Overview of MyChurchData.com

Introduction

Software costs too much, and is too difficult to learn and use. People in the ministry usually don't have the time or inclination to deal with the technical details of computers and software. They just want to devote their time and ministry money to meeting the needs of others. That is where MyChurchData.com comes in.

MyChurchData.com is an internet-based church database service providing all the data services you and your staff need. Since everything is available through a web browser, there is no software to install or upgrade. Your information is available from any computer with an internet connection, whether that be in your office, at home, the library, or the local coffee shop. Now you, the church staff, and volunteers can have access to the data they need wherever they are, whenever they need it.

Easy to Use and Secure

Because MyChurchData.com is internet-based you can use the system from any computer in the world that has a web browser. You can use it at the office, at home, and on the road. MyChurchData.com calls the main person in your organization the "Admin", which is short for Administrator. The Admin sets up accounts for Staff and Volunteers. The Admin has complete control of who is given access to your data. Staff have can do almost as many tasks as the Admin (they can't add users), and Volunteers can look up information in the system and do limited data entry tasks but cannot see more confidential information. You can have as many Admin, Staff, and Volunteer users as your wish (but you must have at least 1 Admin!).

Your data is also secure in our system. We take advantage of the same encryption technologies used by the U.S. Department of Defense to secure your login information. The only way people can log into the system with your credentials is if you give your login information to them. Since your credentials are encrypted, not even our technical support people and development staff read or recover them. Memorize your password. Never right it down or store it in a public place! We also do not store any credit card information in our data files, so it is not possible for financial identity theft through our system. Your data is stored on a secured server at an undisclosed location within the United States and is automatically backed up daily. The web server is maintained by expert system engineers who monitor them 24/7.

Inexpensive

Many church software programs are very expensive, costing several thousands of dollars to purchase, with the added burden of thousands of dollars in ongoing annual support and maintenance fees. It is a huge investment and many churches cannot afford it. You pay for esoteric functionality you may not even understand, much less use.

MyChurchData.com is very affordable. Our goal is to provide affordable, competent, easy-to-use data services that even the smallest and largest congregations can use. By keeping our costs low and using highly productive state-of-the-art web-based technologies, we can offer a pricing structure that traditional software companies cannot match. You pay one low annual fee, regardless of the number of users you have, and regardless of the number of records you have. Click here to see our pricing.

Easy to Get Started

It only takes a few moments to sign up and begin using MyChurchData.com. You begin by setting up a new account for your church and your Admin (click here to set up a new account). Then you can begin entering data, or have us help you transfer your data from your old system to MyChurchData.com (click here for details on transferring data). If you are the Admin, you can immediately set up other people as users.

Tracks People and Families

The core of MyChurchData.com is its ability to track people and families. The system has the ability to track and maintain a broad set of information for each person you enter. You can assign individuals to groups, create phone directories, send them email, and many other tasks.

In the MyChurchData.com system each person also belongs to a family. Even if the person is single, the system still creates a family for them containing one family member. The system maintains family information, such as the address and home phone number. You can create a phone directory of families, create mailing labels for the family, track extended family members, and do many other tasks with families. The biggest advantage is if you want to send one mailing per family to save on postage, MyChurchData.com makes it easy.

Groups and Flags

People or families that meet together are a group, such as a Sunday School class, a home fellowship group, or a youth group. A group may have meeting times and share a calendar of events. You can create a group and assign people or families to it. Once a group is created then you can easily track its members and communicate with the group. You can send email to a group, or print mailing labels for a group.

Flags are very similiar to groups, but much more informal. People or families that share the same flag usually don't meet together or share a calendar. For example, you can flag all the people who are:

• interested in golf
• on a prayer chain
• invited to a special function
• going on a trip

You can create as many flags and groups as you need, and any person or family can be a part of an unlimited number of flags and groups.

Easy Mailing Labels

I can't think of anything more needlessly difficult than creating mailing labels with software. Why should something so seemingly easy be so difficult? Well now it is easy. You can print mailing labels for any group of people in your database with just a couple clicks of the mouse. It generates a pre-formatted PDF file that you print on standard Avery 5160 (laser) or 8160 (inkjet) labels. If you wish, you can save the PDF file for future print jobs or automatically generate it again and again whenever you need it.

Easy Searching

If you can search in Google, you can search in MyChurchData.com. Simply choose what you want to find (e.g. person, family, group, business), type part of the name in the Find text box, and click GO. All the matches appear on the screen. You will find most of the quick look information you need right there, or you can drill down into an entry to see additional information.

Donations and Year-End Reporting

MyChurchData.com lets you enter donations as you receive them, and easily creates donor receipts and year-end donation reports for tax purposes. You can set up Designations which let you track donations for special purposes such as an Easter offering, memorial, or a building fund.

With a few clicks of the mouse, at year's end you can easily print donation reports that can be given to your congregation for preparing their income taxes.

Financial Analysis

Not only does MyChurchData.com track donations, it provides special reports that help you understand your financial situation and manage your ministry. Detailed reports give you information on specific giving, and summary reports provide the big picture of how your ministry is doing. 

