Church & Donor Management Software – ChMS

© 2011 by Nick B. Nicholaou, all rights reserved
Ministry Business Services, Inc. President
Reprinted from NACBA Ledger

Church management software providers continue to improve their ability to help churches fulfill their mission!  With more abilities to track and communicate with people, improved web and mobile device interfaces, and powerful database tools, this category of software is a big help and useful asset for today’s ministries in reaching many for the Gospel.

Church Software Historical Perspective
In the mid-1980s the number of these programs grew to 262!  Then some merged, some consolidated, and some went out of business, reducing the number to only 34.  Then the Internet made it so easy for those writing solutions to share them that the number of solutions doubled!  Our research this year found just 40 focusing on the church and ministry market, of which 28 qualified for this article (requirements include active marketing, minimum growth, and proven continued development of their solution).

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

Why Church Management Software?
The solution providers on the following pages meet the sophisticated needs churches and ministries have.  Tracking more than just names, addresses, and phone numbers, many of these also track family relationships, spiritual gifts, talents, interests, attendance, nursery security, contributions, fundraising campaigns, volunteerism, and more.

Church and ministry offices can be stressful workplaces due to the many deadlines that must be met by an administrative staff 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 stable, the ministry team can rely on it to help them get the most possible work done quickly and with minimal stress.  And if its abilities are broad enough, every ministry in the church or parachurch organization can focus on just one database, increasing synergy and minimizing cost.

Church Management Software Defined
Some time ago Steve Hewitt, Editor-in-Chief of Christian Computing Magazine, labeled the software category tailored to meet the needs of churches as Church Management Software, or CMS.  More recently some began calling it ChMS to help prevent confusion now that so many software categories are called ‘CMS’.  Parachurch ministries need to track similar data, so we invited those solutions into this same article too.  Following is a well-researched list of all ChMS providers at the time of this writing, with each stating at the top of the feature chart whether their focus is church, parachurch, or both.

Not-for-Profit Accounting
Churches and ministries exist in a unique accounting niche that most software (and even 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 churches and ministries that have suffered embezzlement by a trusted team member.  One of the best protections is an accounting system with a good audit trail that tracks the detail of every transaction and 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 so we list the functions they look for in the chart.  Other churches and ministries may not care whether the ChMS provider has written its own accounting system, and for them it’s good to know that most ChMSs can interface with ‘third-party’ accounting systems such as those provided by Microsoft, Intuit, etc.

Feature Chart
We’ve tried to give you the most comprehensive and quickest format possible of those ChMS database and accounting functions ministry teams request most.  We removed common features that are provided by all ChMS providers to help focus on differences.  We’ve also given you information on how to reach each provider like how long they’ve been making their solutions available, how many organizations they currently serve, their technical support hours, and how often they update their software.  All of the information in this article was provided by the software companies.

The chart uses two symbols:

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

Happy Hunting!
Shop wisely.  We counsel all prospective buyers to do their due diligence and check with current users of the software.  Ask questions like:

• Does the software do what was promised?
• Is their technical 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!

2011 ChMS Chart - Click for Full Size