Product News Archives - Pushpay Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:13:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://pushpay.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cropped-Pushpay_Logo-400x400.png Product News Archives - Pushpay 32 32 How Listening To Customers Inspired Our Next-Gen Custom Video Player https://pushpay.com/blog/how-listening-to-customers-inspired-custom-video-player/ https://pushpay.com/blog/how-listening-to-customers-inspired-custom-video-player/#respond Thu, 22 Jun 2023 17:25:17 +0000 https://pushpay.com/?p=10796 There’s often an underlying aspect of a job, a field of study, or a favorite hobby that really resonates with us. As anyone who’s discovered such a driving force knows, a specific passion can lead you on a winding life journey.

In my case, I discovered my “passion” while studying architecture at university in South Africa. Over time I realized that, while I enjoyed my studies, my attraction to the field was actually grounded in my love of creative problem solving; I liked tackling complex problems that require innovative solutions.

Around the time I recognized this fact about myself, it was becoming more and more clear that the wave of the future would be software. I found myself drawn to developing digital solutions, because they require the same problem solving skills I’d used in my architecture studies.

So I dove into the world of software and never looked back.

Over the years, I’ve led multiple tech teams in a variety of industries, and my career eventually led me to New Zealand. That’s where I discovered and fell in love with Pushpay.

Our company melds a start-up’s excited energy with an experienced and accomplished team. Today, I proudly serve as a Group Product Manager, and my team continues to creatively solve problems for a body that is eager to explore and embrace technology—the Church.

Church Tech’s More Popular Than Ever

Pushpay’s annual State of Church Technology report surveys thousands of church leaders every year, from ministries of every size and across all branches of Christianity. In 2022, 94% of those leaders reported that technology was important to their mission—which is actually an increase since the pandemic, when many churches raced to acquire tech solutions to solve the problem of maintaining connection and community while social distancing.

It’s safe to say, churches have recognized technology’s usefulness and aren’t abandoning their tools anytime soon. But there’s some nuance to the situation as well; the report indicated that leaders are more knowledgeable than ever about which digital tools they need, which they could live without—and, critically, what they want to see in the future.

One feature, “tools in multiple languages,” is a telling example. In the report, when given a list of twenty common church tech solutions and asked to identify which would be strategically important in the future, multi language functionality ranked fourth. But when asked how satisfied they were with their current multi language tools, the ranking dropped all the way down to eighteenth.

Put another way; churches aren’t happy with the current state of the language tools they’re using, but they’re exceedingly confident those features will be mission critical moving forward. Which tells product managers like me how they want to see their tech evolve, and which products and features my team should prioritize.

In that spirit, Pushpay is rapidly developing our multi language tools. Giving users can currently toggle between English and Spanish, and our LEAD app—designed for church leaders on the go—can now be viewed in Spanish and Vietnamese.

We’re planning to deliver even more language functionality in the future, because we’re committed to listening to and answering the needs of those we serve.

We Don’t Just Talk About Innovation, We Live It

Another case study for innovating parallel to the Church’s evolving needs is livestreaming. The tool had been slowly gaining traction with leaders for over a decade—then absolutely skyrocketed in popularity during the pandemic. According to the latest State of Church Technology report, even with the worst of COVID behind us, 89% of churches today continue to livestream worship services. They’ve recognized the many ways streaming can foster connection and engagement in their communities, and have no intention of abandoning video content.

So we responded to the trend. About two years ago, Pushpay acquired Resi Media, a powerful streaming solution that’s tailored to the needs of churches. It was a huge moment for both teams, especially on the product side.

The early integration of our two platforms was intentionally patient. Our instructions were to avoid rushing, to start small and ensure we get the job done right. That process paid dividends, and we were able to deliver results for customers quickly and with minimal stumbles.

At the same time, however, we were hearing constantly from leaders about the desire for more customizable video experiences. Many churches had already generated extensive content libraries; they wanted the ability to curate playlists for their viewers, and have that content be available 24/7. Essentially, they wanted to host a viewing experience that mirrored the format of platforms consumers are already accustomed to.

Trust me when I say, that is the opposite of a small undertaking. Especially when the partnership between our two companies was so new, and our teams had been specifically instructed to take it slow.

But the demand was overwhelming and, first and foremost, we work to serve our customers and the Church. So I was given permission to put together a small team outside our normal workflow, whose mission was to innovate and experiment, explore what was realistically possible, and create a proof of concept designed specifically to meet the wants and needs we were hearing about.

The result, I’m proud to say, is Resi On Demand. This exciting tool, available in the near future, will provide the content hosting functionality and customization features churches have been waiting for, and will be a fantastic engagement driver for tech-minded ministries.

We Build Better Together

Many companies and product development teams wouldn’t have greenlit the project I just described. There was already a plan in place for slowly, steadily integrating Pushpay and Resi’s existing solutions. Concurrently developing an entirely new content distribution system was a major pivot.

The reason we were uniquely able to develop this needed tool so quickly is the same reason I joined Pushpay all those years ago: our culture.

