ChMS Reviews

Three years ago after extensive analysis of the top church management software on the market, I recommended and then implemented Church Community Builder at my church. I've never looked back. In those three years, the company not only significantly expanded its features and functionality, but also its ease of use. Administration and finance areas now run so much more effectively through the use of the software, and our mission critical youth ministry relies on it for all their local out-reach and international events. I continue to enthusiastically both use and support the software.

In the last year, Church Community Builder has caught up and is beginning to surpass the user interface experience that much smaller companies with limited software functionality were rolling out. I look forward to the continued rollouts that are planned for making the mobile experience surpass those smaller companies, many which have gone out of business.

I liked that each church member had their own record and could access it and update it on their own. I liked the group functionality.

I wish more of our church members used it so it would be more effective in our church.

Database Church directory Volunteer scheduling

Mobile-friendliness

Thank you for your review Leah. We are excited about the upcoming releases that will definitely make us more mobile friendly! Thank you for all you do to impact the Kingdom, Pam Flanery

Everything in this software is easy to use. I can create a new report in < 1 minute. Of course, there are many types of reports that are supplied so that I don't always need to create my own reports. Use is intuitive. Software updates are solid, well described prior to the launch, nothing broken afterwards. We employed a coach to get started, and that experience was highly effective. Video's are supplied on training, they are easy to understand, find, re-run and available to all. Process Queues are key to connecting with our guests, and help us keep track of all key activities. They are an important point in differentiating this product from others available. Our support tickets have been worked quickly, efficiently, and never rushed.

Metrics are tougher to get working as they made us think through our organization differently - and we then made some changes and it took us longer to roll out. Each metric has a graph, and therefore is visual - which makes a big difference in assimilation. We're rolling out more and more of them as time goes by.

What I like most about Church Community Builder is the level of detail provided as it pertains to database records. If used to its fullest, the user can store a tremendous amount of information about individuals which in turn helps the user support these individuals as members of their church community.

What do I like least about Church Community Builder? I cannot think of anything that stands out at this time.

CCB has a clean user interface. The product looks great. Overall it is able to generate and store the information we need, but ultimately we had to hire a full time Database Admin to get the full benefit of the product.

The first year and a half was really rocky. While we were promised all of the bells and whistles of a great software, it quickly became clear that a lot was still in development. It took dedicated staff members working with CCB developers to truly get to a point where we could utilize the system effectively. While the user interface is great, getting it to produce the reports we were accustomed to in other softwares was far more cumbersome.

CCB was the first ChMS we used as a new church start-up 13 years ago. It met our needs. Check-in was essential as well as online contributions.

Over time we became disappointed by the slow progress in rolling out product improvements. Service planning / scheduling in CCB was inadequate so we used Planning Center. There was no integrated mobile app so we used Subsplash. Process queues and reporting was very cumbersome to use. The merger with Push Pay was the catalyst for us to look at alternatives due to our negative experience with Push Pay when search for a mobile app solution.

Church Community Builder is certainly the best software for managing congregational information available! I love the app for iPhone, which allows me to take attendance for worship and Bible studies quickly as well as look up congregant phone numbers/emails/addresses quickly and on the run. I also like the ability of congregants to interact with one another through groups and email within the site & the security in place to maintain confidentiality as needed.

For reporting purposes, I need to know certain things about attendees and creating reports can sometimes be more difficult for those who are not very computer-savvy.

The groups function has been a lifesaver for us during the pandemic. It's allowed us to stay in contact with our congregation while we are meeting in smaller groups. The calendar feature allows our congregants to subscribe and see when they are serving and what events are happening easily.

At this time there is not congregant app. I know that with the merger with Pushpay that this is in the works.

I love having the ability to update family info and make sure we are part of the right groups for email notifications etc within our church. Registering our kids for Sunday School was fairly easy once I figured it out (especially nice during Covid). I also love having giving history and all other things in one place.

There are many times where it asks me to login and then takes me away from the area I was trying to work on. This is especially frustrating when coming from an email link to sign up for an event etc. The navigation of the portal is not as smooth as many other CMS style programs I have used. I wish that it would auto populate more things (registrations, Sunday school signups, etc) as the info is already there at times and I feel like I am retyping it.

This is a very powerful database tool that simplifies the administrative processes, allowing the church team to do ministry better and more efficiently. I love the fact that when I contact them for support the person who contacts me almost always uses it in their own church. They aren't just behind the scenes, they are users and they understand what we are trying to do. I love that they listen to their...

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Overall, there really isn't any cons. Sure, there are things we would like to have work a little differently, but we know that the team at CCB listens to all of the church partners and are continually working on different feature enhancements to make things easier and more efficient for their church partners. If I had to suggest something we'd like to see...we would really like it to be a one stop shop for all of our ministry needs-completely replacing PCO and our financial software, and a place to leave private notes on a profile specifically for pastors only to see.

I love the ease of use with this product. I use the scheduling software on a daily basis and they have made it easy to schedule my teams and keep everyone informed about upcoming needs. I also like how easy it is to add new members to the software and the ability to share important information with those on staff. The program is easy to navigate and easy to learn.

There are a few things I wish it would let you do: 1) I would like to have groups be linked to the schedules section. For instance it would be great when a member leaves a group that it would also delete them from the schedule for that group and when a need is created it would be great if it could be shared with just one part of the scheduled group (for instance week 1 team or week 2 team instead...

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Where to begin - user interface is so intuitive, seemingly endless ability to customize features, and - more than anything - amazing responsiveness of both customer support and product development to concerns and feature requests. I have truly been amazed by how often CCB churns out new features. It seems within a month or two of us thinking (and occasionally, but not always, mentioning to them), "Gee,...

