Church & Donor Management Software – ChMS

© 2021 by Nick B. Nicholaou, all rights reserved
Ministry Business Services, Inc. President
Reprinted from The Church Network's TCN Professional Journal

Solutions from church and donor management software providers keep improving in their ability to help churches and ministries fulfill their mission! Their features to track and communicate with people, their web and mobile device interfaces, and their powerful database tools make this category of software an essential tool and asset for today’s ministries in reaching many with The Gospel and discipling them.

Church Software Historical Perspective
In the mid-1980s the number of these programs had grown to 262! Then some merged, some consolidated, and some went out of business, reducing the number to only 34. In the 1990s the internet made it so easy for those writing solutions for their own church to share them with others that the number of solutions more than doubled! Our research this year found 54 solutions focusing on the church and ministry market, of which 37 qualified for this article (requirements include active marketing, minimum market acceptance / customer growth, and active software development).

We always include new providers (those three years old or less) to give them a chance to build some momentum and compete with ‘the big guys’. It also keeps all of the providers ‘on their toes’ as the up-and-comers sometimes develop new technologies that benefit many churches and ministries in new ways.

Why Church Management Software?
The solution providers on the following pages meet the sophisticated and complex needs of churches and ministries. Tracking more than just simple CRM datasets like names, addresses, and phone numbers, many of these also help build community and track traditional and modern family relationships, spiritual gifts, talents, interests, attendance, nursery security, contributions, fundraising campaigns, volunteerism, small groups, and more.

Church and ministry offices can be stressful workplaces because of the many deadlines that must be met by an administrative staff that is typically smaller in number than what would be found in a similar-sized secular business. Church management software, if well written, can be a soothing balm. If it’s powerful, capable, fast, and reliable, the ministry team can use it to help them get the most possible work done– efficiently and with minimal stress. And if its abilities are broad enough, every ministry in the church or ministry can focus on just one database, increasing synergy and minimizing cost.

ChMS Defined
We refer to this category of solutions as Church Management Software, or ChMS. Parachurch ministries track similar data, so we invited those solutions into this article too. Following is a well-researched list of the leading church and donor management solution providers at the time of this writing, with each stating at the top of the feature chart whether their solution is focused on meeting the needs of church, parachurch, or denominational offices. Some even provide their solutions in non-English languages!

Not-for-Profit Accounting
Churches and ministries exist in a unique accounting niche that most software (and even most CPAs!) can’t help with. But many ChMS packages can help in this area.

One of a ministry’s most vulnerable areas is finance. All too often we hear about a church or ministry that has suffered embezzlement by a trusted team member. One of the best protections is an accounting system that has a good audit trail– tracking the detail of every transaction– and whose data cannot be altered in any way. For these reasons, some ChMS providers have written their own fully-integrated accounting system.

Some churches and ministries want a ChMS that has a fully-integrated accounting system, and we list the functions they look for in the chart. Others may not care if the ChMS provider has written its own accounting system, and for them it’s good to know that most ChMSes can interface with other accounting systems such as those in the chart that provide standalone nonprofit accounting solutions.

The ChMS Challenge
ChMS is a challenge for many of those who work on church and ministry teams. Usually it’s because they haven’t been trained, sparking the concern that the ChMS is not simple or intuitive. As mentioned, though, there are too many types of deep data to be simple or intuitive.

We’ve added to the feature chart the ability to create custom workflows for tasks and roles that help make it simpler and more intuitive. But the key will always be training. We strongly recommend that new team members be trained before being given access to update the ChMS, and that the solution provider be contracted to come on-site or provide interactive remote training at least annually.

Making ongoing training part of your ChMS strategy will ensure that your ChMS investment will last longer and serve your team better.

Feature Chart
We’ve tried to give you the most comprehensive and quickest format possible of those ChMS database and accounting functions that teams request most. We removed features provided by all ChMS providers to help focus on solutions’ distinct feature sets.

The chart lists solutions by the name their providers use to market them rather than by the company name. We include the company name in the section following the chart in which we give information on each provider such as how to reach them, how long they’ve been making their solution available, how many organizations they currently serve, their support hours, and how often they update their software. We have trusted the software companies to provide this data accurately; all of the information was provided by them.

The chart uses two symbols:

• The g symbol indicates features ChMS companies provide directly, and
• The  symbol indicates needs they meet through an outside (third party) source.

Happy Hunting!
Shop wisely. We recommend doing your due diligence and checking with current users of the software you’re interested in. Ask questions like:

• Does the software do what was promised?
• Is their support team capable and available?
• If you were faced with the same decision today, what would you do differently?

Feel free to contact any of the providers listed. They would love to help you in your ministry. Happy hunting!

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