“Innovation” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot. Often it’s misconstrued as an excuse to fool around—and that’s the spirit of the word, I suppose. But innovation doesn’t deliver value if it’s not intentionally aiming at solving a need.

That’s why we listen to those we serve. Customers were involved at every stage of Resi On Demand’s development. We heard their wants and concerns, learned a lot, and developed based on their direction.

I figured out a long time ago that we’re always going to build something better together than apart; this achievement is further proof of that idea. And speaking as someone who’s dedicated their career to creating solutions that fill a need, I can’t wait to be directed by our present and future customers toward what they want us working on next.

DOWNLOAD THE STATE OF CHURCH TECH

Looking for more resources like this one? Check out these blogs!

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Product Release – March 2022 https://pushpay.com/blog/product-release-march-2022/ https://pushpay.com/blog/product-release-march-2022/#respond Tue, 15 Mar 2022 19:09:24 +0000 https://pushpay.com/?p=8830

It’s been a strange few years.

When the pandemic began, churches were forced to reinvent themselves in a hurry. The inability to hold regular in-person services was unprecedented, and we were all scrambling to find ways to connect. It became normal to put out any content you could, and to not know who was engaging with what you shared. Suddenly you were doing the most good in your communities by staying distanced from said communities.

As we enter 2022, the world seems—fingers crossed—to be transitioning back to normal. For our purposes, that means all the events and services we love are returning. Friends and families are finally gathering inside your four walls on Sunday again, instead of only interacting via their screens.

But that doesn’t mean the screens are going to disappear. According to our 2021 State of Church Tech Report, 93% of church leaders believe technology plays an important role in achieving their mission. Even more telling: 94% of churches that livestreamed services last year will continue doing so a year from now, even if social distancing comes to a complete end.

This tells us that Covid didn’t force a temporary adoption of technology; it spurred a new, ongoing, innovative era of digital Church.

And that’s what drives us at Pushpay— innovation. Every quarter we host a Signature Moment: Product Release. This spring, we pulled out all the stops to deliver features that will help you rediscover your community and reimagine your vision for your church.

Improving Our In-App Experience

  • The past few years have proved the value of livestreaming for churches, so we’re bringing you the most reliable video tool on the market. Resi Livestream Media is now powerfully & intuitively integrated within the Pushpay app.
      • Our draggable feature ends the days of remembering to unmute audio, getting your content oriented, or unlocking and relocking your screen; your video content is now immediately & totally immersive.
      • Your members and administrators can sign up for Resi via two simple in-app steps.
      • Resi Analytics not only shows a heatmap of who’s watching your content from where, but will also deliver detailed data such as watch times, engagement rates, and more.
  • We first introduced QR Codes for Giving late in 2021. We’ve now upgraded the feature so that users can scan a QR code anywhere—the back of a pew, perhaps?—and immediately download your church’s app.
  • Our App Engagement Dashboard has always shown you the number of downloads, average time spent in the app, and a few other key metrics. But after listening to your feedback, we’ve upgraded this feature to include insights about which of your content pieces are receiving the most engagement and which are being overlooked. You can also see what times your users are online—learn the best hours for sharing content to maximize visibility!

 

Re-Engagement via Church Management Software

  • No longer are you forced to create all your events on desktop or laptop—Create Events now lives in the app, empowering your leaders to manage everything straight from their mobile devices.
  • The Public Group Finder has received a facelift. This cleaner, more robust solution displays a list of public groups in a card view with images to match, new filter options for search, and simplifies messaging to group leaders when requesting to join. You can even embed the Public Group Finder link into your organization’s website, within your app, Facebook page, and more. This solves for building a custom page and having to manage groups in multiple places.
  • Our LEAD app now has translation capabilities! This platform can now automatically translate localized content to Spanish, helping you easily connect with members of your hispanic community. We’re also working to expand our apps’ English/Spanish flexibility in the near future…

 

Re-Designing the Giving Experience

  • Allow your parishioners more choice and control over the generosity with our new Annual Recurring Giving. You can memorialize a certain date, or set appropriate annual gifts affiliated with the Catholic calendar. This feature is automatically accessible to all Catholic customers, but can be enabled for any customer upon request.
  • Your Top Donor lists are now inclusive of everyone who gives to your church. We’ve also set up a Households view within Donor Development, where you can sort giving by everyone living under one roof and sort by Household New Donors, New Recurring, At Risk, Lapsed, and more.
  • We’ve added a fun animation to thank your donors whenever they give. It’s adorable (if we don’t say so ourselves!)

 

Secure Event Payments

  • Rock RMS is, quite simply, one of the best-in-class church management software systems, particularly with larger organizations. Our new integration allows Rock RMS users to centralize donations and payments within Pushpay’s Giving product. This makes for simpler reporting & reconciliation, and acknowledges giver/payer familiarity and trust with Rock RMS and the payment experience.

 

We’re so incredibly proud to offer you these tools, and are confident they will unveil new possibilities for you and your organization in 2022 and beyond. Schedule a demo today and talk with one of our Pushpay experts to see how we can help your team achieve its mission.

