{"id":915,"date":"2026-08-08T06:17:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradschauf.com\/blog\/?p=915"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:04:25","slug":"introducing-catholic-functions-a-better-way-to-run-parish-fundraisers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradschauf.com\/blog\/introducing-catholic-functions-a-better-way-to-run-parish-fundraisers\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Catholic Functions: A Better Way to Run Parish Fundraisers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last October, I stood in a checkout line at our parish gala for over twenty minutes. The line snaked out of the cashier room and collided with people trying to pick up their auction items. Volunteers \u2014 mostly the same dedicated group of women who make these events happen every year \u2014 were buried in paper bid sheets, manually reconciling winners across more than 200 items. The event raised good money, but it ran on the heroics of a few rather than on good systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left that night thinking: there has to be a better way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am parishioner at St. Christopher Catholic Parish in Marana, Arizona, and I’ve been building software for over 40 years. When our steering committee started planning the 2026 gala \u2014 this time a fundraiser for our new multi-purpose building \u2014 I offered to solve the problem with code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not use what’s already out there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We looked. The established players in this space \u2014 Blackbaud (enterprise pricing, sales-call required), GiveSmart (starting around $2,395\u2013$2,995\/year), OneCause (roughly $2,995\/year or 5% of proceeds) \u2014 are built for large nonprofits with dedicated development staff and big budgets. For a parish running one or two events a year with volunteer committees, these costs eat directly into the money meant for the cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We needed something purpose-built for how parish fundraisers actually work: volunteer-run, one-night events where simplicity and speed matter more than enterprise features nobody will use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Catholic Functions does differently<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started building in April 2026, with our September gala as the deadline. The platform is designed around one principle: eliminate the lines and the paperwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s what that looks like in practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n