HomeDigital MinistryManagement (ChMS)Church Community Builder Church Management Software

Church Community Builder Church Management Software [Review]

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If you’re looking for new church management software, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all the choices available. This Church Community Builder review is part of our series of church management software (ChMS) reviews to evaluate how each ChMS performs.

Overview of Church Community Builder

Church Community Builder (or CCB) launched in the late nineties by two pastors and entrepreneurs. Since then, the company has grown to over 100 full-time staff members. In January 2020, CCB and Pushpay announced they’re combining their companies to provide a combined ChMS, digital giving, custom app solution, and additional products for churches.

Here are the 12 Core Benefits and Features evaluated by our Church Community Builder Review:

#1 – People

#2 – Check-In

#3 – Schedules

#4 – Giving 

#5 – Groups

#6 – Processes

#7 – Rooms and Resources

#8 – Workflow & Usability of Church Community Builder

#9 – User Satisfaction & Comments

#10 – Support

#11 – Technology Details/Specifications

#12 – Pricing Details

#1 – People

The People feature is the core of the CCB database. This is where you’ll add information from new visitor cards, update a member’s address, note relationships such as a spouse or children, what volunteer roles an individual is in, and more. You can enter notes to record information such as when a campus pastor spoke with this visitor for the first time.

Each individual’s record is broken down into the following sections:

  • About
    • Contact information such as email, phone numbers, addresses
    • Personal information including birthdate, marital status, allergies, baptism status, which campus they attend
    • System privileges regarding what aspects of the software they can access, whether they’re cleared to work with children, etc.
    • Custom fields such as membership start date,
  • Involvement
    • Volunteer roles that person currently fills
    • Attendance
    • Group membership
    • Financial giving
    • Process queues that person is in
    • Any forms he/she has completed
  • Notes and Messages
    • You can use the Notes section to record that the pastor spoke with an individual at a newcomer’s luncheon or any other miscellaneous information that you want to note.
    • Messages is where you can send an email to that individual from within CCB as long as that person has an email address in his/her record.

The People feature enables users to quickly search for individuals who meet certain criteria (attends a specific campus, volunteer role, membership type, and more) and view each person's serving, giving, attendance, process queues, forms, and groups information.  This provides a holistic view of an individual's involvement and journey with the church.

church community builder review CHMS

#2 – Check-In

CCB’s Check-In functionality includes the standard check-in features along with the ability to text parents, utilize barcode scanning, and check out. You can use Check-In for events plus you can review records to see who attended an event or service.  The Check-In feature is available as web software and as an app for iOS and Android devices.

church community builder review CHMS

church community builder review CHMS

#3 – Schedules

Within Schedules, you can coordinate various aspects of a service including scheduling volunteers, developing service plans, plus adding chord charts and lyrics (CCB includes an integration with SongSelect).

Since most weekly services follow a standard pattern, you can quickly create a template for Sunday morning services and use that template to populate schedules for the next several weeks. From there, you can schedule volunteers, add the set list (including song files), message volunteers, look up a volunteer’s profile information, and more.

church community builder review CHMS

church community builder review CHMS

#4 – Giving

This functionality allows people to give from their devices, making online donations during a service easy to manage. Individuals can also pay for event registration fees using the Giving feature.

From a reporting standpoint, you can provide the following:

  • Run and send weekly donation reports to leaders who need that information
  • Pull donor analysis reports so you can email all first-time givers or those who submitted their pledges for the new building fund
  • Year-end giving statements – Anyone who has access to the software can log in and print their own giving statement at any time.

#5 – Groups

The Groups feature provides a robust platform from which to setup and communicate with small groups. Within Groups, you can:

  • Create new groups
  • Designate the leader(s) for each group
  • Provide information regarding meeting schedules and locations
  • Message group members and/or leaders
  • Add files
  • Log needs of group members
  • Run reports related to the group
  • Record attendancechurch community builder review CHMS

church community builder review CHMS

#6 – Processes

The Processes feature is where you design automated workflows to follow-up with people based on set criteria. For example: You can create a process queue that will be triggered to begin when you add someone to the database as a first-time guest. This workflow could include sending that individual a welcome email and inviting him to a newcomer’s luncheon.

Processes

#7 – Rooms and Resources

With various ministry areas hosting events throughout the year, coordinating which rooms and resources (such as tables and chairs) are available can be challenging. CCB includes the ability to create these rooms and resources within the software, so you can reserve what you need for a specific gathering.

Rooms

CCB Resources

#8 – Workflow & Usability of Church Community Builder

Navigating and performing basic tasks within CCB is mostly intuitive. Power users will need training on features that have a variety of options such as setting up events and creating process queues. However, that’s typical for any robust ChMS platform.

#9 -User Satisfaction & Comments

Church Community Builder has a 4.4 out of 5-star rating at Capterra. Reviews mentioned excellent customer service and a feature-rich product.

Overall: Very good experience. We have been blessed by their software. It helps us in guest follow up. We have benefited from the forms and website integration as well as the LEAD app. Customer service has always been good at follow up. The technical training videos and help sheets on their help site have been very helpful.” – Daniel T., Growth Pastor

#10 – Support

CCB offers several different support options including:

  • Implementation Coaching
  • Premier Support
  • On-Site Training
  • Data Migration

CCB’s online Knowledge Center includes documentation for each feature plus videos you can share with staff or church members based on who needs the information. You can also access free training workshops (recorded or live). When you’re logged into CCB, you can submit a support ticket or view documentation in the Knowledge Center.

#11 – Technology Details/Specifications

CCB is a web-based tool, so there’s no software to install. To print labels for check-in, you’ll need to set up the printers.

Integrations is another factor to consider when evaluating ChMS vendors. Church Community Builder integrates with a variety of tools offering everything from accounting to background checks, HVAC control, and more.

Additionally, users can access Church Community Builder through The Lead app to search for someone in the People database, managing volunteer schedules, view process queues, connect with groups, and more.

#12 – Pricing Details

Pricing for CCB varies based on the package selected and normal weekly attendance.

Packages are listed as Essential, Standard, and Deluxe. At the low end, you’ll pay $90 per month for an Essential package with 100-250 in weekly attendance.

For a Standard package with about 500 in weekly attendance, you’ll pay $270 per month.

Deluxe packages start at $180 per month.

Conclusion

Church Community Builder has steadily served its customers for over two decades. Their recent transaction with Pushpay has the potential to expand their capabilities and what they can offer church leaders. With that in mind, decision-makers evaluating various ChMS tools would be wise to consider the various mergers and acquisitions that have occurred in the industry over the last five to 10 years as part of their review process.

Overall, CCB offers a full suite of features that churches of any size could use. With so much functionality, the challenge for church leaders isn’t a lack of capabilities – it’s in the setup and implementation of the tool. Careful planning and leveraging CCB’s support offerings can make the initial setup process run smoothly.

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Deborah Ike
Deborah Ikehttps://www.velocityministrymanagement.com/
Deborah Ike is the Founder of The Church Operations Toolkit, a resource for those who serve behind-the-scenes in their churches. In addition to serving in ministry, Deborah worked for an international consulting firm and a Fortune 500 company as a consultant, project manager, and risk management analyst. Deborah is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP)® through the Project Management Institute.

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