To learn more about this release, click here.

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Exciting Changes https://pushpay.com/blog/exciting-changes/ https://pushpay.com/blog/exciting-changes/#respond Fri, 04 Feb 2022 23:18:22 +0000 https://pushpay.com/?p=8680

As you know, we’ve been on a journey to bring the Pushpay and Church Community Builder brands and products more closely together while striving to deliver the best solutions to help you reach and engage your communities.

We’re always looking at how we can better serve our customers and provide the best experiences possible, as well as using our company values as guiding principles in any decisions we make. In this case, it’s Simplicity.

encourage engagement with your congregation

A Few Changes

The biggest—and most exciting—change is that we’re launching a new combined website at pushpay.com, meaning you no longer have to toggle between two sites to find what you need or sign in. The new website delivers a breathtaking digital experience and pays tribute to both the Pushpay and Church Community Builder brands as it morphs into a hybrid of the best of both companies.

Simplifying also means packaging our products into solutions. Our ChurchStaq, ParishStaq, and Resi solutions will be leading the charge.

We’re making some changes to product names as well. Instead of seeing Pushpay or Church Community Builder to describe our products, we’re moving to the simpler Giving, Apps, and ChMS with some groovy new icons.

What’s not changing is our support. The Knowledge Center and Help Center links you have today will remain the same (in fact we’ve made them easier to find under our Company menu!), and you’ll be able to access them from our new Support page as well. Plus, all the resources from the separate sites, including blogs, documentation, and integrations, have found a new home on the new experience. If you’ve got questions, we’ve provided answers to some FAQs about the changes at the end of this blog post.

At the end of the day, our goal is to make serving the Kingdom as easy as possible for leaders in the faith community. That starts with understanding the options. So we’re very excited to unleash this new and improved experience.

Q&A Resources to Help Navigate the New Site

Will there still be a Church Community Builder website?

There will no longer be a standalone Church Community Builder website. The Church Community Builder homepage will now be redirected to pushpay.com. Missing your favorites or saved links? Don’t fret, most pages will redirect to similar pages on the new website.

New Website  New Website

I don’t see the products I recognize listed on the new site. What happened?

We’re evolving and simplifying our brand names to provide more clarity. The products formerly known as Pushpay will now just be known as Giving and Apps. The product known as Church Community Builder will now be known as ChMS. You’ll find pages on our new site that cover all aspects of our business. Our solutions (like donor management and worship planning) and our products (Apps, Giving, and ChMS) can be found under Solutions in the new navigation. Our suites (ParishStaq and ChurchStaq) can be found under Product Suites in the new navigation. Links to information about our security and integration partners can be found in both places.

I noticed the Church Community Builder product name is no longer listed online. Is it still available? Is the CCB brand gone?

The product isn’t going away (far from it!) but the name is changing in order to help simplify our product structure. Moving forward, the Church Community Builder product will be known as our ChMS. The ChMS is still an integral part of our product line and we continue to invest heavily in it. From the brand perspective, the ChMS product icon retains the CCB rings even though the name has evolved. In addition, you will still see mention of Church Community Builder while in the UI. That will be phased out over time.

Will there still be a Church Community Builder blog?

There will no longer be a standalone Church Community Builder blog. All blog posts about our ChMS will now live in a central page on pushpay.com. Looking for Ministry Labs articles or eBooks? You can find them within pushpay.com. Moving forward, training resources will be directly redirected to Pushpay University training materials.

Are there changes to the help desks and knowledge centers?

The URLs for the help desks and knowledge centers will not change, so if you have them bookmarked in your favorites you’ll still be able to access them! We’ll still have three knowledge centers: care.pushpay.com, help.pushpay.com, and chms.pushpay.com. You’ll be able to access them from the Support section in the footer menu at the bottom of every page.

Will there be a redirect for the current Church Community Center Knowledge Center?

The link you have will remain as is. You can continue to find it at https://chms.pushpay.com/s/.

Does this impact how we submit a ticket for customer support? How do I request customer support moving forward?

The URLs for the help desk and knowledge centers will not change at this time. We’ll still have three knowledge centers: care.pushpay.com/s/, help.pushpay.com, and chms.pushpay.com. You’ll be able to access them from the Support option in the Company dropdown and in the the Support section in the footer menu at the bottom of every page.
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Mobilize Community with Serve and Public Needs in the My Church App https://pushpay.com/blog/new-experiences-in-the-church-app https://pushpay.com/blog/new-experiences-in-the-church-app#respond Wed, 20 Oct 2021 18:39:11 +0000 https://pushpay.com/?p=8656 As we begin to prepare ourselves to trade our flip-flops for winter boots, it’s the season to execute our fall launch to re-engage people into the life of the church. Re-engagement has been a pain point for the church after shutdowns, reopenings, and the looming possibility of a repeat of 2020. Now more than ever, it’s vital that churches take this opportunity to engage their congregations and pull them closer into your church community.

