Case Study

The Challenge

Beginning with the Year of Faith, the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas (AKCK) began new initiatives to invigorate parishes and enliven parishioners. To enable its priests, parish staff, and parishioners to more fully understand Catholic beliefs and the richness of the gift of faith, the Archdiocese saw the need to overcome the “crisis of content” by establishing a repository of Catholic digital media that would be easily accessible throughout the archdiocese. This repository needed to suit Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann’s mandate to present content that was faithful to the Church’s magisterium and was supportive of the priorities and catechetical needs of the local church.

The Solution

MyCatholicVoice teamed with AKCK to build the most complete, cross publisher repository of Catholic digital media available in the Church today. This repository required review of over 40 Catholic publishers and 25,000 digitized media items to select those important to the archdiocese. MyCatholicVoice developed the “AKCK Digital Media Center” as a customizable platform for adding content as well as streaming and/or download of free and for-fee digital media.

Working closely with AKCK, MyCatholicVoice is providing:

• An archdiocese-branded “store front” and content delivery network for digital media distribution, complete with merchant processing, publisher settlements for download (iTunes model), and streaming (Netflix model)
• A Resource Librarian for management and oversight of the online media library
• Continued publisher relations for Digital Distribution Agreement management
• Post-production support for editing and collaboration around locally prepared video content
• Graphic design, indexing, and tagging to keep the Resource Center updated according to the liturgical year and archdiocesan events and priorities
• A specialized team to support the complex requirement for digital media delivery
• Live streaming and download replays for archdiocesan events
• An enhanced library loan function for legacy DVD distribution within archdiocesan ZIP codes
• Ongoing consulting services
• Cloud services for storage

The Results

With AKCK Digital Media Center, the Archbishop’s duty to teach is enhanced by the power and accessibility of new media for those who desire to an authentic search for definitive truth in their life.  In addition, the Archdiocese frequently makes accessible live stream events that have thousands of downloads after the events for individual replay.  For the first time, teaching and faith formation is not limited to time and place, or the availability of physical media items like DVDs.

“The AKCK Digital Media Center has shown how we can extend, open, touch, heal, and excite more hearts so more may be shaped by grace. We know this journey is just beginning, and we are excited to see the Gospel touching more hearts and access to solid Catholic content being enabled in new ways.”

Fr. Gary Pennings
Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia
Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas