in Christ: Andrew Fountain's blog

Requirements

1. Online access to names, address, email & phone (Currently:MS Access)
2. Email newsletters (Currently:MailChimp)
3. Attendance records (Currently:MS Access)
4. CRM notes (Currently:MS Access—limited)
5. Gifts and interests (Currently:spreadsheet)
6. Donations (Currently:accounting system)
7. Homegroup & other group email (Currently:Google groups)
8. Team scheduling (Currently:just a web page) This needs to have full email integration for both reminders and replies

Available Solutions

• Open Source Full CRM
  • CiviCRM A very full featured system, but would require some configuration.
    • Comments about churches who use it here and here
  • Church.io/onebody Really nice interface providing a very complete church intranet
    • Missing donations, newsletters & team scheduling
  • Church Info web-based php/mysql on SourceForge, actively developed by Mike Wilt, but forked into Church Web CRM
  • Church Web CRM fork of churchinfo by George Dawoud to bring new features. Looks very slick and full-featured. Code on Github together with Docker image.
    • No email features at all, and CRM notes are not that good.
  • Jethro Australian-based system.
    • Commercially hosted at easyjethro
    • code seems to be still on sourceforge as well?
    • Six reasons my church uses the Jethro member database although he later changed to Elantro
    • Some great features, like the service roster and teams
    • Really nice attendance recording system
    • Ability to schedule a present or future action is a really good feature
    • Email newsletter seems to be totally missing, except you can export a list from time to time into Mailchimp.
    • Does not seem to have any email integration, even for sending a single email. The only way to email a person is to select them from a list and then your external desktop client is invoked to send the mail. Nothing is put in the person’s history.
  • kongreg8 No updates since 2013, but looks really nice (php project)
    • Lead developer Rick Trotter promises a new version.
    • (Version 1 still on sourceforge possible security issues)
  • OSC (Open Source Church) not updated since 2013
• Open Source Team scheduling
  • Church Rota Team organization (php/mysql) actively developed
  • Redmine
    • would need some work in setting up events and creating accounts
    • email would need template customizing to remove all the issue stuff, and web page is a bit cluttered
  • GitHub
    • would need some work in setting up events and creating accounts
    • Would need to write some code that drives the api to send out reminder email for issues connected with milestones.
    • First class support of email collaboration—this is probably the simplest way to go for team scheduling
• Low Cost
  • Sumac Free for up to 500 users. Hosted version is $20/month
    • Toronto Company focussing on handling donations and generating receipts to comply with CRA rules.
    • Runs on Linux, and can be self-hosted for free if single-user
    • This could be a great solution for handling the donations part of the system if it turns out to be better not to make it part of the main system.
• Expensive
  • Eelvanto reviewed here: 10 reasons why my church selected Elvanto with comparison with Jethro in the commments at the bottom

Reviews and Comparisons

• 5 Newer Web-Based Church Software Solutions
  1. Easy Church Tools web-based $20–$40/month
  2. Church Desk Looks like this is a hosted solution, but the website is not clear. Even though it is $50–$150 it does not seem to be able to email groups of members, but just has a single newsletter. No CMS features.
  3. SimpleChurchCRM $35+ /month. Seems to require MailChimp to send out newsletters and it’s not clear if you can mangage team or small group mailing lists.
  4. Breeze ChMS $50/month flat rate. Looks comprehensive
  5. Elvanto (see above)
• blog.capterra.com/…e-solutions The Top 7 Free and Open Source Church Management Software Solutions
  1. ChurchTrac plus online version around $30/month
  2. ChurchInfo see above
  3. Excellerate not web-based
  4. Working Church not web-based
  5. CahabaWorks not web-based (but free unsupported version)
  6. AgapeWORKS Includes website, but expensive
  7. Church Equip very expensive
• Search for the ideal church database (part 4)
  • Good list of requirements
• Capterra: Top Church Management Software Products
  • A long list with reviews. Around 200 products listed!!

Other products

• PowerChurch Plus Windows based system that does accounting as well. They also host OneBody
• Cooperstock Software and Software4Nonprofits low cost but not web-based