With the constant changes in our communities, it is essential to maintain a single location for your congregation to manage their participation at your church and stay in the know. Your church app should create a consolidated place where giving, media, and church engagement come together to distill information to your congregation. This helps reduce noise, create a clear area for them to browse opportunities, and stay updated with everything your church is doing this year.

To support your church this fall, we took our powerful ChMS features and added them to the My Church App and enhanced our web ChMS experience to help you communicate with your congregation and give your people easier access.

New Experiences in the Church App

1. We’ve learned that the “dark mode” display is a popular feature in other apps and browsers, so we’re excited to be able to offer both light and dark mode display options for your congregation.

2. We’re always looking for ways to help improve your workflow and make your end-of-year process easier for you and your congregation. Now, your members can download their giving statements directly from the app, anytime on-demand. Accessing their giving history is now easier than ever.

3. Your volunteers are the fuel to executing the mission of your church. We know how much you want to make serving simple and easy for your volunteers. Paper schedules may be fast, and a separate app dedicated to serving may help fill a digital need. Still, it causes some additional friction for your volunteers – like app fatigue and clutter. Simplifying where your volunteers look for opportunities creates a seamless process for them to manage their serving.

With the Serve module in the My Church App, you’re empowering your volunteers to:

  • View, accept, and decline schedule requests
  • Find replacements
  • Browse open positions and sign up
  • Set block-out dates and availability
  • Manage family member schedules
  • View service plans with chord charts, files, and service notes

Give your volunteers the ability to manage all of their involvement at your church in one place with the My Church App by Pushpay.

4. On the heels of your fall launch, your congregation is going to be looking for ways to re-engage after summer and shutdowns. In addition to groups and serving opportunities, they’ll seek opportunities to impact their community. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have one place for your congregation to serve on another and ask for help in times of need? The My Church App by Pushpay now has Public Needs, a digital public sign-up to empower your community to reach and care for one another.

Use this feature to mobilize care quickly for:

  • Meal trains for a family
  • An outreach event hosted by your church
  • Disaster relief in the community
  • Thanksgiving turkey donations
  • Angel Tree
  • Prayer slots to pray for a country in need
  • More classroom supplies

Public Needs in the My Church App lets your church get the word out and collect sign-ups from anyone, anywhere. Sign-ups don’t need to come from those who attend your church, which is a great way to get your congregation involved in positively impacting your community.

More New Features To Love

  • Changing mandates and uncertainty have posed challenges for many churches. As we head into fall, we know how important it is to get information out as quickly as possible and provide you with more ways to communicate with your congregation. So, we made this possible with the Check-In Announcement feature to keep families aware of important information or reminders about the event during Check-In.
  • Quickly create a branded QR code along with the pre-configured giving link with the new QR Code Generator. This enables donors to point, click, and give quickly and securely.
  • To support the Ministry Platform integration, we now offer Pushpay Giving as an option in event payments.
  • Streamline navigation between ChMS, online giving, and mobile apps with the new product switcher. The new feature offers more accessible access to what you need.

All of the features are available on Pushpay ChMS and ChurchStaq packages. ChurchStaq is our way of helping you simplify your congregation’s involvement and increase participation. Schedule a demo today and talk with one of our engagement specialists to see how we can help your church achieve its mission while restoring the joy in your ministry.

TAKE A TOUR OF OUR CHMS

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Pushpay Brand Updates https://pushpay.com/blog/pushpay-brand-updates/ Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:37:16 +0000 https://pushpay.com/pushpay-brand-updates/

Since Pushpay’s inception, we’ve worked to help organizations achieve their mission by delivering pioneering technology solutions that enable generosity and strengthen community. Ensuring that customers have the most comprehensive solution available on the market to propel church missions forward was a key reason that Pushpay acquired Church Community Builder in 2019. Since that time, we’ve witnessed our donor management, custom app and ChMS products, and our combined solution, ChurchStaq, enable churches around the world to know, grow and keep their people. We are thankful for our customers.

As we look to the future, we will continue to expand our solution offerings even more to honor our commitment to our customers’ success. Although our employees are spread across three offices on two different continents our goals have remained the same. We’ve worked hard to unite our internal cultures as we’ve defined new core values that encompass the passion and commitment of both Pushpay and Church Community Builder employees. These values are People-focused, Teachable, Driven, Simplicity, and Generosity.

Help grow your ministry

After laying the initial foundation to unite both organizations culturally, it became time to discuss the evolution of the brands.

Fresh Look, Same World-Class Products

Capitalizing on the stellar palette of both brands, we are excited to share the new look of the unified brand, Pushpay. We will start to unveil this new look and feel in the coming months across various channels including emails, social posts, website, and more. At the corporate level, you will recognize the Pushpay logo on our website and in communications.  Our product brand family will include donor and app products powered by Pushpay and a Church Community Builder branded ChMS product.

During this unification process, our technology service offering will remain unchanged.  Our customers will continue to experience the same world-class software and exceptional customer service they’ve come to expect, all unified under the Pushpay brand.

The Road Ahead

Despite the challenges of 2020, our customers have continued to do amazing things in support of their communities.  At Pushpay, our commitment remains constant – to provide world-class donor management, app and ChMS solutions that help them make their mark in 2021 and beyond. We’re looking forward to the road ahead.

