JAN • 2015
HELPING LEADERS BECOME
B E T T E R S T E WA R D S .
SELECTING SOFTWARE
Resources and advice for making the right church management software (CMS) investment
Table of Contents BEWARE THE SOFTWARE “SAFETY ZONE”
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By Tim Cool
EVALUATE YOUR CMS OPTIONS
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CHURCH EXECUTIVE EXPERT ROUNDTABLE
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GOOD STEWARD AWARD WINNER: GIVING SOLUTIONS 8 GEOGRAPHY MATTERS!
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By Sam Batterman
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CHURCH EXECUTIVE • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • January 2015
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THE SOFTWARE “SAFETY ZONE” 4 WAYS MOST CHURCHES SELECT ChMS — FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE By Tim Cool
If you’re involved with the administration, IT or some aspect of the support / business side of a church, you most likely have had some experience with what’s affectionately called “ChMS,” or church management software. Before launching my own software company, I had no idea the number of providers, options, features and price points available in this space for church leaders. So, how do you choose? How do you make the right choice? Is it too confusing? Do you throw your arms in the air or throw a dart at a list on your wall? 4 common selection approaches As I’ve interviewed many administrators, IT directors, event coordinators and the like, it’s clear that most church leaders make their decisions in one of the following four ways: 1) Best-in-class vs. best-in-integration. Church leaders who use this process are looking for the best products — the best-in-class — regardless of whether it’s fully integrated with other software solutions that they need, use or desire. Conversely, those who reverse this equation are generally making the decision to sacrifice some features, services or tools to get a fully integrated solution. 4
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2) Easy to use vs. feature-rich. To me, the choice seems pretty clear: I like easy. Several years ago, 37 Signals — the software developer of such SaaS products as Highrise, Basecamp and others — released an e-book, Getting Real [https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ ]. Its premise was to develop software that “under-featured” and “under-priced” the developer’s competitors. They wanted to produce software that was easy to use and graphical in nature. They don’t try to be “all things to all people.” Personally, I love their vision, and I actually use several of their products because of their ease of use. In a related finding by ChMS provider FreshVine, church administrators were asked to identify the most important ChMS feature. Instead of offering a list of possible features, the provider asked an open-ended question: “What features would be most important if you could use a secure, web-based system for church management?” In response, nearly 75 percent of the church administrators cited ease of use. 3) The real cost of ownership. If a ChMS program is inexpensive, the proverbial good stewardship “card” is easy to default to. While I do believe this guiding principle is in church leaders’ hearts and offer no ciritcism of their motives, this is a short-sighted evaluation criteria. In the interest of saving money, church leaders keep using Excel to track church membership and a large paper wall calendar to schedule the facilities and events (plus, more sticky notes and paper than should ever be allowed). Is it really good stewardship to use these “cheap” options? Sometimes, yes. Other times, no. When we developed our company’s facility management scheduling software, I thought that our primary market was to churches that were already using another room / event scheduling software solution. Interestingly, we’ve found that more than half of our new subscribers are still using a wall calendar or Outlook or Google calendars. While these options have their place, as facilities are used for more ministry activities, they fall woefully short of the needed results. The same applies to how churches process facility service requests and maintenance logs. The preponderance of churches we talk with are stilling using a spreadsheet or legal pad (if anything at all) to track maintenance and facility management issues. To me, that’s unfortunate — not because we want to sell you software, but because God has entrusted us to steward our facilities. In my experience, too many churches fail to take that charge seriously. 4) Change is too hard. The seven most common words of a dying organization are, “We have always done it this way.” With regard to making a ChMS investment, there are several similar retorts which we providers hear most often: • “ We know ‘X’ would save us time … but it’s just too difficult to change.” • “ We know that our current way of doing things is inefficient, but that’s what we’re used to.” • “ We know we could save money, but the pain of change isn’t worth the savings.” • “It took us forever to get our people to accept the last implementation! We don’t want to ever do that again.” I realize that many of these cases, if not all, have a sense of validity based on circumstances. But, how often do we use these excuses in lieu of looking for the best way to meet our operational needs and the business aspects of church administration? So, how do you select your ChMS? Feel free to email me mailto: tim@coolsolutionsgroup.com your feedback. Tim Cool is project executive at Visioneering Studios www.visioneeringstudios.com in Charlotte, NC, and founder of Cool Solutions Group www.coolsolutionsgroup.com. Since 1986, Cool has served the church community in the areas of construction, facility planning and facility management.
