Hey folks! Thank you for checking out what we’re creating at Churchy Life, and for taking the time to consider helping us reach our goals. My name is Damon Collins – I grew up in church and have a pretty unique sense of humor, which led me to create Church Funny some years ago (Instagram | Facebook). It’s a social media platform focused on creating and sharing funny church videos, memes and commentaries. Outside of that, I’ve worked professionally as a software engineer for around 24 years, creating web and mobile applications for companies like Sony, Intuit, Cisco, AT&T, Wells Fargo, and many more.
With the two worlds that I live in combined, I’ve set out to create Churchy Life – A streaming, on-demand digital media platform that houses all of the content that churchy folks are looking to enjoy. Classic Gospel concerts, new live-streamed Gospel events and shows (featuring everyone from established artists, to independents), and various types of original content; movies, comedy, skits, plays, interviews, docuseries, and so much more (think Netflix, but with 100% churchy content).
Make It Plain
While there are several Christian networks and platforms out there, there are few that truly highlight Black Gospel music & artists, Black Christian creatives, or our stories. There are none that provide on-demand, streaming digital media. With your help, we’re going to create and distribute amazing content, provide awesome opportunities to Black Christian creatives, and give voice to a whole world of Black Christian life. Our aim is to make Churchy Life a free-to-watch, ad-supported platform, and to provide premium content in the future for paid subscribers. This will give us the flexibility to pay Black Christian creatives for their time and content, while giving them a unique platform they can utilize to expand their audiences.
* Please read the full video disclaimer at the bottom of this page
We’ve set our goal at $100k for this initial round of fundraising. If that sounds like a lot, this may change your mind: BET was started in 1989 with a $500k investment! So, for everything we’re trying to accomplish, our goal is actually kind of low. The funds we raise will be used for 4 key things:
- Additional development resources to finish building and testing the platform for the web, on mobile devices, and on smart TVs.
- Production of original content, concerts, and shows – which includes paying artists & creatives, musicians, videographers, filming locations, post-production, and more.
- Procurement of content licenses for existing gospel concerts, videos, and other Christian entertainment.
- Business development, marketing, and advertising to continue building Churchy Life, and taking it to the next level.
Good Measure, Pressed Down, Shaken Together
We’d love to have a much bigger budget, but we want to keep the funding goal as conservative as possible, to encourage folks to give. The more we surpass the goal, the more we’ll be able to accomplish. Some of our stretch goals include:
- Securing deals for premium content
- A full-time resource for the app and web development
- Securing professional graphic design, branding, and marketing services
- Studio and office space for the production of original shows, videos, and podcasts
- Production of even more original shows, concerts, and series.
Pressing Toward The Mark
We’ve outlined several show ideas that can be accomplished on various budgets and will move forward with the most cost-effective options. Through our business development efforts, we’ll also focus on positioning Churchy Life to be funded by other partnerships and investments.
Creating the Churchy Life platform was born out of a few ideas and circumstances. For one, Church Funny is a great way to bring churchy folks together through laughter at shared experiences we all had growing up… but as an avid fan of Gospel music, and Gospel entertainment, I wanted to expand on that audience and share more.
Second, I’ve collected and digitized all of my old Gospel VHS tapes and DVDs over the years and have them for my private viewing (which my kids now enjoy as much as I ever did) and I wondered why this type of content didn’t have its own digital home. No streaming media services has this content on an on-demand basis (unless you count bootlegs that sparingly show up on YouTube).
Newer content is a different story. Gospel-themed programs on most networks have mostly disappeared. Some networks will selectively feature Black Gospel artists and preachers on their platforms – but these experiences can be kind of limited.
Long story short – Instead of waiting for mainstream media channels (Christian or otherwise) to offer us opportunities on their platform, we’ve set out to create our own.
There are several risks and obstacles we might face in getting Churchy Life off the ground, and onto everyone’s smart TVs and mobile devices. Our goals are lofty, and building the vision of Churchy Life into a thriving network and business has several components to consider. A few noted challenges would be negotiating licensing contracts for pre-existing content, finding advertisers for our network, and gaining subscribers.
Fortunately, we’re working with music industry veterans to handle the negotiations and procurement of content licenses, as well as established consultants to focus on business development for Churchy Life. Through your contributions, we’ll be able to hire sales professionals to bring in advertising partners, and we’ll be able to boost our marketing efforts to build our number of subscribers rapidly. Basically, money answers all things.
The key takeaway here is that we have some dedicated folks, with solid backgrounds to continue driving the vision forward, with plans to expand the team ASAP.
Our main team currently consists of (from left to right) Damon & Dany Collins (Co-founders), William Goff (Audio/Visual Production Specialist), Alexandra Ellis (Content Strategist), Darryl Jones (Sales Executive), Aldren McCullar (Subject Matter Expert & Content Creator), and Anthony Davis (Subject Matter Expert & Content Creator).
I truly appreciate you for taking the time to check out this campaign. If you’re unable to contribute monetarily, there are definitely other ways you can help:
- Pray for the success of this campaign! We just want to create and distribute content in a culturally authentic voice, that brings glory and honor to God.
- Share this campaign with everyone you know who may be interested! Send folks an email, a text, or use Indiegogo’s share tools to post on your social media pages.
- Submit ideas for content! If you’re a gospel artist, musician, creative, or speaker (or someone with dope ideas about the type of content Churchy Life should be creating or distributing), please get in contact with us. We’re looking for pre-existing content, as well as ideas that we can produce!
*Demo Video DisclaimerThe above video shows a working demo of the Churchy Life streaming platform. This demo platform shows a mix of real pre-existing content, and conceptual art of proposed content and show ideas. Conceptual art shown throughout the demo is displayed as an example only, and should not be misconstrued as endorsement or support of Churchy Life’s platform, or content licensing and/or development deals with Churchy Life, LLC by any of the depicted artists, public figures or celebrities. Images of artists, public figures, or celebrities were pulled from various online sources, and are used without the express permission of the depicted artists, public figures, or celebrities for example purposes only.