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Connect 2020 Product Launch – 16 new updates to help grow your ministry! https://pushpay.com/blog/connect-2020-product-launch/ Mon, 07 Sep 2020 21:55:00 +0000 https://pushpay.com/connect-2020-product-launch-16-new-updates-to-help-grow-your-ministry/ As we head into the fall, we know you are working to reconnect and re-engage your congregation. For some of you, this will be the first time you’ve welcomed your church family back since COVID-19. Others may still have your doors closed and are looking for ways to connect with your congregation from a distance.

Help grow your ministry

This product launch enhances connections across all aspects of your church: helping your congregation build relationships with each other, creating bridges across your various tools, and connecting your admins to the information and data they need to engage and grow your church family.

Introducing ChurchStaq™

When Pushpay and Church Community Builder joined forces almost 8 months ago, our teams were excited by what our combined technologies would be able to offer to help further the ministries of our customers.  The need for technology, built specifically for the church, is a critical component for churches to be able to know, grow, and keep their people.  As a combined company, our strategy is to provide churches with uncompromising, best in class software built for the church.  The results of this combination have been incredible.  Churches who use Pushpay and Church Community Builder together have seen a 24% increase in recurring givers compared to churches who use a competing giving platform.

Today, we are excited to introduce ChurchStaq, a brand new product which combines our ChMS, giving, donor development, and church app solutions into one powerful platform.  ChurchStaq is centered around solving the unique challenges that you, as a church, face on a daily basis – growing engagement, knowing your people and increasing your ministry.

Grow engagement

Increased participation within your church is a critical aspect of spiritual and community growth.  The combination of Church Community Builder and Pushpay make ChurchStaq the perfect tool to help you drive increased engagement in your church.  The My Church App provides an integrated experience that drives connection, generosity, and engagement in one place for your congregants.  The mobile experience, built on Pushpay’s proven app platform, serves as the single location for your church to connect with their groups, view and engage with your media, and express their generosity.   ChurchStaq’s ChMS equips your leaders with the tools they need to grow their ministry, manage volunteers, and ultimately increase participation.

Grow your understanding of your people

As your ministry grows, so does the difficulty of knowing who your people are and finding meaningful ways to connect with them.  By joining the ChMS, Giving, and Church App, ChurchStaq is uniquely built to provide you with both the data you need to understand your people and the tools to take action.  ChurchStaq’s integrated software synchronizes your community member data from the church app, donor generosity, and ChMS data to provide you with accurate reporting you can trust.  The result is actionable insights that you can use to understand and nurture your growing church.

Grow your ministry

Growing your ministry is an important part of achieving what God has planned for your church.  ChurchStaq was designed to provide you with the tools you need to grow finances, participation, and spiritual development.  Pushpay’s giving and donor development platform provides churches with an unmatched experience for both your donors and staff.  The simplified donor experience helps donors to give regularly in addition to encouraging above and beyond giving.  In fact, churches who use ChurchStaq have, on average, 65% more digital givers when compared to those not with Pushpay.  Even more encouraging is that digital givers are more generous than non-digital and, on average, give 24% more in a month than offline givers!

Church staff will have access to powerful reporting tools that provide them with insights into giving trends, dashboards, and tools to follow-up with donors.  Of course it takes more than money to grow a ministry.  Church Community Builder’s ChMS provides the tools needed to understand your congregation and encourage them to increased participation and volunteering.

Church Apps Built for your Congregation

Church apps have never been more important than they are today because of their ability to connect people beyond the weekend experience.  ChurchStaq uniquely brings together communication, connection, generosity, and media into one convenient location for your congregation.  Your church will love having a single, personalized place where they can feel like they are part of church even when they are not in church.

The My Church App by Pushpay app platform provides churches with a solution to connect with their people beyond the weekend experience.  Congregants are able to receive rich push notifications, view and engage with your media, participate in surveys, and view the impact of your ministry – all from a beautiful and dynamic home screen.  And, of course, expressing generosity through the app is an important way for your church to participate.  The giving experience for a congregant is simple, allowing for a donation in under 3 seconds.  With the connect launch, we are improving the donor experience with My Giving which allows donors to view their giving history within the app.  Our research has shown that providing your donor with access to their previous gifts often inspires incremental giving.

With the Connect launch, we are adding Connection features to the church app.  The connection features are made possible by our integrated ChMS.  These features allow your congregation to grow deeper in their faith, build relationships with others, and improve the way they engage with the church throughout the week.

The new connection features include:

  • Pre-Check into kid’s ministry or events from the app before you get to church
  • Find, join, and engage with other congregants using Groups
  • Find and register for events
  • Manage and update their church profile

Check-in

A church’s check-in process can often be one of the most complex and frustrating experiences if done wrong.  The right software can transform this experience to one that your church will love.  With the Connect launch, we are introducing improvements to your check-in experience, both for in-person and virtual services.  For churches that are meeting virtually, we are introducing Instant Check-in which allows your congregation to check into service from your church app.

