Story + Meaning Behind Our Company Name, “Fraternitas”

**Backstory**

So, the year is 2021, and my brother and I are bound and determined… actually, let me start earlier.

The time is, sometime when I was in high school, I had this notion that I always wanted to work for myself and own a company that I could be the owner/operator of.

Actually, that context is not far back enough. Throughout middle and high school, my brother Jonathan and I always would think about business ideas and come up with plans for them, but of course, we never actually followed through on them.

Later, towards the end of my homeschooled high school years, I became interested in social media. Little did I know that this would later be what I would come to begin building a career around with my brother.

That should be enough background for this story.

**The Name**

Funny enough, naming our company was the easiest part of the whole process. My brother and I were homeschooled all the way through high school until college, meaning that we had the privilege of being taught classical subjects, such as logic, grammar, rhetoric, Latin, etc., and learning with the general notion of HOW to think. Growing up with this background of being taught Latin from a young age, we knew we wanted to give our company a Latin name.

With the development of my brothers and I’s relationship, typically hating each other to eventually becoming close, we landed on “Fraternitas,” which in Latin means “Brotherhood, fraternity, the relationship of brothers.”

**The Idea**

After gaining this ever-evolving interest in social media, I, like the rest of my family, went to college at Franciscan University and majored in Marketing. And after some time, I started to recognize that the business side of marketing and advertising was not what I was looking for, so I decided to switch my major from Marketing to Graphic Design while retaining a minor in Marketing.

Throughout college, my love and interest in social media grew to the point where I decided, “This is something I love, and I could make a living out of it, so why not run a social media marketing agency?”

Not too long after this, and many conversations with my brothers that stemmed from many years ago, we decided to start a company that focuses on social media marketing.

But there was one problem: we still needed to figure out what niche we wanted to serve. After much research, many phone calls, and late-night conversations, my brother Jonathan, who works for a Catholic parish as a Business Administrator, had the idea to work as a contractor for Catholic parishes, creating content and running their social media accounts.

Immediately, we both knew that this was the mission we wanted to work for. So we began to work.

**The Why**

Growing up homeschooled, my mom heavily emphasized the importance of daily mass, even pushing back our school some days in order for us to go. This instilled a love for the mass and living in and participating in a parish community.

Over the years, many religious education classes, youth groups, and other volunteerism within our parishes, my brother and I noticed the dwindling involvement of children and teens immediately after the ages where we were receiving confirmation.

Noticing this devastating trend was the primary ignitor for starting our company because it does not take much searching to recognize the pleading cries from the Catholic church to use social media. We believe this call has been neglected, both intentionally and unintentionally.

So, we wanted to listen to the calls from Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis, and the USCCB, just to name a few, to utilize media to its fullest potential.