These video tutorials show you how to quickly and easily sync your Church Office Online individual information with Gmail or Outlook contacts.

Before we get the cart before the horse, let’s first answer the question: “What is Church Management?”

Church Management is directing/managing people and programs to accomplish the desired goals and objectives of the church. Because the ministry of church management has a divine origin, and a divine facilitator we look to our Lord to provide and guide us in this.

 We would be greatly mistaken if we thought that our efforts alone will help us to reach our goals. “Unless Christ builds the church we labor in vain…” Psalm 127:1

Unlike the business sector, Church Management works largely with a volunteer base which is becoming more mobile each day. Yet most volunteers expect the church to keep up with what is offered in the business sector in the way of management tools. While there are some tasks in Church Management that software/IT-service cannot begin to meet, there are some tasks that can be greatly benefited by the right program.

Now we can ask the question, “What should I look for in a church management software (ChMS) program?” A good ChMS program will provide you with the features you need without imposing upon you the features you don’t need. The programs that are the most intuitive generally are created by those who KNOW firsthand what is required in church management. For the most part they are easy to spot.

Ten Features every ChMS should include:

1. Easy for both staff and volunteers to use
2. Online Secure Accessibility making it possible to work outside the church.
3. Daily Auto Back-ups of all your ChMS data on secure vaulted servers
4. Household and Member Management –Contact Information with Custom Field Options
5. Communication Tools i.e. email, mass email, e-newsletter creation, mailing labels, etc...
6. Attendance Record Keeping for all Services, Meeting and Events
7. Small Group/Ministry Management
8. Demographic Reports
9. Contribution Entry and Management
10. Data Export for Custom In-house Reports

Other Features/Services that are nice to have:

1. Great 24/7 Support with Knowledge Base and Feedback Features
2. Data Import Service
3. Mobile Connectivity - iPad/Tablets, Smart Phones etc…
4. Multiple Browser and Operating System Compatibility
5. Pledge Tacking and Management
6. Integration Capable

Choosing a ChMS service/program shouldn’t take such a great bite out of your budget that what remains is less then what is needed. Watch out for those services that require high start-up fees.

Mike Smith
Church Office Online

MailChimp’s online service has seven basic email features which allow you to: Design, Publish, Share, Track, Manage, Integrate, and have Mobile connectivity. These features together with your Church Office Online account provide a robust church mass email communication program. We believe its features will vastly improve your communications to your members and attendees.

To get started you will need to do the following...

1. Sign in to your Church Membership Online Account
2. Sign Up for a MailChimp Account
3. Prepare MailChimp to Import Your Email List: You need to create at least one “List” in MailChimp in which emails from your church will be synchronized with.
4. Integrate MailChimp with Your Church Office Online Account: to do this you need to place the API Key from MailChimp into your Church Office Online MailChimp Integration Field.

Login to your Church Membership Online Account

First sign in to your Church Membership Online account and go to ADMIN and select Integrations. Click the link to “sign up for, or manage, your MailChimp account…” you will be taken to MailChimp’s Sign Up / Login Page.

Sign Up for a MailChimp Account

Once in MailChimp follow the easy instructions for a free account and note that no billing information is taken.

Prepare MailChimp to Import Your Email List

Once you have a MailChimp account you will need to create at least one Email List to store your email addresses.

Integrate MailChimp with Your Church Office Online Account

On the Integration page Church Membership Online ADMIN, choose the text link “Click here to get your API Key”. Copy the API key by highlighting it with your mouse and then (Ctrl C) and then return to your CMO program and then paste it (Ctrl P) in the API key field. Finally, click “SAVE”. You will receive confirmation on the page if it was successful.

Now you are ready to synchronize the email addresses in your Church Membership Online (CMO) account into your MailChimp account.

Synchronizing Emails Addresses in CMO to MailChimp

To do this go to CHURCH in your CMO account and select “Mass Emailing”. You will notice that there are three areas. The top area contains the feature name and links, the middle the Lists that have been created in MailChimp and the bottom area contains two data groups in your CMO in which emails can be drawn from: “Ministries” and “Membership Type”.