And for those churches that are meeting in person, checking in kids or volunteers is much easier thanks to pre-check for the church app.  Your church members can now check into services and volunteer opportunities even before they arrive.  Once a parent or volunteer arrives, they simply scan a barcode to complete the check-in process.  Pre-check gives parents peace of mind, reduces lines, and improves the in-person  experience.

Integrations

Strong integrations and developer tools have always been an important part of our platform.  It’s critical that our software work as seamlessly as possible with your other church technology.  We’re thrilled to announce early access to our newest integration with Sage Intacct.  This powerful connection simplifies your financial reconciliation and administration process by automatically creating records in your General Ledger, and matching your Pushpay settlements or batches for recorded gifts.

With this release, we’re also excited to share some improvements to our existing Checkr integration with Church Community Builder.  When implemented with our ChMS, Checkr ensures that our churches are confident in the safety of their church by providing background checks.  However, we understand how complex managing volunteers can be, and, in their earnest desire to get people plugged in, volunteer leaders can easily miss a crucial step of scheduling people to serve who do not have a valid background check.  With our improved integration with Checkr, leaders can be alerted to volunteers who need a background check before they are scheduled, protecting the church, and more importantly, their people.

And so much more…  

New Church Community Builder Features

New Pushpay Features

This is one of our largest releases with 16 new features and enhancements built to help you increase your ministry.  If you’re reading this now and see an opportunity to improve the way you know, grow, and keep your people, we would love the opportunity to speak with you.  Talk to one of our experts to learn more about how Pushpay’s software can help transform your ministry while putting your people first.

Learn more from our Connect Launch Webinar!

Watch Now

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5 New Features That Will Help You Take Your Digital Strategy to the Next Level https://pushpay.com/blog/pushpay-church-community-builder-april-2020/ Mon, 20 Apr 2020 05:00:20 +0000 https://pushpay.com/5-new-features-that-will-help-you-take-your-digital-strategy-to-the-next-level/ At Pushpay and Church Community Builder, we’ve known that a digital strategy for churches has been important for a long time. And with in-person services no longer a viable option for churches around the world, we’ve been hard at work helping the thousands of churches we serve prepare for Easter and beyond with the tools they need to not only continue giving and communicate with their people, but grow during these trying times. 

While we’ve been working alongside churches to navigate these unforeseen times, we’ve also been developing new features and integrations between Pushpay and Church Community Builder to help take your digital strategy to the next level. 

On the heels of the December 2019 merger, this is the first combined product launch from Pushpay and Church Community Builder, as one company. As we start to build towards an end-to-end church management solution, we could not be more excited to deliver new integrated tools for admins and features to help strengthen engagement within the Church. We’re just getting started on combining the best church management software with the tools you need to grow participation at your church—whatever that might look like.

Set Up For Success

Over the next several weeks, we’re rolling out new features to Pushpay and Church Community Builder customers. The first are a handful of updates to your user experience, including single sign-on lite, which lets you log into Pushpay and Church Community Builder using just your Pushpay login. And once you’re in, we’ve set up internal deep links between platforms, so you can hop between tools, accounts, and transactions in the two platforms with just a click of a button. And if you need support, we integrated our customer care teams for joint Pushpay and Church Community Builder customers—meaning one point of contact for questions or support. 

Pushpay Church Community Builder login

Donor Development Integration

We’re also excited to help deepen engagement paths between you (the church) and your congregants by delivering a new integration between Pushpay’s Donor Development dashboard and Church Community Builder’s Process Queues. As you may know, the Donor Development dashboard in Pushpay lets you see a comprehensive view of giving at your church, by category or by person, and quickly surfaces donor trends—whether that’s identifying new donors, recurring donors, or even donors who have recently cancelled a recurring gift. These individuals are all people you may want to reach out to, but with very different communication. With the new Process Queues integration you can set up a unique follow-up cadence in your Church Community Builder ChMS, based on each scenario above. For example, you can set up a communication to reach out to first time givers, letting them know how their gift fuels your ministry, or use it to set up a thank you campaign for your recurring or top donors. 

Church Community Builder Process Queues

One Time Future Giving

One time future giving allows donors to set up a single gift to be processed in the future. This is a requested feature for those churches and parishes that regularly have a campaign drive, but don’t want to use the pledging feature.

One Time Future Giving

Bringing It All Together

With these new features rolling out over the next couple of weeks and so much more coming this year, we’re excited to keep building a total engagement solution that combines the best church management software with tools that drive participation. 

Today marks the first step towards delivering a deeply integrated, end-to-end church engagement solution that includes a ChMS, giving platform and app solution. Watch this space for updates in the coming months as we continue to innovate and work together to solve some of today’s toughest ministry challenges. 

Ready to learn more? Talk to an expert today to get started.



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Have Better Visibility to Your Church Finances with New Pushpay Features https://pushpay.com/blog/new-church-finance-features/ Wed, 26 Feb 2020 18:23:20 +0000 https://pushpay.com/have-better-visibility-to-your-church-finances-with-new-pushpay-features/ Every donation you receive represents one tiny piece of a person’s relationship to your church. One donation doesn’t tell you very much, but looking at one person’s donations over time can tell you a lot about their investment in your mission and commitment to your community.