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Evaluate your CMS options Check out CETV, where several software professionals help you navigate crucial CMS considerations, including… • Whether or not your CMS can help you be intentional about facility scheduling, management and maintenance • The most critical functions to watch for, including check-in, attendance, people management, financial applications, reporting & analysis • How CMS data can help address common church management challenges • The ways in which CMS adapts to meet church leaders where they are, today • How to maximize what your data is telling you
www.churchexecutive.com/church-executive-tv
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January 2015 • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • CHURCH EXECUTIVE
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Church Executive EXPERT ROUNDTABLE
Church management systems software
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OUR ROUNDTABLE PANEL
Shelby Systems: Mark White, Director of Business Development Cool Solutions Group: Tim Cool, Chief Solutions Officer and Project Facilitator Elexio: John Connell, COO; Allen Ratta; Mark Kitts, Lead Software Architect ACS Technologies: Marvin Owen, VP Client Services; Russ Fortier, Training Consultant Seraphim Software: Sam Batterman, Co-founder / President; Chris Caldwell, Co-founder / CFO
Last summer — at the National Association of Church Business Administration (NACBA) annual conference — Church Executive hosted a live roundtable on a timely topic: church management systems and software. Several high-level ChMS executives joined together to share their expertise. By RaeAnn Slaybaugh Would you agree that many churches don’t take full advantage of their software’s capabilities? Mark Kitts: Underutilization is the biggest issue out there with software. We’re happy when we occasionally come across a power user — someone who has the aptitude and engages training. Often, those clients become “disciples” for the rest of the staff. Russ Fortier: As with most businesses, there’s a lack of understanding about what to do or even what decisions to make regarding the data churches are collecting. Sam Batterman: A lot of churches take a system they’re used to using and try to map old capabilities to a new app and new capabilities — basically “shorting” the new system. There’s also a distinct lack of process orientation in most churches. The best way I’ve ever heard it described is that churches are supposed to be comprised of prophets, priests and kings. Prophets are good with studying the bible, teaching and preaching. Priests are good at people. But, kings think about things — processes, strategy, real estate, finances, systems, architecture, infrastructure, wireless hubs. Although most kings go into business, not church work, we’re seeing an increased amount of people coming into church work from the secular world. Tim Cool: The biggest challenge we face with our facility management software is facility managers’ lack of technical abilities. The idea of entering data into a computer is totally foreign to most of them. Administrators know the facility is the second most expensive department in the budget (after staff), so they want to take care of it. But, they can’t get their facility managers to use the systems. 6
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Mark Kitts: Something we’re learning is that — because the system is so big, deep and broad — churches are almost demanding that we not just to sell them software, but also consult and coach. We just started implementation coaching earlier this year, and it’s been wildly popular. Mark White: Professional services is a line item that’s been off the charts for us, too. I think that’s because churches have a tendency to do something the same way over and over without thinking, OK, now we have all these new capabilities. Let’s do something different. Allen Ratta: The way I describe it is, you’ve got this beautiful ship with all these beautiful deck chairs. People are being served, and things are going really well. Then, you pan the camera back and you see the name on the side of the ship is “Titanic.” Churches need to understand that the core competencies they need right now are not serving drinks on the deck; it’s avoiding icebergs and learning how to grow the church effectively. How can churches be sure they’re making a solid investment in software or a management system? Allen Ratta: To get an accurate ROI on the investment, it has to be about more than just the money. The better barometer has to do with which company can help you implement the processes that are going to help your church be healthier. Russ Fortier: Even before that, I’d advise churches to look at their vision. How will technology support their ministry? Churches need to take a holistic look at their particular mission in their community. From that point, they can jump into feature sets and so on. churchexecutive.com
ACS Technologies’ Marvin Owens (left) and Russ Fortier
Elexio’s John Connell (left) and Allen Ratta