Any ministry (i.e. Men’s Ministry) can be selected in the pull down, which place all emails addresses belonging to those in that ministry into your MailChimp Email List. If you want to only send an E-Newsletter or Communication to an Interest group this would be the option you would choose.

When you choose Member Type it will place all emails addresses belonging to those “Member Types” whose box is NOT checked to an Email List in MailChimp. If you want to send your entire church an E-Newsletter then you will want to choose this with all boxes unchecked except Archived records. Be sure to select the desired MailChimp List (large/complete list).

Design and Publish Your MailChimp Newsletter

After your MailChimp account is set up and integrated with your CMO Account you can start designing an email newsletter or campaign using the many provided templates or design one yourself. The templates are a good start and still provide you with flexibility you need.

One note of caution: this program does not take kindly to you sending emails to people who are not members/attendees/subscribers of your church. If you get to many “Unsubscribe” or worse yet the dreaded “Abuse Complaint” you could be dropped. “Spam” is classified as unsolicited, unwanted emails sent to an email address or addresses. This program is to be used to communicate to those in your church who are members, attendees, visitors or requested to be added to your mailing.

We trust you will enjoy using MailChimp as your emailing communication tool and look forward to your comments.

Mike Smith, COO
ChurchOfficeOnline.com

The first thing you should know is that this review was unsolicited by MailChimp (a web-based mass emailing service). Secondly, we have been a client of MailChimp for over a year. Lastly, as an online church management software service (www.ChurchOfficeOnline.com) we have a lot of experience and expertise in web applications.

The Service

MailChimp’s online service has seven basic features: Design, Publish, Share, Track, Manage, Integration, and Mobile connectivity. Together the features provide a robust email communication/marketing program. While business marketing is the primary client target, churches can also uses its features to vastly improve their communications to members and attendees. Effective communication is the greatest challenge and need in church management today.

For an online program to be effective I believe it must have needed features with a clean and simple user interface (U.I.). From the moment you login you will discover that MailChimp has both. It is very Ipodic in that its design is simple but the technology is solid and deep. It also has a fun personality about it with its monkey insights and feedback. As one who borders more on the serious side, I never found it to be disruptive or tasteless (I do monkey around sometimes).

Learning about MailChimp and setting up your account is easy and supported with text and short video tutorials as well as all other features. After your account is set up you can start designing an email newsletter or campaign by using the one of the many provided templates or design one yourself. The templates are a good place to start and it still provides you with flexibility you need.

With an online email program churches will appreciate the following advantages:

Web Based Mass Email Communications

From start to finish all the programs and utilities you need are provided. No longer will you need to purchase desktop based programs for each entry user.

Empowers Your Ministries

It allows you involve multiple people in the design, graphics, content and publication of the program. Do you have a missionary that sends you a newsletter? Now they can simply be given access to your MailChimp service.

Powerful Analytics

Unlike traditional church communications we seldom find out if people are getting them. With MailChimp it will report back to you how many opened the email and clicked through to other links provided. It even tells you how well you did over the last email letter you sent. Nothing can improve communication more than real-time feedback.

Integration

MailChimp also can be integrated into other online applications. This feature will upload to your MailChimp account with current email addresses of your total church or group/s within your church. Our church management software, Church Membership Online, has been fully integrated with MailChimp . Many other services from billing to online contact services have done the same.

It's FREE!!!

Oh I almost forgot that for most churches who have less than 2000 deliverable email addresses in their database… the service is free. Yes, free. I hesitate to say that now as most are sold on it for that fact… I implore you to read on though.

Summary

When you finally finish designing your email and building your email list it has a nice feature that lets you test your email campaigns before you send them to everyone. In fact it will let you send a tested email to several people (say your communication team).