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There was a bit of a learning curve when on initial setup. It felt a little too wide open to me, until we figured out how best to set things up for our church and got our feet wet a bit. Once I learned more about the way CCB *thinks*, it became very intuitive to expand my use and skills in the program.

We appreciate how responsive the team has been to our feedback. We get excellent response time on all tickets submitted, friendly, competent service and have also felt heard anytime we have asked for other features. One of their reps actually proactively reached out to us recently to meet with us and understand our needs better, which they were doing with a number of their customers. This is, of...

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There are at times things we wish were more intuitive, such as the user interface for adding events with rooms and resources. We understand the challenge with providing so much complexity and functionality so we are not unhappy with the product. It just means we let only our power users use those areas and do our best to keep them well-trained. We love that we have a voice in shaping the future of the interface and feel CCB is always interested in staying relevant in the market for these types of tools.

Customer service is quick to respond and follows up to make sure your issue has been resolved. They also take note of improvements suggested and act on them. The metrics to track attendance and giving are very easy to adapt to each church's needs. Giving statements are easy to run. The ability to use mail merge and link files is very helpful. Groups are easy to design and allow people to interact easily. New schedules are a huge improvement.

The team has worked very hard over the last couple of years to improve the software. Most issues I have had in the past have been resolved. The only issue we have now is that in order to use the serving portion of the software, individuals have to do a lot of date input to get it started. Because we didn't make it a focus of our original log ins, we don't have the date needed to get this portion working well. Wish we could find a work around to get this portion working well for us.

integrations with other online tools, customer service has been extremely helpful, updates seem to address areas of need, number of tools available

cost is high compared to some offerings, but value is high as well. Oftentimes we have to change our internal systems because of the limitations of the tools available (I would imagine this is common for every system that isn't custom though).

Hi Jake, Thank you for your post; we love partnering with you and are very excited about all the new updates we will be providing our wonderful church partners in 2017! Have a blessed week, Pam

CCB's ability to run detailed reports and custom searches is a strong feature. Because of its popularity among churches, there are tribes of user communities that make it easy to discover and share tips and tricks.

The design, interface and usability of CCB is stuck in 2010. We are migrating away from CCB and to one of their competitors because of the ease of use, simplicity of their mobile app, and more competitive pricing structure.

No pros were added to this review

No cons were added to this review

Church Community Builder (CCB) is a power packed data base with the ability to customize and create systems that work best for your individual church. We love that it doesn't have the look or feel of typical database and how user friendly it is. CCB understands the heart of church discipleship is relationships and therefore their product helps to facilitate relationship while maintaining high level data power. We searched through many Church Management Solutions before landing on CCB and have been very pleased over the last 2 + years. I appreciate that they are always looking for ways to improve and value our input to build the best system.

There are a couple of reporting features that I wish were a little more robust. As the data guru I still find some frustration with how certain reports are built or why I can't include certain fields or columns when I am building a custom report.

CCB makes it possible to provide pastoral care at a level not usually possible for a medium sized church. Now, we do far better at connecting with first time guests, fading members, sick members, and people suffering from grief.

I would appreciate having CCB automatically create a leader group by gathering the names of the leaders of similar subgroups. For example, If I create lifegroups and identify the leaders, I would like for CCB to automatically generate a group called lifegroup leaders.

Todd, so great to hear how the software is helping you care for your church in such meaningful ways! I'm passing this on. That's exactly why we created the software! As for a group of leaders, if you are using the Deluxe version of the software, you are able to utilize the Departments feature which allows you to organize your groups into departments and communicate with your leaders in a couple of easy clicks. Thanks again for the chance to partner with your church!

The database, functionality is very good, customer service is the best their training videos and help/support material is very good. Our implementation coach was amazing. He prepared us well for our implementation and issues we may have, options we might want to consider. It was and continues to be a great relationship with CCB. I highly recommend them and their products.

Some of the functionality is based on US business processes. We are a Canadian Church. However CCB is always receptive to feedback and has a list of enhancements where we can put our requests on. Some of our church users don't find the software inuitive to use. They are Apple users. I am from a PC world and I find CCB incredible. The training videos are helpful

If implemented well, Church Community Builder can ensure no person is overlooked. CCB can keep track of group attendance, serving positions, and even remind leaders to check in on people routinely. The analytics options provide unparalleled control when creating reports. Their connection with PushPay makes integrations between their platforms seamless.

When mismanaged, CCB can be difficult to maneuver and obtuse to use. I've run into several bugs which prohibit basic functions from working properly.

Very helpful in being able to see all of our members in one place and to have the ability to communicate with them in a mass format. Very useful in communication and very effective in helping to manage our people better and stay in touch with them, and allowing them to do the same for me.

It seemed a little outdated to me in some of it's functions and layout.

It's a easy to use all in one solution to manage church. Platforms for communicating with congregation, managing events, groups and facilities. Also an excellent tool for follow up with people in the organization. Excellent customer service support with quick response time. Support team is friendly and professional. Continues to improve product to take it to the next level. Actively improving the mobile experience.

Some of the feature are a "light" version which requires us to continue to use 3rd party solutions for specific applications such as email campaigns and some volunteer scheduling. Mail merge feature is lacking due to the inability to easily customize and embed video. No metrics provided.

The networking aspect of the service is very intuitive. Once you are connected with a church you can add ministries, tasks, and groups to your account with ease. The service also creates a church wide callender to show you all the eeents and makes note of the ones you are involed in.

The reason how it is only great in theory is that the user expirience in not very great. It can be confusing to navigate the site and given that there are not many interaction features, it makes using the site a task and less fluid. Because there in not much reason to use the site for interaction it makes user involvemtn decline, which basically break the entire community down.