Marvin Owen: Adding to that, I’d say it’s not just about getting the right system installed, and then you’re done. Churches would do well to bring in a trainer or facilitator every six months and have a training and education budget. Chris Caldwell: Churches need to look at ROM — return on ministry — not just ROI. Obviously, we’re called to be good stewards of our resources. That involves taking a holistic approach and asking, How is this system going to affect my ministry? Allen Ratta: To elevate the discussion off of the features and onto the relationship is critical. Otherwise, the church continues to do the same things — in the same ways — and get the same results. That elevation begins at the sales process. If you don’t break that addiction there, then it follows you right into implementation. Sam Batterman: To Allen’s point, it’s interesting that the church is delivering a message that’s incredibly disruptive to people’s lives — positively, of course. Even so, the processes in the back office must also be disrupted to amplify that message. It’s sort of an interesting challenge for church management. A church might have to take its web guy and its email communications person — who might be reporting in a completely different silo — and start to reorganize these people and processes. Or, what ends up happening is, a church might only use 10 percent of the application, because that’s all the back office uses. So, the shift to a new system will be disruptive. As providers, we have to figure out how to communicate that to churches, and then educate them on how to adapt accordingly. Let’s talk about underused or lesser-known tools inherent to your management system or software in the areas of: Finance/giving. Marvin Owen: Actually, finance and giving functionalities are often the most used. Those tasks aren’t optional; they’re mandatory. Churches must keep track of people’s giving and have accurate records. White: I agree. A lot of churches are hiring very competent people for this area because it’s so important. Mark Kitts: Yes; you have to have that solid foundation of managing the money. It’s a race right now to try to get people to get onboard with online giving, because that makes a church’s income so much steadier. Getting members to use the new methodologies right from their seats, or to use the giving kiosk in the lobby — those are big priorities for churches. However, I don’t think a lot of church leaders understand that if they want that to happen, they have to promote it. While you might think more modern churches do a better job of this, it actually doesn’t break down that way; it really comes down to the leadership. Do they value new ways of collecting money or not? Sam Batterman: There’s another piece that churches — especially pastors — are really thinking about right now: taking this highly technological event (giving) and making it worshipful. For many givers, using online giving feels like paying for groceries or buying something on Amazon. There’s a lot we can do as technology companies to fix that, but it involves technology —and that’s potentially very disruptive to very conservative churches. Fortier: They’re also struggling with the theological side of online giving. We do a lot of coaching on how to fit that conversation into the tidal wave that’s coming. One or two generations from now, we’ll have a cashless society. For a lot of churches, we’re already seeing online giving churchexecutive.com
Seraphim Software’s Chris Caldwell (left) and Sam Batterman
surpass 50 percent, so it’s a critical conversation to have. Mark Kitts: I foresee a day when the normal church experience starts with an app. When I move into an area and start going to a church, one of the first questions I’m going to ask is, ‘Where can I find your app?’ It’s just part of connecting with that church — being bought in. Allen Ratta: Worship is a documented act of participation. It becomes, for us, a leading indicator that something might be amiss. If giving shifts in either frequency or volume, it’s an indicator that something’s going on. An early barometer. A family might be struggling in its relationship with the church or suffering a job loss. Research shows it’s very important for a church to use this data to intervene and minister. The church can be there as a care partner able to use metrics to open a dialog of care. Sunday attendance data. Sam Batterman: If somebody goes to a Sunday school class or to a small group, that’s a slam dunk for our systems. Related to attendance, the more difficult challenge is tracking the people who come to the worship center, but don’t go to other events. There’s no notion, necessarily, of who that person is, distinctly. Even so, the notion of being able to detect people in the congregation without tripping over a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 is a challenge for us. We have tremendous amount of technology available, but you don’t necessarily want church to look like the NSA as people are showing up on Sunday. The question is how you