Similarly, it’s important to have visibility into overall giving at your church. Aggregate giving data can tell you a lot about the financial health of your church and your congregation’s participation in the work God has called your church to do.

Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out a series of new features that give your church greater control over your finances, customizable options to explore giving data, convenient ways to visualize giving changes, and more.

Here’s what’s coming:

Financial dashboard

Your administrators can now easily generate reports and visually explore insights and trends based on your data. There’s no need to export data from Pushpay to another tool like Excel or Google Sheets—everything you need is included in the new and improved financial dashboard.

financial dashboard

Set a custom date range and see broad information about the number of donations, number of givers, and fund totals. Or dig into more granular data like payment methods, transaction sources, and more. Want to know what percentage of gifts come from cash? Or how many gifts come from your website vs. your kiosk? How this quarter compares to last quarter? Now these insights and more are readily available to your admins.

pushpay financial dashboard donor overview

Donor pledge entry

Pledges allow your church members to set giving goals for themselves. This becomes a valuable tool you can use to encourage people to give over the course of the year. But currently when someone wants to make a pledge, you have to manually enter it – which we know takes a lot of time from staff on volunteers each year. With the new donor pledge feature, your members can make pledges to a specific campaign, and there’s nothing for you to enter manually. This saves you time, and it makes pledges more convenient for your members—so more people will be willing to create them. And what’s even better? Users can now track their pledge progress online with a few clicks of a button. 

donor pledge pusphay

Improved audio player

One of the top three things people do in church apps is listen to podcasts and sermons. Your app’s built-in audio player is a key part of what makes it such a valuable engagement tool. Based on feedback from church leaders like you, we added functionality to allow people to fast forward and rewind through audio clips, either by manually scrolling or pushing a button to jump ahead or go back. Additionally, you now have the ability to download audio content, providing an opportunity to listen anytime, anywhere. And there’s more coming soon. Additional features will be released in mid-March: including the support of Chromecast and Airplay and even speed control to slow down and speed up your audio.

pushpay app audio player

Enhanced community member profiles

So far 53,000 church members have uploaded profile photos to a Pushpay app, and 99 percent of those people have given to a church. Profile photos will soon be visible from the church admin side, so your staff will have more opportunities to see names and faces together and become familiar with more of your congregation.

Richer donor development insights

Now when you look at individual church members or filter givers based on where they are in their giving journey (first-time givers, regular givers, etc.), you’ll get a snapshot of the average donation amount, as well as changes in giving amount and number of givers in a specified period. You have more options for selecting date ranges, and soon you’ll be able to set custom ranges too. 

pushpay financial dashbaord comparison

You’ll also start to see examples of what you can say to givers to guide them toward their next step, so you’ll have even more help encouraging your congregation to be generous. Not to mention, all of the dashboards and insights will be available on your mobile device!

pushpay financial dashboard mobile

ServiceReef integration

If you use ServiceReef to manage and organize your church’s mission trips, you can now process those payments through Pushpay. Your mission-related transactions can live in the same place as all your other donations and payments.

It’s all coming soon

Some of these updates are live right now. Expect to see the rest in the next couple of weeks. Want to learn more? Watch the free webinar and demo of the new product features. 



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Guide Your Members Toward Generosity with the New Donor Development Dashboard https://pushpay.com/blog/new-donor-development-dashboard/ Mon, 27 Jan 2020 07:00:20 +0000 https://pushpay.com/guide-your-members-toward-generosity-with-the-new-donor-development-dashboard/ Every member of your congregation is on a unique journey. Some people have a deeply personal relationship with Jesus. Others are still exploring who He is and where God fits into their lives. They may have been part of your church for years, or they may have just started attending.

Whatever the situation, it’s important that you speak to them where they are and not lump them in with everyone else. You do this all the time in one-on-one ministry. But with mass communication and church marketing, it can be hard for church leaders to feel like they’re really addressing each person’s individual journey.

See the journey more clearly with the Donor Development Dashboard

With Pushpay’s Donor Development Dashboard, you gain practical, unique insights into giving at your church. You can filter your church members based on their giving habits, so you have a clear, simple breakdown of where each person is on their journey toward generosity. You can even see when someone’s giving habits have recently changed, so you’ll know if a regular giver stops financially supporting your ministry.

And since Pushpay integrates with your church management software, you can use all this data to send your members relevant, personalized messaging. For each giving stage—from first-time givers to recurring givers—Pushpay also provides actionable insights and tips for how to guide them to the next stage.

Here’s how this versatile new feature helps you guide church members toward greater generosity.

Encourage new donors to give again

When someone gives for the first time, that’s a huge step. First-time giving often happens after hearing about a specific need such as a backpack drive or a limited-time campaign. Or maybe a person just experienced an especially meaningful service or a sudden desire to be generous.