After you send your email out to everyone or a group it will track how your email campaign went with a report pie chart giving the percentage of your opens, bounced, unopened and click through rates. It also compares your results to industry benchmarks and previous campaign results. It will tell you who looked at it, and those who never want you to send them an email again.

One note of caution: this program does not take kindly to you sending emails to people who are not members/attendees/subscribers. If you get too many “Unsubscribe” or worse yet the dreaded “Abuse Complaint” you could be dropped. “Spam” is classified as unsolicited, unwanted emails sent to an email address or addresses. This program should be used to communicate to those who by default are members/attendees or requested to be added to your mailing.

I strongly recommend MailChimp for your church or non-profit. If you care about effective communication you need to consider this as a tool which will help you to that end.

Mike Smith, COO
ChurchOfficeOnline.com

Introduction to Church Payroll

I challenge you to find a more difficult and frightening task for any church clerk/financial secretary to undertake then that of Payroll. I have seen the best of the best break under the weight of this task. Clergy often have very little choice but to go with the flow and hope the church doesn’t get called in by the IRS. So it’s with compassion on my fellow clergy and the scores of financial secretaries that are frightened to death that I submit the following.

First, please note that this should be thought of as experienced suggestions of things to consider regarding Payroll; I spent 27 years in ministry with half of those years as an administrative/executive pastor. I am also the co-founder of Church Office Online (http://www.churchofficeonline.com) an online church management program.

Secondly, what you will find in this “How To” document are brief outlined directions with links to explore more, I will try to KISS (Keep It Simple Saint).

In-House or Out-Sourcing, that is the Question

How do you choose between the two? You might already be at the point of decision, but before you take that leap of faith let me point out an important fact. Church boards, clergy and staff need to be educated on both options. More problems happen as a result of those who choose one over the other in an attempt to escape what they are unwilling to learn. I’m not suggesting you go back to college and take accounting, but what I am suggesting is that you put forth some effort to make sure that you’re making an intelligent decision. I would also suggest talking to those in your church who have a business and have had to deal with the general questions about payroll.

There are two directions In-House or Out-Sourcing for Payroll

In-House Payroll (i.e. Your Financial Secretary does the payroll)

Payroll Financial Secretary /Clerk Guidelines

1. “Willing to do it” should not be the only qualification. (Remember you are putting your church and staff at risk).
2. “Background Checks are a must” Don’t make me tell you one of my horror stories!
3. “Proven knowledge of basic accounting must be required.”
4. “Yearly Audit Review for the first year and every other year thereafter.”

Payroll Software

You would think that as a co-founder of a software company you would be expecting a sales pitch about now… not going to give you one. We decided that there was a vast quantity of great payroll software and services already out there.

Payroll Software is divided up into three categories:

1. Desktop
   Pros: Most see it as a cheaper option initially.
   Cons: Most find out that new versions come at a cost and sadly they usually don’t come when you need it.
2. Desktop w/Online Updating and Services
   Pros: It would seem that you have the best of both worlds
   Cons: Expensive Updates and new Versions, with great difficulty in maintaining system and browser compatibility.
3. Online Software Service
   Pros: Accessibility from Home or Office
   Cons: Accessibility from Outside the Office

Out-Sourcing Payroll Services

1. Local
   Pros: Local Support, Community Connection
   Cons: Generally More Costly
2. Online
   Pros: Accessibility from Home or Office, Less Expensive
   Cons: Support not always easy to get through to

Introduction to Cloud Computing

Let's say you're an administrative pastor in a new church. One of your responsibilities include making sure that all of the staff have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers and purchasing software would be easy if it worked the way everyone thought it would. Soon you become overwhelmed with office networking issues, keeping up with constant required updates, downloads and spending more money for the latest and greatest versions.