The Benevolence Network

Everyone wants to help people in their time of need. No one wants to throw their aid money away on con men who go from church-to-church with a sad story pretending they are on tough times. Churches are an easy target. The AidCheck Network helps to identify these people. The more churches that use the AidCheck Network the better it works. Therefore we offer the AidCheck Network to all churches free of charge. Click here to learn more and sign up for your free account.

FAQs

Getting Started

How do I pay for my subscription?

MyChurchData.com uses PayPal to handle subscriptions. During the subscription process you are taken to the PayPal web site. If you have an existing PayPal account your can use that to handle your subscription. Otherwise PayPal will walk you through the quick and easy process of setting up your free PayPal account. With PayPal you are able to pay for your subscription with a credit card, debit card, eCheck (electronics fund transfer from a checking account), or with funds in your PayPal account.  Once the free trial period ends PayPal will automatically charge your account either monthly or annually for your subscription.

Do I need to import my church database into MyChurchData.com?

That depends on what you want to do. MyChurchData.com is a complete church membership database, so if you want to import your data we encourage you to do so! If you just want to use MyChurchData.com to handled small group discovery and sign-up over the internet and don't care about generating contact lists and directories then you don't need to.

How do I import my church's data into MyChurchData.com?

You have two options: manually enter the data yourself, or have MyChurchData.com staff import the data for you for a fee ($75/hour). If you only have a few dozen or few hundred members, it might be beneficial to enter the data manually. If you can get some volunteers to do the work then you will find that it brings you dividends in training people to use the system. You will also have the opportunity to clean up the data as you go. If you have a large church and want to have the data imported for you, we can do that.  Please send email to us at info@123mychurchdata.com. (Please remove the 123 from the email address!) We will email to you an Excel spreadsheet and instructions for getting your data into the spreadsheet in the proper form. When you are done you can send us the spreadsheet in email and we will import it into the system. If you would rather have us do the work with the raw data, we can but it will be more costly to you. Send us an email if you have any questions.

Can MyChurchData.com replace my current church membership software?

Yes, that's the idea! We can track individuals, families, contributions, groups, and calendars. We provide quick and convenient access to your information, and we make it easier to use your information than traditional software programs. Take advantage of the 14-day free trial period to check it out for yourself!

Does MyChurchData.com track expenses?

No. There are several competent low-cost accounting products that do an excellent job of tracking expenses for an organization. We do track contributions using an account+sub account system. You can use MyChurchData.com as a sub-ledger for your accounting system.

How many users can I have?

As many as you wish. You set up each user yourself. There is no additional charges for extra users, and we do not limit the number of users you can have.

What are "roles?"

When you first set up a new user in the system they cannot do anything at all until you assign them one or more roles. A role is a set of permissions that determines what the user can do. The Administrator role has complete access to the system. There are also roles for staff, group leaders, donations, and other areas. Anyone at your church with the administrator role can completely control who can use the system, and what they can do when they do access the system.

Your Data

Do I need to back up my data?

No, and yes. Your data is automatically backed up every night. In the unlikely event that the database becomes corrupted, we can restore information from the previous backup. If you are happy with this arrangement then you do not need to back up your data. However, if you would like to back up your own data it is easy to do. An Administrator can use the Reports command on the menu to display the Report Manager web page. Use the Backups option to back up the database tables you want to back up to your computer.

Can I export my data?

Yes, quite easily. An Administrator can use the Reports command on the menu to display the Report Manager web page. Use the Backups option to download to your computer the table or tables you want. You can export your data in CSV, Excel, and XML file formats.

Is the service ever unavailable?

You will find that the server is unavailable during the very late evening and early morning (around midnight Eastern Time). This is when data backups and server maintenance are done. It is generally unavailable for only a few minutes at any given time.

Where is the data physically located?

The server is located in a secure datacenter in Dallas, Texas.

Can my personal data be scanned by Google or other web spiders?

No. Data is stored in a secure, access-controlled database. No data exists in static web pages, and most web pages are in directories unavailable to web spiders. Every web page containing data is dynamically created on-the-fly when you request it, and shipped to you over an encrypted SSL connection.

Miscellaneous Questions

Why is MyChurchData.com so cheap?

Data-driven web services are inherently complex and very costly to create. As a ministry to the church, the developer of MyChurchData.com funded the cost of development of the MyChurchData.com service and decided not to pass that on to its customers. The ongoing cost of operating the service is paid for by your subscription fee.

Do I have to pay extra when new features become available?

We continue to add new features to MyChurchData.com. When new features are made available, they are included at no additional cost.

Who is Silicon Forest Consulting, Inc.?

Silicon Forest Consulting, Inc. is the company that provides the MyChurchData.com service. We provide database services and management consulting services for our clients. We are located in Bellevue, Washington.

How do I cancel my subscription?

You can log into your PayPal account and cancel your subscription at any time. Once you cancel your subscription your account will become unavailable within 24 hours, so be sure to export any data you want prior to canceling your subscription.