CaringBridge (www.caringbridge.org)  is an essential tool for every church communicator as a way to keep people updated about tragedies, needs, and ongoing illness in the lives of your members. It is a free resource where members can set up a site to keep people informed about these events. The family member only has to enter information once and all interested friends and prayer warriors can go there for updates and can send messages and encouragements. They recently added SupportPlanner,  which they describe in this way:

Our SupportPlanner is a calendar that helps family and friends coordinate care and organize helpful tasks, such as bringing a meal, taking care of pets and other needs.

Many church communicators coordinate these important tasks and this free tool will help you do them effectively.

Before Facebook there was CaringBridge

USA TODAY recently ran a story about it:

Fifteen years ago, before there was a Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace, Sona Mehring turned to social networking to get the word out about the challenging health condition of a close friend's new baby.

Brighid Swanson was born almost three months early to JoAnn Hardeggar and Darrin Swanson. Mehring, then a website designer in Eagan, Minn., decided to create a site to post progress reports about the baby.

During the baby's brief life — she died after nine days — "I had this incredible experience of being able to bring these caring social networks together for my friend and the baby," Mehring says.

Today, Brighid's legacy lives on in CaringBridge, the not-for-profit site Mehring launched in 1997 so others can easily create private Web pages during a medical crisis.

HERE is the rest of the article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-07/caringbridge/55436942/1#.T9DFB1Ziwug.twitter