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CONGREGATIONAL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
—Matthew 18:12
Many of us know this story. And the question a church member might ask is, “But how did the shepherd know that he had one hundred sheep and one had gone astray?” If he belonged to one of today’s congregations, the answer might be that the shepherd’s congregation management software said so.
That’s because congregation management software (CMS) lets a congregation keep and use information related to activities of the parish—including its people, money, and physical assets. Gone are the days when you had to be a programmer or hire a programmer to keep track of the flock. Most of today’s CMS consists of a database and a series of interactive computer programs. These let any user, even a nontechnical person, put in and take out information. Almost anyone with a basic understanding of computers can find a CMS product that will enhance their ministry’s efficiency and effectiveness. And there is now software available for just about any congregation—large and small, rich and not-so-rich, computer savvy and computer beginner.
So what exactly can a CMS do? Let’s begin by looking at the three areas listed above—people, money, and physical assets.
PEOPLE
At its core a CMS keeps basic information about individuals and families. Examples of this information include names, addresses, family relationships, birth dates, gender, and membership status. Also included are alternate addresses (work, college, or summer home), telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other points of contact with each person.
Another type of information describes the ways a person connects with your congregation. This includes the person’s participation in small groups, committee service, leadership positions, and other congregational activities. CMS lets you track a person’s involvement in vestry, personnel committee, lay leader, adult choir, Wednesday Bible study, or whatever activities and committees your congregation has. This type of information often includes a term of service, with specific start and end dates—data that nominating or personnel committees find especially helpful.
A third type of data identifies the skills, talents, and gifts that a person brings to the congregation’s service and volunteer opportunities. This information may be acquired through a spiritual gifts inventory, interviews with new members, or filling out a volunteer opportunity form. Whatever the source, the information is usually organized into several main categories and subcategories and may be accompanied by an indication of skill level or experience.
These three types of information are usually contained in the same area of the database, generally labeled “People” or “Membership.”
Recording attendance for worship and other congregational events is another common CMS feature. Maybe your congregation has several different weekly worship services and you want to follow someone’s attendance (or absence) at different worship events. CMS can help you do that. You may also keep attendance at church school classes, committee meetings, or leadership training events.
A good CMS provides convenient ways to use all of this “people” information to target specific groups or individuals in the congregation. It helps you identify who has missed worship for the past six weeks or has a birthday this month. It even identifies people who are willing to teach a church school class in the coming year.
This process is usually called a query or search function. In addition to the query function, CMS offers a variety of output options so you can incorporate the information in your congregational ministry—labels, reports, mail merges, directories, mass e-mails, and others. Your congregation’s monthly newsletter can include a list of all those members who have a birthday in the current month. Labels can be generated so that a birthday postcard is mailed to each person on the list.
MONEY
Congregations have a moral responsibility to carefully and completely account for every dollar contributed and spent. CMS financial software can help you, at a very detailed level, keep track of all income and expenses to your congregation. This detail can also be summarized appropriately (depending on the audience) to help congregations use information about their money to make wise decisions.
One thing this software does is provide a framework for organizing the annual budget and looking at comparisons of actual income and expense to that budget. For instance, one expense of the children’s ministry in a parish might be church school curriculum. CMS accounting software could record an annual budget of $4,000. It could also show that curriculum purchases are commonly made once per quarter in the months of January, April, July, and October for $1,000 each. Then it could track each purchase from the curriculum publishing house by check number and amount, and show budgeted versus actual monies spent by month and year-to-date for church school curriculum. That way the parish’s director of Christian education could see a monthly report of what was budgeted and spent for church school curriculum. She could look at similar detail for all expense accounts, along with a summary of all the children’s ministry department expenses. The parish finance committee might then see the entire monthly activity for children’s ministry summarized as one line in an overall parish financial report, along with similar summary information about each of the other parish ministries.
Almost all congregations have contributors making monetary donations. They may wish to receive a tax deduction for making those donations. The congregation may also solicit pledges and keep comparison records of contributions and those pledges. Sometimes an individual makes an individual contribution. Sometimes two or more people wish to share a pledge or donation (most commonly married couples and families). CMS records detailed information about pledges and contributions, and summarizes them by person, family, and congregational funds.