balance worshippers’ privacy expectations. Mark White: It really doesn’t do us a whole lot of good to know how many people are in the seats, anyway. You might know Sunday attendance is going down, but what do you do with the data? Meanwhile, small group attendance data is very specific and telling. Marvin Owen: I really think this is one area that’s shifting. It used to be that Sunday attendance was key. Now, engagement is a better metric. Allen Ratta: Attendance data really has no predictive value. It doesn’t tell you about the health of the church until it’s too late. What does have predictive value are leading growth indicators. What’s your visitor volume? What’s your visitor retention? How is that trending over the last six months? What’s your back-door rate, and how is that trending over the last six months? Sunday attendance data is like “Where is Waldo?”; it’s like a GPS pin on a map in terms of future direction, church health, and what the church is going to look like in two or three years. Russ Fortier: Also, attendance in the life of the individual isn’t an indicator of his or her spiritual growth. For example, I’m very involved in my church. I volunteer, and I tithe, but I’m there maybe three-quarters of the year. What’s interesting is that if I miss two Sundays in a row, my church is calling me to find out what’s wrong. I like the idea; but the other side of me is thinking what a waste of time it is for that staff member, who could be doing something else. It all goes back to the core question: What are you doing with the data? What’s the end result? Sam Batterman: I agree that attendance is increasingly less important. But, it’s a term we must collect nonetheless to comprise the total equation which will explain the “up arrow,” the “down arrow” and so on. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh
January 2015 • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • CHURCH EXECUTIVE
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GIVING SOLUTIONS Shore Fellowship (Egg Harbor Twp, NJ) A “Good Steward” Award winner in the area of cost savings, the recognition is well-earned for Shore Fellowship. In the past six years, the church has been forced to close six times due to weather — potentially devastating, financially. “We learned that the only way to develop consistent giving, and remain financially stable during snow- or storm-related closings, was to ask the church to embrace online giving,” explains Executive Administrator T.K. Dennis. After Hurricane Sandy struck, for example, the church raised $100,000 for community recovery efforts, mostly electronically.
A Christmas worship service at Shore Fellowship
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CHURCH EXECUTIVE • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • January 2015
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In what practical ways has the church demonstrated “amazing aptitude for embracing 100% of the solution”? T.K. Dennis: At the risk of tooting our own horn, this is a list of everything we do to get our congregation to embrace electronic giving, as well as giving in general. • We send out quarterly “celebratory reports” that offer the church a specific look at what God is doing in the lives of his people. A big part of this is always describing the ways people can give. The option we push people towards most is giving online through Elexio Pulse. • Each weekend, one of our staff — often myself — caps off the end of the service with a brief teaching on the importance of giving. At times, we even walk the church through our giving process from the stage. • We live, breathe and speak the vision of Shore Fellowship in everything we do — and that isn’t possible without a solid giving solution. Our staff has learned that a huge part of embracing the vision of the church is funding that vision. This would be much more difficult without an excellent online giving solution. • Every one of our staff members gives online, and about half our church gives online through Elexio Pulse. In what practical ways has the congregation demonstrated that it’s “quick to adopt” the solution — in particular, as it relates to online giving? T.K. Dennis: In the past five years, we’ve needed to close the church during weekend services about six times. This is devastating to a church’s finances, especially in an often-transient area such as the Jersey Shore. We learned several years ago that the only way to develop consistent giving, and to remain financially stable during snow- or storm-related closings, was to ask the church to embrace online giving. Hurricane Sandy turned our community upside down; but, even a storm just three months prior to that caused a state of emergency where people couldn’t leave their homes. During these times, when we’re unable to have worship services, our church can still participate in a hugely churchexecutive.com
