible for growing their efforts in Germany. With his infectious enthusiasim for all things customer service and software, Freddy is guaranteed to be another great addition to the team at ChurchDesk.
Daniel Massot
Daniel joins our Copenhagen office as our Nordics manager. Daniel will be responsible for our Danish, Swedish and Norwegian markets. Daniel comes from a long background of software based companies including, HP, Dell and Arrow. Daniel is especially interested in VMware and other virtualisation vendors in the IT industry. A fantastic addition to the ChurchDesk team, Daniel will be focused on continuing to grow and improve our already highly engaged Nordic markets.
Elliot Robinson, Country Manager UK; Christian Steffensen, founder and CEO; Daniel Massot, Country Manager for the Nordics and Yann-Frederic Meyer-Ciolek, Country Manager Germany.
Great product improvements for your ChurchDesk
In recent months the ChurchDesk platform has received some great new updates in order to continue the growth and development of our product. In 2015 our biggest improvement was the introduction of our church database tool, "People". With "People" our members can utilise a fully integrated database for their church. "People" is fully customisable and offers the opportunity to segment the congregation. This segmentation allows for more targeted communication with the church. As well as this, "People" provides the opportunity for the church to gather valuable data from their church interaction which can then be used to improve communication. Already we have sent over 100,000 targeted messages to members of the church, highlighting that our customers can see the value in this new tool. 2016 is no different and we have some very exciting updates lined up for Q1 and Q2. Watch this space for more information in the near future!
ChurchDesk is very excited for 2016 and we are looking forward to continuing our company mission of providing great tools for the church - we look forward to growing with you in 2016. Thank you for being a part of our journey.