Another timesaving function that CMS financial software provides is computerized check writing. When invoices are received, payment information is entered into the computer. A batch of checks is printed each week, signed by the proper person(s), and mailed. To assist in this effort, the software keeps a vendor file with vendor name, address, contact information, and your customer number. This file is ready to automatically print the vendor address and customer number once the name is selected from a list. This saves keystrokes for the person creating checks each week. The software also keeps track of check numbers. It remembers which expense accounts are commonly charged for purchases from particular vendors.
Despite the relatively low cost of commercial payroll services, some congregations want to process their payroll themselves. Financial software assists in this task by calculating gross and net pay, subtracting payroll taxes and other deductions, keeping track of vacation and sick hours, producing information for the bookkeeper about how much tax money should be sent to government agencies, and recording payroll expenses to the proper congregational ministry accounts.
Some CMS offers this financial package or gives you the option of using a commercial accounting software package. We’ll talk more about making this decision later.
PHYSICAL ASSETS
Physical assets are those nonmonetary things such as buildings, equipment, furnishings, vehicles, library books, or choral music. Some CMS (and commercial accounting software) packages have a physical assets component. This lets a congregation track purchase costs, maintenance, and depreciation. This feature is generally used for larger equipment and furnishings. As an example, let’s say that your congregation has an air-conditioning unit on the roof of the community hall. It cost $11,500 three years ago. Last May the local HVAC shop repaired it for $1,350. At that time they recommended that someone inspect the air filters and clean them out each spring to prevent having another repair bill for $1,350. Some CMS lets you enter this information in a way that reminds you when preventative maintenance needs to be done.
Sometimes there are items that your congregation wants to keep track of, but not financially. You just need to know quantities, locations, dates of use, and so on. Choral music is a good example. Your congregation may have an extensive collection of sheet music. It is often difficult to remember what is in all of those file drawers in the music room—or what the choir sang last at last November’s Thanksgiving service. CMS helps you track how many copies of each music title are on hand, where they are located, the composer’s name, appropriate season for use, and the last time the music was sung in worship.
Scheduling is another common congregational concern. This usually centers around various rooms in the physical facility, but sometimes includes things such as vehicles and audiovisual equipment. Some CMS provides a resource-scheduling feature. This is created specifically around the needs of congregations, as opposed to other software packages designed for concert halls or schools or other organizations. The scheduling software lets you schedule the things that are important to you. It can do this for as far ahead in the future as needed. This helps you avoid scheduling the same resource twice during the same time—known as double booking. These modules also make it easy to schedule events that occur multiple times (such as the stewardship committee that meets the first Wednesday of every month), give room set-up information to custodial staff (classroom style, chairs in a circle, overhead projector needed, and so forth), and create calendars for the weekly bulletin.
Non-CMS scheduling software, such as EMS Lite or EventU, was covered in chapter 5.
SO, WHAT’S SO SPECIAL?
In addition to these three areas, some CMS products offer specialty features. These features help congregations manage schools, preschools, and daycare ministries. They model and track in detail a congregation’s volunteer ministry or visitation ministry. Roman Catholic parishes can keep a sacramental registry. Hebrew calendars with date conversions are available for synagogues. Congregations with income from operations other than contributions, such as a bookstore, can manage customer accounts, income, and inventory. A congregation can create and manage a reservations system for large events, record who reserved a place, and who made the necessary payment. These are just a few of the specialty applications available in today’s world of congregation management software.
There are over 50 different CMS products available today. All offer various combinations of the features listed above. While they may all look similar, and make similar claims, there are vast differences between them, however. Some CMS offers only a people database. Others have complete sets of modules for membership, accounting, scheduling, and inventory management. None are perfect, though. Your goal is to find a CMS product that is a good fit for your congregation.
CHOOSE WISELY, THAT YOUR DATA MAY LIVE
You need to start by matching the capabilities of the software with your congregation’s practices. Congregational practices and culture vary greatly. Each congregation is unique. A Quaker meeting is vastly different than a Catholic church—in business practice and terminology. Consider your congregation’s “culture”—how you do things and what practices and features form your congregation’s identity. Examining and understanding your culture—how and why you do what you do—will help you pick software that matches your needs, rather than making you fit your needs to what a software does or does not do.
