Church Community Builder
I have been interested in the organizational side of church ministry for some time. As an organizer, and one who employs internet technology, I have often wondered about the available solutions for membership management in the local church. I came across Church Community Builder and this post is a review of that solution.
Some time ago, I came across a post that briefly explained three Church Management Systems. I investigated each as far as I could, but at the time, my ministry was unable to implement any kind of system due to financial constraints.
When we moved to Toledo, I learned that my most recent ministry was using Church Community Builder, a very robust, web-based church management solution. The platform is similar to Facebook in that it focuses on profiles, groups, and self-paced community building. (UPDATE 4/4: In addition to the self-paced community building, there are significant administrative tools for church leadership. See comment below.)
Church Community Builder Website: Links to look at:
- Tour – tour the features of Church Community Builder
- Features – see a detailed explanation of all features
- Solutions – See a table of features and packages
Here are some strengths and weaknesses as I see them:
Church Community Builder Strengths
- Clean, attractive look – I am one who appreciates what I call “good branding.” If a website doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing, its functionality doesn’t much matter. But a good, clean look makes up for some functionality issues. Church Community Builder is attractive.
- Website integration – one can easily connect to the “front-end” of the public church website. Notable integration options are the church calendar, getting connected with groups, a login module. A moderately experienced admin would have little difficulty.
- Intuitive – Every page in the portal contains explanations and details of the page functions. Users can navigate easily and know where they’re going.
- Comprehensive help – While some of the more detailed training are paid services, there are plenty of videos and knowledge base articles to help everyone from the most novice user to the site administrator.
- Self-paced – members with initiative can easily get plugged in to the ministry.
- Completely web-based – The only IT required is a web connection and an internet browser. (The check-in interface is best viewed in Firefox.)
Church Community Builder Weaknesses
- Cost – Church Community Builder offers graded cost depending on the size of the church, but one must submit information for a quote. I’m not certain what each bracket is priced at, but a church of 800, with a Standard Package, is in the thousands.
- Intricate – Some of the features require forethought and planning for implementation. Church Community Builder provides (free) video tutorials for every feature.
- Not Intuitive – Whereas each page has information to walk the user through, this information and the sheer volume of features make for an intimidating task to a regular user. The intricacies will require extensive training for full implementation.
- Too “self-paced” – In some respects giving the monkey to the members is a risky proposition because most members are on a level 2. Without sufficient encouragement, members may not use Church Community Builder, leading to leadership frustration for lack of participation.
- No trial period – As far as I can tell Church Community Builder is an all or nothing proposition. It would be profitable to be able to test the usefulness of the product with no upfront cost. That doesn’t appear to be an option with Church Community Builder. (UPDATE 4/4: There is a “test drive” option available. See comment below.)
- There is no offline support – If the internet service goes down, the user cannot access data. This is especially problematic for the check-in feature.
Ministering in the 21st century, church leaders ought to consider implementing some form of technology to maintain their roles. Church Community Builder would be worth an examination.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
I would love to send this to Church Community Builder, But there is no available email.
I am the the leader of the “Band” group. I play, schedule volunteers and arrange the service with respect to the music. I realize that CCB is by no means intended to be a total solution for that type of group, but the things you do offer in the way of scheduling and communication, I find extremely lacking, Specifically,
Messaging. I have absolutely no control over messaging the group. If I have specific instructions for the worship team scheduled for a service, I have to message the whole group. My only option is to use my private email them with additional instruction. I CAN email just those that are scheduled, but only with a default message. Speaking of which, I cannot change the default message either. As a matter of fact, there are few defaults that I can change.
Default services. Every time I create a schedule, I have to change the rehearsal & sound check days/times. It’s a minor aggravation, but it is indicative of how I see the overall inflexibility of your program for the leaders. Who thought Wednesday morning at 7AM was the best default value for rehearsal anyway?
Scheduling. My biggest complain here, is once a schedule is set, it must be deleted/re-created to change needed positions. I find this aspect totally unacceptable. This week we had a situation where our bass player was unable to play so I opted to go with an acoustic set. No. I could not delete the Bass position, I could not change the Guitar position to acoustic, or switch the drum set to hand drums. Once again, my option was to message the people involved privately. And of course, there is no private/selective option in CCB.
So those are my biggest complaints. I am also disappointed that although CCB does not seem to be geared in the direction of production, there is no way to integrate it with the recognized applications that do so. We are investigating a third party solution (PCOSync) to integrate PCO and CCB. An additional cost, and another application to deal with.
As it stands now, since we adopted CCB, my life has been one of redundancy. From my standpoint, it only complicates things more. The ONLY advantage I personally see in using CCB is that because the church has decided to use it maintain the community (which it seems to do OK, but not well) it avoids the scheduling conflicts of people serving in more than one group. If I were to ask if it’s worth that advantage, I would vote no.
Thanks for the comment, Ed. Perhaps you could get in touch with CCB via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CCBChurch.
Hi Matt,
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this post! I know your evaluation will be a great resource for others searching for the right Church Management Software for their church. There are definite ups and downs to every ChMS solution and it behooves every church to find the one best suitable to meet their ministry objectives.
Just a couple notes I would make…
It’s true you could compare CCB to Facebook in the profile, groups, and self-paced community building side of things. But you left out the administrative side of CCB, which is a major focus and draw of church leaders to the solution. Why Facebook isn’t enough to build community in church is a good post about this topic.
CCB cares about maximizing the processes which help churches function more effectively… not necessarily to sell software (although that’s a part of it). Watch this video about why we ask for your information before offering pricing.
CCB offers a trial period via a “test drive.” We give you credentials to log-in to a test drive site and play around for as long as you would like to.
Hopefully that reveals a little more insight into the heart of CCB. Thanks again, Matt, for the kind words!
Thanks for the clarification and further resources! I was only able to interact with CCB for a brief period of time. I’m glad to know they have a “test drive” option.