There is now an alternative. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you'd only have to have one service application. A Web-based service like Church Office Online is now taking the burden off the client and upon themselves to maintain compatibility and accessibility for a variety of systems and devices. Cloud Services can provide everything from e-mail, word processing programs and specific ministry applications for a church (i.e. Church Office Online). Software services offered in the cloud are termed "Software as a Service" or "SaaS", which basically means that you use the application without the worry of installation, maintenance or operating system.

Cloud computing takes the workload off your system or device. Your computer systems and mobile devices no longer have to do the more intensive processing that applications demand. The cloud consists of a vast array of computers/servers that handles them instead. Because the Cloud will do the heaver work it frees the end user/client to purchase lighter and more mobile devices that only needs to access the Web and wireless support devices like printers and other mobile devices.

Most of you have already used cloud computing and didn’t even know it. Do you have an e-mail account with Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo? If you have then you’ve experienced cloud computing.

So what does this mean for churches?

Greater mobility, with mobile web computer tools that will help you to know who you’re going to visit, where they live, and a host of ministry resources you have access to without confining you to your desk.

More time to minister by not having to maintain updates and downloads, and most programs are more user friendlier than desktop based versions.

Cloud based software services (SaaS) are generally less expensive than buying software licences, installing it yourself, maintaining it and of course purchasing the computing hardware to run it.

You have greater options to purchase devices and applications and spend less for them.

Some recommended Cloud software (SaaS)

• Cloud Email: Gmail (free)
• Cloud Accounting: Quicken (free)
• Cloud Microsoft Office: Office Live (free)
• Cloud Church Management Software: Church Membership Online

A Tutorial on Member Types and How to Keep your Account Accurate

When you signed up for a Church Membership Online Account through Church Office Online you selected what Account Level best suited your needs. For the purpose of this tutorial let’s say you selected a Level 3 with (1-275) active records. We use certain “Member Type” classifications in Individual records that you select to determine how many active records you have ( see picture below).

Those “Member Types” that count toward your billing are...

Attender, Dependent, Member, Missionary, Non-Attending, Non-Voting Member, Pastor, Return Visitor, Staff, Uncertain and Voting Member.

Those which do NOT count toward your account are...

Archived and First Time Visitors

Note: Archived records are preferred over deletion in that you can un-Archive them at anytime. When you archive a record they will not come up in Contribution reports, so make a copy of the individual’s contribution report before archiving.

Note: First Time Visitor can be increased as to how many times they visit before CMO counts them toward your account. The setting for this is in ADMIN under “Church Settings” and is defaulted to 3 but you can set it as high as 10.

Thank you and please contact us if you have any further questions.

Mike Smith, CMO Ministry Support

If there is a general consensus among church administrators as to what most churches struggle with it would be “communication”. This is definitely one of those areas where if I had a nickel for every communication blunder I would be rich.

To address solutions to the problem of church communications, we have put together a five part blog series:

1. How to Use Bulk Text Messaging Service to Help Church Communications
2. How to Use Mass Email Service to Help Church Communications
3. How to Use Mass Phone Calling Service to Help Church Communications
4. How to Create A Great Church Bulletin & Top 10 Examples (Coming Soon)
5. How to Use Social Networks to Help Church Communications (Coming Soon)

How to Improve Church Communications Blog Series

1. How to Use Bulk Text Messaging Service to Help Church Communications
2. How to Use Mass Email Service to Help Church Communications
3. How to Use Mass Phone Calling Service to Help Church Communications
4. How to Create A Great Church Bulletin & Top 10 Examples (Coming Soon)
5. How to Use Social Networks to Help Church Communications (Coming Soon)

What is Test Messaging?

There are three types of messaging, SMS, EMS and MMS.

SMS (Short Message Service)

SMS is the text communication feature of your phone, web or mobile communication service that allows the exchange of short text messages between mobile phones, some home phones and Web applications. SMS is now available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. The limit of SMS allows only for text messages up to 160 characters in length and only text.

SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application in the world, with 2.4 billion active users, or 74% of all mobile phone subscribers. In 2008, 4.1 trillion SMS text messages were sent. SMS has become a massive commercial industry, worth over 81 billion dollars globally as of 2006.