For example, do you want or need to keep track of who received communion? Some CMS do this—others do not. Is your congregation large enough (or family enough) to have more than one person with the same first and last name (Joe Jones or Mary Smith)? Does your church use offering envelopes? Some CMS packages require envelope numbers—so you will be stuck with useless software if you don’t use envelopes. Look at and learn your current culture—and decide what needs to stay and what can change. For more congregational culture questions, see appendix B: “Congregational Culture Questions.” The questions included there are not exhaustive, but will stimulate your thinking.
Next, think about what you want the CMS to do. Naturally, you’ll want to keep track of people. But how—by the relationships they have with your church, such as members, visitors, constituents, children and spouse of members, and so on? How many different telephone numbers do you need to track in this day of fax machines, cell phones, pagers, and so on? Do you want to monitor individuals’ spiritual gifts and how they use them? Is the ability to print your own directory important? Do you want to put family pictures in it? Is contribution entry going to be done onsite or from a remote location—such as from a member’s home? Do you schedule rooms and track inventory? Would you like to do payroll? Are you going to use the CMS on a network with multiple workstations or on a stand-alone computer?
While these questions seem overwhelming, they are important. Too many congregations have bought too much software without thinking about what they want software to do. We know of one pastor who was browsing in a Christian bookstore one afternoon. He decided impulsively to purchase the only membership management software the store offered. It looked good on the box. He took it back to the church, placed it on the office manager’s desk without warning, and said, “Here, let’s get our membership organized.” It wouldn’t and it didn’t.
Stories like this are too common—and one reason software ends up sitting on a computer network doing nothing or very little. For more questions, be sure to read appendix C: “What Do You Want to Do That a CMS Can Do?”
QUICK PICKS
Once you’ve looked at your congregational culture and have a good idea about what software features are needed, you’re ready to look at specific software products. So where do you go now? If you do a Web search a bevy of titles will appear. A better way to start is to check our Web site (http://www.centerforcongregations.org/computerministry.asp) for our updated “CMS Quick Picks.” Magazines such as Church Business and Christian Computing regularly feature articles and advertisements for CMS. Your local chapter of the National Association of Church Business Administrators (NACBA) can tell you what other congregations in your area use. Your denomination might have recommendations about specific products. One of the best ways to find compatible software is simply to talk to congregations like yours (size, location, denomination)—either locally or across the country. What are they using now? Have they recently switched from another product and why? What do they like or dislike about their current choice?
KICKING THE CMS TIRES
Many vendor Web sites now have free (or almost free) demonstration versions of their software. Most are working versions. The demonstration version only allows a certain number of data records or has a time limit. That way you cannot download a demo and use it instead of buying the full package. Downloading a demo version is an excellent way of getting to know the product. It lets you see firsthand how the CMS matches your culture. Other CMS Web sites have online demonstrations of program screens and a list of features. A few of the larger CMS companies have sales representatives in your area. They will be glad to visit your congregation and do a live product demonstration. These companies generally do not offer downloadable demos. But if you are interested in their product, they often agree to provide you with a sample, working database as a trial.
We recommend (we’d demand it, if we could!) that you only make a CMS purchase after either working with a downloaded demo or a live presentation. There is no substitute for seeing the real thing. Some CMS Web sites, brochures, photos, and testimonials that look wonderful hide lousy software.
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL?
One common question is: “Do I need to use the same CMS for everything I want to do?” No, you don’t have to—within limits. We recommend that those functions that share common information, such as membership, attendance, contributions, volunteer or visitation management, be housed in the same CMS product. That is because too much shared information is needed to make separate databases practical.
Where it may not be necessary (or even wise—depending on the strength of the software and its capabilities) to branch off into other software is in the special functions. For example, you might want to use the financial module of your CMS—or you may want to stick with the commercial accounting package you’ve been using. Even if you choose to use a separate financial package, all financial functions should use the same software. This includes any financial information about physical assets. The reason is the same as above—you’re keeping too much shared information to make it practical to maintain separate databases.
Specialty functions, such as resource scheduling and library inventories, may be provided by the CMS, or may be separate. Advantages to considering these major groupings separately are that you are likely to get a larger number of features that you want for each area and the initial cost may be lower. On the other hand, an advantage to using the same CMS for all components means having to work with only one vendor and pay one maintenance support fee each year.