Some first-time givers may actually be ready to start giving regularly, but that’s probably not the case for most of them. They’ve just had their first taste of what it feels like to contribute to the work your church is doing. They may still be wrestling with what it looks like to be a good steward. Your goals for this group of givers should be to:

  1. Highlight the impact of their gift
  2. Lead them into a greater understanding of why generosity is an important part of the Christian life
  3. Encourage them to give a second time

With the Donor Development Dashboard, it’s easy to find first-time givers so you can craft messaging that walks them through the basics.Donor development dashboard new donor

Turn second-time givers into occasional givers

Someone who gives to your church once may never give again. But when people give to your church twice, that’s a strong indicator that they really believe in something you’re doing and/or care about generosity. Whether their gifts were months apart or two weeks in a row, there’s a strong possibility that these people would give more often if you talk to them about it in the right ways.

It’s also important to think about what this stage communicates in regard to people’s connection to your church. They’re likely in the process of trying to be more involved and more committed to their faith and your community. That’s why at this stage, you may especially want to talk to them about things like small groups, classes you provide, and other broadly appealing programs your church offers. 

You should still talk to second-time givers about the impact of their gift and the value of generosity. But if you want them to continue giving over the months and years to come, you should help them find other ways to continue being involved and become more involved.
Donor development dashboard second time donor

Motivate occasional givers to give regularly

There are lots of reasons people may occasionally give to your church. Perhaps they wait for you to tell them about specific needs. Or they only give during specific services (like Christmas and Easter). Or when they happen to have a financial surplus at the end of the month. Occasional givers may feel like they’re doing their part by giving now and then. They might also feel that “regular giving” is just about keeping the lights on, and they want to make sure their gifts have an impact.

Occasional givers are invested in your mission and more connected to your church. But clearly there are still education gaps you need to fill about the spiritual discipline of generosity and what your church does through their gifts. By talking about generosity and how it supports your ministries, you can both affirm the giving they’ve already done and inspire them to give more often. You could even talk to them about the simplicity of recurring giving!

Donor development dashboard occasional donor

Show regular givers a better way to give

Regular givers are the financial backbone of your church. You depend on their continued generosity. And you don’t have to convince them why generosity matters. But you can still show them an easier way to continue giving. With recurring giving, they can simply set the amount and the date they’d like to give (such as the day they pay their bills or when their paycheck gets deposited), and then it all happens automatically. 

The benefit to your regular givers is that they don’t have to remember anything, they save even more time, and they can donate to your church the same way they already pay their bills. The benefit to you is that recurring givers give more annually, and it helps make your overall giving a little more consistent.

Donor development dashboard regular donor

The right next step for every member

The people who financially support your church are individuals. They have unique circumstances, finances, and beliefs. The Donor Development Dashboard groups your members together based on where they are in their journey with generosity so you can treat them more like individuals—instead of addressing them like a crowd.



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Coming Together: The Pushpay & Church Community Builder Story https://pushpay.com/blog/pushpay-church-community-builder-story/ Fri, 17 Jan 2020 13:00:35 +0000 https://pushpay.com/coming-together-the-pushpay-church-community-builder-story/ While recently in Colorado Springs, Bruce Gordon, Pushpay CEO, had an opportunity to sit down with Chris Fowler, Church Community Builder Founder and Visionary, to share more about how the two companies came together with a similar vision to help grow the Church.


Bruce: Hi Chris, thanks for joining me! It was such an honor to meet you recently and be able to begin the conversation about bringing our companies together in a way that’s very thoughtful and impactful for the Church.

Chris: That’s really what got us talking in the first place. We weren’t looking to sell – I certainly wasn’t looking to sell. But then I was talking to our Advisory Board and they put out the question of “why are you not even willing to talk to somebody about that?” “What if there’s something for the Church that’s better than what either of you could do on your own?” And to me, that’s the core part of why we’re even doing what we’re doing. 

It’s about (understanding) are people engaged in their local church? And when things happen – especially through the systems and data that we provide – together we can see things and are able to help get them back engaged. 

When I heard you talking about the vision of what you had, I don’t believe I had sat on the other side of the table. I heard a vision for the Church and what we can do for the Church that was as big, or bigger, than mine.

Bruce: I’m very humbled to hear you say that we share a vision for the growth of the Church and the Kingdom of God. Because we look to you, now as a visionary, joining our Pushpay Board. We couldn’t be more delighted that you are – to help us navigate this transition period of looking to continue with our current services in the marketplaces. And over time, being able to offer the Church something that’s going to be truly unique. 

Chris: Yeah, I really look forward to the ability to get on the innovation front again, instead of kind of reinventing the wheel. 

Bruce: This is hugely exciting for churches.

Chris: Well, I’m honored to be doing this with like-minded people. I think what we’re doing together is going to be incredible for the Church. 

Bruce: We’re super excited for the future and very humbled to be able to connect with Church Community Builder as Pushpay. 

Chris: Vice versa, Bruce. Appreciate you. 

Want to learn more about how Pushpay and Church Community Builder are coming together to deliver best-in-class software solutions for your church? Read more or click here to talk with an expert.



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