I'm also a little late to this discussion, but I wanted to mention another product that is very relevant to the topic. I have personally been involved in the development of a new, unique web app designed specifically for Reformed churches. It is called Church Social (http://churchsocialapp.com).
This software is just becoming available, and we have about 10 Canadian and United Reformed Churches already using it. Here is a brief introduction, please let me know if you have any questions!
Church Social aims to help Reformed congregations in three main ways:
1. Membership Management
Church Social makes tracking your membership information a simple task. No more struggling with Excel or an old database, just enter your data and watch the software automatically generate detailed member statistics.
Church Social tracks members, families, wards, office bearers, birthdays, anniversaries, baptisms, communicant members and much more.
2. Member Communication
Church Social creates a secure, private online member community for your congregation. Members can login and access your member photo directory, a birthday/anniversary/events calendar, a bulletin archive, schedules, photo galleries, and more.
There is also an bulk email tool that allows members to send messages to other members in the congregation, specific wards or custom groups (like bible studies).
3. Public Websites
Finally, Church Social offers beautifully designed church websites are easy to keep up-to-date. Share the responsibility of editing your website with other members—no more relying on one web developer to make all the site changes.
Also, all our of website are "responsive", meaning that they work great on phones and tablets, as well as desktop computers.
I'm the creator of Church Social, and the biggest challenge I see with social logins is tying their social account to an existing account within the church's database. What unique identifier would you use to make this connection? An email address seems like a logicial choice, but there are some challenges here:
1. What happens if no email address has been set for this member in the church administration software? 2. What happens if they use a different email address for their social account than what is set in the church administration software? 3. What's stopping somone from creating a fake social account, just to gain access to another members church account?
Typically social logins are used when an account does not yet exist. However, with church administration software an account must exist already since the memebrship information must be recorded whether a user chooses to login online or not.
With Church Social, the process goes like this:
1. Congregation is setup with an account 2. Adminstration imports member data (typically from an existing Access database or some other software) 3. Welcome emails are sent to member accounts that have an email address set already, allowing them to login immediately 4. A notice is posted in the bulletin that Sunday inviting members (who did not recieve a weclome email) to provide an email address 5. Adminstration updates accounts with new email addresses and sends subsequent welcome emails
This process works pretty well, although I will admit it does take a little effort when a congregation is first "getting going".
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
Hello everyone!
I'm also a little late to this discussion, but I wanted to mention another product that is very relevant to the topic. I have personally been involved in the development of a new, unique web app designed specifically for Reformed churches. It is called Church Social (http://churchsocialapp.com).
This software is just becoming available, and we have about 10 Canadian and United Reformed Churches already using it. Here is a brief introduction, please let me know if you have any questions!
Church Social aims to help Reformed congregations in three main ways:
1. Membership Management
Church Social makes tracking your membership information a simple task. No more struggling with Excel or an old database, just enter your data and watch the software automatically generate detailed member statistics.
Church Social tracks members, families, wards, office bearers, birthdays, anniversaries, baptisms, communicant members and much more.
2. Member Communication
Church Social creates a secure, private online member community for your congregation. Members can login and access your member photo directory, a birthday/anniversary/events calendar, a bulletin archive, schedules, photo galleries, and more.
There is also an bulk email tool that allows members to send messages to other members in the congregation, specific wards or custom groups (like bible studies).
3. Public Websites
Finally, Church Social offers beautifully designed church websites are easy to keep up-to-date. Share the responsibility of editing your website with other members—no more relying on one web developer to make all the site changes.
Also, all our of website are "responsive", meaning that they work great on phones and tablets, as well as desktop computers.
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
Hi Tim,
I'm the creator of Church Social, and the biggest challenge I see with social logins is tying their social account to an existing account within the church's database. What unique identifier would you use to make this connection? An email address seems like a logicial choice, but there are some challenges here:
1. What happens if no email address has been set for this member in the church administration software?
2. What happens if they use a different email address for their social account than what is set in the church administration software?
3. What's stopping somone from creating a fake social account, just to gain access to another members church account?
Typically social logins are used when an account does not yet exist. However, with church administration software an account must exist already since the memebrship information must be recorded whether a user chooses to login online or not.
With Church Social, the process goes like this:
1. Congregation is setup with an account
2. Adminstration imports member data (typically from an existing Access database or some other software)
3. Welcome emails are sent to member accounts that have an email address set already, allowing them to login immediately
4. A notice is posted in the bulletin that Sunday inviting members (who did not recieve a weclome email) to provide an email address
5. Adminstration updates accounts with new email addresses and sends subsequent welcome emails
This process works pretty well, although I will admit it does take a little effort when a congregation is first "getting going".