STICKER SHOCK
To further complicate the equation, you need to be careful when comparing features and pricing. Unfortunately, there is no universally accepted standard language or pricing structure for CMS products. That’s one big reason why it’s important to invest the time required to understand what features you want, and how the product will be used—including by how many people and on how many machines. Some software is all in one. Others offer many different modules, with different costs. And not everyone names or groups the same features into the same modules. One CMS may include attendance tracking as part of a membership module. Another may have a separate attendance component. Still another may only keep a count of how many people attended worship, instead of the names of who was there.
There is also a difference in the way providers price products for network use. Some ask that you purchase a separate license for each machine installation. Others will price licenses by the number of users (people) who will be logged on to the system at one time. And some simply have a separate multiuser module. Once purchased, you may install the CMS on as many computers with as many users as needed.
HERE, THERE, OR IN THE AIR?
Something else you will want to consider is whether to use a CMS that is physically located on the computer(s) in your congregation, or to purchase one that is Internet based. Most CMS products are made to reside on the congregation’s computers. But there are newer products that are strictly Web based. These only need an Internet browser to operate. Some vendors will offer either option. In this case, the Web-based software is likely to be a somewhat stripped-down version of the computer-resident product.
Web-based software is usually acquired by paying a monthly access fee. This varies depending on the number of users, the number of data records, or even the average number of people in worship.
PROVIDE AT LEAST THREE REFERENCES
Another thing you want to do is check software references. Talk to other congregations using particular CMS packages. The vendor or vendors should be able to provide a list. If they cannot, you want to avoid that software. Talk to other congregations in your area about the CMS’s quality, ease of use, technical support, and training. Also ask them what they wish they had asked or known before they bought their software. Avoid any software that congregations tell you is hard to learn, has no real security (you don’t want just anybody to be able to see or change data), lists people only in alphabetical order instead of linking them to their families, doesn’t distinguish well between different people with the same names, cannot track joint contributions, or offers no or little training or support.
HAVING A CONVERSION EXPERIENCE
If you already have a CMS and are looking for a better product, or if you are converting from a generic database, another consideration is converting—data, that is. Determine how the information you have will find its way into the new software. Do you have data that needs to be moved electronically? Or do you want, or need, to enter all the information by hand? Some products provide data-importing tools and instructions that allow you to convert data by yourself. Others require that the software vendor convert the data (usually for an additional fee). Some make no provisions for converting data electronically—which means it all has to be done manually.
I’M FROM TECH SUPPORT . . . AND I’M HERE TO HELP YOU
Never undervalue training and technical support. Training and support are worth every dollar you spend on them. The most frequent mistake made by new CMS users is a lack of adequate training. Many helpful and useful features go unused or underutilized simply because the people using the CMS have not had enough training.
Include a generous training budget and training plan for each person who uses the software. Be sure to include your congregation’s volunteers. Ask the software provider what training is available—and follow their advice. Some providers sponsor regional user groups to help both new and experienced users. Be sure to buy and maintain the support (sometimes called maintenance support) offered by the vendor. These software vendors are small, specialty companies. That means they don’t have the testing capabilities of a Microsoft. This often reveals itself in undiscovered software “bugs” (see the glossary in the index). The only way manufacturers make changes and fixes is after learning about the need for them based on user feedback. It is extremely important to receive updates to your software if you want to stay bug free and current.
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
No matter what your congregational culture or feature list looks like, some key qualities are common to all good CMS products. Even a very basic “people” CMS should:
A basic “money” CMS (or commercial accounting package) should:
Both “people” and “money” should:
KEEPING WATCH OVER YOUR FLOCK
Remember, you are not picking CMS simply because you have a computer and it looks interesting. You are looking for something to help your ministry. It is not technology for technology’s sake. Computers can help you be more effectively engaged in your people’s lives. By following these ideas for matching your congregation with the right CMS product, you can greatly increase the congregation’s ability to communicate with, learn about, and provide ministry to your members and community.
Then you might find yourself in the same position as one of the congregations that did it right. That church’s staff had used a generic spreadsheet to keep track of its members. Feeling it was time to use a CMS, it then asked for recommendations, went through the process listed above, and purchased a great, inexpensive CMS package. The office manager attended training classes and used technical support extensively. Today, the staff credits the software and their use of it with helping the church’s clergy and laity to be truly able to keep up with a growing community. It uses the CMS to target communications to specific groups, follow up on those who miss worship services, and uses skill and interest information to match human resources to congregational needs.
That’s how you can become not just the person with a lost sheep, but instead, a shepherd who can keep an ever-expanding flock safely within the fold.