important part of worship: the offering. Our online givers are able to give even in the midst of a church cancellation — and they’re faithful in doing so because they know it’s a tool that helps us continue to do kingdom work even when they can’t make it. After Hurricane Sandy struck, we knew the community needed leadership in organizing recovery efforts. I held a meeting after the storm hit. One of the first things I knew needed to happen was a means by which those around the world could give to the cause. We raised about $100,000 for our local community recovery efforts, mostly electronically. Our church also contributed to this, largely. Yet again, during a time when physical giving was impossible, the church remained faithful and gave electronically. We even saw many people give online for the first time during this season, because there was just no other way to give. We know our church loves to give online because, while I’m taking the offering, I always see a ton of faces planted in their smartphones. I know for a fact they’re not just avoiding the buckets; if they’re anything like me, they don’t carry any cash, anyway. So, without a credit card-based giving option, they’re not only unable to give, but they’re unable to participate in an important part of worship. What benefits has the church enjoyed as a result? T.K. Dennis: Our church enjoys a large base of givers that are very consistent in their giving. In today’s age, this only happens through an electronic giving solution. Online giving ensures there’s a fairly accurate projection of future giving trends from week to week, and ensures that trend is always headed up. Online giving allows people to give, and to easily see their records. This makes their contributions very real to them over the course of several weeks or months, and allows them to see the impact they made. So, I see people looking at it like it’s a score they want to beat — almost like a game. I personally make sure I beat my own “score” every year. — Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh January 2015 • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • CHURCH EXECUTIVE
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How to plan for multisite expansion using analytics and data By Sam Batterman
Figure A
Figure B
Deciding where to plant a new campus is paramount to multisite success. This is where your church management system (ChMS) comes in. The main issue is how easy is it to describe what you’re looking to get out of the database, and how easy it is use this information in a way that helps you figure out where to put a new church plant. Our program enables the creation of a nearly infinite variety of groups. These groups inherently “know” about geography — where things are located. In the example of determining where to plant a new campus, you need groups that paint a picture in response to these questions: • How many people are coming to your church, and how far are they traveling? • How many members are coming, and where are their concentrations? • How many visitors are coming? (Optimally, it would be great to see “old” visitors and visitors who have recently started coming. Can you ease their burden of travel?) • Can you start the new site in a place that has good, faithful members for service and giving? • How disruptive will this be to existing ministries, such as small groups and affinity groups? Let’s get started In our own program, a feature called Smart Maps lets users composite the information for various groups onto a map. The first step is to understand the geographic distribution of everyone visiting your church: members, regular attenders and visitors. In Figure A, we’ve created a group that pulls everyone who visited a specific church since January 1, 2014. We then plotted them as blue rectangles based on their residential location. We also plotted the current church’s location with a single flag. You can already see the three major epicenters where people live. Next, we’ve added markers for people who visited in 2013, but haven’t returned in 2014; they’re denoted as small, red circles in Figure B. We superimpose this information on everything we’ve already laid down on the map. We’ve also added visitors who have visited the church in 2014. They’re represented as green circles. With this single view, we can now see everyone who travels to our church, including visitors last year and this year. Now, we might want to look at travel times. Using the church as the center point, we add two circles — orange for 20-mile travelers and purple for 10 miles. (See Figure C) Now, a more informed decision can start to be formed about where to put a new campus. Even more telling data These same ChMS functions can be used in other ways, too. View your church’s bus ministry in comparison to where visitors live. Or, view visitors in comparison to small groups and members. These are just a few examples. Above all else, prayer and the Will of God are paramount to this decision.
Figure C 10
CHURCH EXECUTIVE • S E L E C T I N G S O F T W A R E • January 2015
Sam Batterman is president and CTO of Seraphim Software, a cloud-based church management software company based in Collegeville, PA. www.seraphimsoftware.com churchexecutive.com