Important Note: generally 95% of all text messages sent are read. This is the highest rate of all communication tools.

EMS (Enhanced SMS)

EMS adds text formatting enhancements to SMS text messages along with some simple graphics and sounds.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

MMS is a standard way to send messages that includes multimedia content to and from mobile phones. Unlike SMS (Short Message Service), MMS allows for text messages far beyond the 160 characters in length as well as the addition of videos, pictures, and ringtones.

There are some interesting challenges with MMS that do not exist with SMS: Handset configuration can cause problems sending and receiving MMS messages. The percentage of MMS messages read

What Can A Text Messaging Service Do for Your Church?

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Murphy must have been a church member. We’ve all been there: service time change, event cancellation, youth group pick up place, etc… Imagine sending a text message to each parent that the youth group pick up place has changed. A Text Messaging Service will let you do that from your cell phone/laptop or one of many other devices.

As shared above, the high percentage of those that will read it makes this a great communication tool. The only drawback is that will most everyone in your church will have a cell phone not all give their number to the church. So I would recommend a composite of two other communication tools.

I would also encourage you not to abuse this feature but rather use is for URGENT time/place/cancellation changes and EMERGENCY messages. It remains the most highly viewed of all the communication tools, but if you run your text messages to long or commercial like they will be ignored in time.

Example Applications of Text Messaging Service for Churches

1. Urgent change in Time/Place
2. Emergency Information
3. Emergency Prayer Chain Request
4. Nursery Alert (parent’s of child needed in nursery – instructed to put phone on vibrate)
   

Suggested Links

Text Messaging Services
OneCallNow: http://www.onecallnow.com
Church Text Pro: http://churchtextpro.com

How to Improve Church Communications Blog Series

1. How to Use Bulk Text Messaging Service to Help Church Communications
2. How to Use Mass Email Service to Help Church Communications
3. How to Use Mass Phone Calling Service to Help Church Communications
4. How to Create A Great Church Bulletin & Top 10 Examples (Coming Soon)
5. How to Use Social Networks to Help Church Communications (Coming Soon)

What Is Bulk Emailing?

"Bulk Emailing Services allows you to send email messages, newsletters, invitations with attachments ranging from documents to pictures to as many email addresses you have. With a bulk email service it will use its program to create, format, test and send the email for you. It will also post the results as to how many received, opened, clicked through or unsubscribed to the email. It will also allow you to upload email list, identify undeliverable addresses and unsubscribe those who elect to do so.

Emailing an e-newsletter can drastically cut down on publications cost and increase collective involvement. Most Bulk Emailing Services allow for multiple user access. They are also template based with easy upload utilities for pictures. Because the templates are web based they have less problems with being emailed than converted published in-house to html documents.

How Does It Work?

Bulk Emailing is done using names and email addresses you upload with completed templates they provide. Most services use excel or access data base files for name and address import. The service gives you choices of pre-designed templates and you fill in the content. You can upload your art and pictures into your gallery which can be used now and for future emails. When you are finished with your completed email it will allow you to view it before you send it. Some services will show you the results your email received and compare it with the results from your last email sent.

What Can A Bulk Emailing Service Do for Your Church?

It can lower your cost of publications and increase your readability/communications. The cost of these programs are easy on the budget. One such program that our company recommends is Mail Chimp (check it out on the links below). They offer a fantastic price for non-profits who send out to less than 500 emails a month, FREE, last time I checked.

With a web-based template email program you can bring several individuals in on the construction of the e-newsletter. Because they can work from their home or coffee shop you can involve those who otherwise would not be able to.

Example Applications of a Bulk Email Service for Churches

1.  E-Newsletters
2. E- Meeting Agendas
3. E- Sermon Notes
4. E- Registration Forms
5. E- Event Invitations
   

Suggested Links

Bulk Emailing Services
Mail Chimp: http://www.mailchimp.com
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com