You’ve just been hired on as the new church administrator. That’s great! Now what? Whether you’re looking for the best free church management software or the most expensive, chances are there’s something that can help you get started. After all, the last thing you want to do is start from scratch and build a management system from the ground up.
Do you have a small church ministry with just a handful of volunteers? For every growing church, every time you have to manage your church or campaign or meeting, these are not an easy task. With all the necessary tasks calling for attention, there might not be enough manpower to deal with it. This is where most churches would apply for the best church management software.
ChurchCRM
ChurchCRM is built off of the ChurchInfo open source framework. Because it runs on LAMP, you can use it on any device with an internet browser, including tablets and smartphones. ChurchCRM also offers membership management for unlimited members, calendar, donation tracking, volunteer management features, and more. An active developer community is constantly working on new features, and is available for support via chat.
ChurchTrac
ChurchTrac was founded in 2002 in Florida with hopes of providing software that makes church leaders’ jobs easier at a reasonable price. ChurchTrac includes features for membership management, donations, check-in, worship planning, church accounting, event planning, website management, and more.
What you get for free: ChurchTrac offers a free plan with membership management for up to 75 individuals, with family management, reports, directories, and tech support.
Cost to upgrade: With the $5/month Standard plan, churches can add online donation management, child check-in, attendance tracking, volunteer scheduling, event management, priority support, and more for up to 75 members.
With the $15/month Plus plan, churches can add everything in Standard plus financial management and accounting, advanced scheduling, worship planning, song library, and more for up to 75 members. Prices increase based on the number of members, and churches can get two months free with an annual commitment.
Faithful Steward
Try the FREE DEMO of our innovative solution that allows churches to manage their membership and accounting records with ease using either desktop software or running from their web browser. As pressures increase from the I.R.S., Revenue Canada, and other government agencies, most churches and non-profit organizations are looking for tools to meet their responsibilities, and operate more efficiently. If this describes you, Faithful Steward is the answer you’ve been looking for!
ParishSOFT Software
ParishSOFT is a church management software, which helps parishes and dioceses of all sizes manage family records, track contributions, monitor pledge campaigns and more. The solution allows members to join online education classes, register as volunteers for events and track giving history.
It enables managers to monitor accounting data, track religious holidays, schedule volunteer activities and generate reports. ParishSOFT lets administrators organize education programs, track students’ progress and communicate with parents via email. The platform also lets professionals receive one time or recurring donations and gifts from iOS and Android devices.
ParishSOFT offers an application programming interface (API), which lets businesses integrate the system with an in-house query report builder, Intelligent Query, to pull data from ParishSOFT Family Suite. Pricing is available on request and support is extended via FAQs, training videos, forums, user guides and other online measures.
FellowshipOne
FellowshipOne is a church management software solution that can help you understand your church’s membership with information right at your fingertips. Using this church management software, you can manage your member data with a suite of tools that allows for many tasks to be automated and accessible online.
FellowshipOne integrates with Qgiv’s church giving software, which means that as your congregants give to your church, their information will seamlessly flow into FellowshipOne’s membership management platform.
Planning Center
Planning Center may have a secular sounding name, but it is 100% designed for churches from the ground up. The software was first developed in California in 2006 by two full-time church leaders scrambling to stay on top of all facets of worship planning, from scheduling volunteers to preparing music by manually updating spreadsheets. Planning Center claims to serve 90 of the 100 largest churches in the country, but also caters to small, neighborhood churches. The software itself is packaged as a collection of apps, from calendar and donations to publishing.
What you get for free: Planning Center’s free version includes an unlimited membership database with communication tools, a calendar with unlimited events and up to two meeting rooms, 15 daily check-ins, up to 10 monthly donations, small group planning for up to 25 members, event registration for as many as five attendees, and service planning for up to five administrators.
Cost to upgrade: Users can expand each application to accommodate the size of their congregation. For example, a 10-room calendar, 50 daily check-ins, 100 monthly donations, 125 small group members, 20 event attendees, and service planning for 25 administrators would cost a church $84/month. Publishing plans start at $14/month. All apps are optional and include a 30-day free trial.
Bitrix24
If you are looking for free online church management software, you’ll love Bitrix24. Free for unlimited users, Bitrix24 is a tool of choice by many faith-based and non-profit organizations who have limited funds. More importantly, Bitrix24 has both social tools for engaging your congregation, like social network, user groups, polling, media gallery, shared calendars, video conferencing and business tools like CRM, telephony or project management that help you keep your affair in order.
ProPresenter Software
ProPresenter is a church management software, which helps churches display lyrics, chord charts and presentations in real-time. The solution enables teams to control live presentations across multiple screens during worship gatherings, trade shows and conferences from a unified dashboard.
The platform allows operators to import videos, add custom color effects, manage brightness and crop videos to change the pre-produced content. ProPresenter lets administrators blend multiple screens to create a wide image, share videos across serial digital interfaces and use customizable built-in themes to unify content. Additionally, it provides access to translations of The Bible in multiple languages and helps communicate information to people on the stage regarding announcements and slide notes.
ProPresenter lets businesses integrate the system with several third-party applications such as Planning Center, CCLI SongSelect and more. Pricing is based on annual subscriptions and perpetual licenses and support is offered via video tutorials, a knowledge base and other online measures.
Church Community Builder
Church Community Builder is a church management software solution that allows you to view every area of a church member’s involvement with your congregation, from giving to volunteering and event attendance.
Through Church Community Builder’s integration with Qgiv, congregant information will transfer seamlessly as they give to your church, which will allow you to build out their profiles, understand their habits, and raise what you need effectively.
CharityTracker Software
CharityTracker is a cloud-based case management tool that helps non-profit organizations manage statistical data, referrals, collaboration and alerts. Primarily catering churches, the centralized platform allows users to track attendees and grant disbursals.
Key features of CharityTracker include agency listings, budgeting, data backup, bulletin postings and customized reporting. Its case management module allows users to assign resources, provide financial assistance to members and refer local suppliers to people in need. Further, it allows users to perform database searches on prospective members and monitor any changes in the community. Additional features offered are file uploads, digital signatures, client referrals and access control.
CharityTracker helps users reduce manual data entry through its integration with barcode scanners. It is available via monthly subscription and support is provided via phone and an online help desk.
Conclusion:
The best church management software is the one that keeps your church’s data safely organized. But it can be tricky to figure out which tools are worth trying out. If you’re currently looking for a church management system, or are thinking about changing up your existing system, there are many factors to take into account.