Is Your Church Ready to Re-Open Again? Take the Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment to Find Out

SixFifty, the technology subsidiary of the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, released its free Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment this week to help religious leaders across the United States evaluate whether they are prepared to safely resume meeting again in person with their members amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment is fully automated and incorporates the guidance from employment attorneys at Wilson Sonsini. Religious leaders can access the Assessment for free at www.sixfifty.com/returntoworship.

The Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment follows the launch of SixFifty's Return-to-Work Toolset (www.sixfifty.com/returntowork), which helps businesses safely transition their employees back to the workplace as authorities begin to loosen restrictions and reopen parts of the economy. "We worked closely with the employment attorneys at Wilson Sonsini to develop tools to help businesses bring their employees back to the workplace during COVID-19," said Kimball Dean Parker, CEO of SixFifty. "We noticed that many places of worship were not taking the same precautions to protect their members that businesses were taking to protect their employees. So we decided to try and help." 

As unfortunate cases have already shown, places of worship can provide ideal settings for the mass transmission of COVID-19, and if religious leaders are not careful, they could quickly undo the work that state and local governments, businesses, families and individuals have done to stem the spread of the COVID-19. SixFifty's automation platform walks religious leaders through a series of questions to help them understand and address the issues they need to focus on before welcoming members back to in-person meetings during this pandemic. Based on the leaders' answers, the automation system generates a readiness assessment that places of worship can use to assess whether they are prepared to congregate again in person. Religious leaders can take the readiness assessment as many times as they need to gauge their progress and ensure they are taking all the relevant issues into account. 

"For both businesses and places of worship, the risks involved in bringing people back and having them gather in a physical site are extremely high, and there is specific, substantial preparation that can and should be undertaken to mitigate those risks," said Marina Tsatalis, employment law partner at Wilson Sonsini. "Religious leaders need to consider many of the same issues businesses do when gathering people together." 

In addition to the Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment, SixFifty has also released free tools that help people delay paying their mortgage under the federal stimulus during COVID-19 (www.hellolender.org) and help renters communicate their rights under the federal stimulus to their landlords (www.hellolandlord.org). SixFifty also released tools to help businesses determine whether they are eligible for SBA loans and tax relief. Thousands of individuals and businesses have used SixFifty's tools since the COVID-19 emergency began.

About SixFifty 
Headquartered in the Silicon Slopes area of Utah, SixFifty is a subsidiary of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and combines the expertise of the world's leading technology law firm, made accessible through thoughtful technology. Led by a group of lawyers and software engineers that believe the law should be easier to navigate, SixFifty streamlines complex areas of the law by providing actionable, efficient and affordable solutions for individuals and businesses. For more information, please visit www.sixfifty.com. 

 

 

Tags : Return-to-Worship Readiness Assessment SixFifty COVID-19 coronavirus churches re-open