So far we've looked at how to use church software to recruit and interview potential volunteers.  Once you've determined that someone is a good fit for ministry, it is time to verify your assumptions by doing a background check.

Background checks are pretty normal for churches and I've observed how churches have gone from doing them just for children's ministry to doing them for almost all volunteers.  It's a great idea just to be sure you do your due diligence to make sure your volunteers are safe.

This is the third in a series of blog posts on everything related to volunteers.  In the last one we talked about different ways of identifying and recruiting volunteers directly and indirectly.

In all four approaches (direct registration, indirect registration, direct reports, indirect reports), we ended up with a group or "pool" of potential volunteers.

The next step in the process is to interview these people.  The purpose of the interview is threefold:

Everything related to volunteers starts by creating a pool.  This is the gathering place from which a volunteer pipeline flows. 

You might refer to it as a list of potential volunteers that you create before starting to recruit.  If you would have asked me at one point in my ministry what it is, I would have called it the directory.  The directory is still a pretty common tool for recruiting volunteers.  So are sticky notes.  But there is a better way.

With today's technology, you know there has to be a hack to seamlessly organize the administrative process for everything related to volunteers. 

You know the processes involved and the different material and software applications that you use for each one, but what if there were a single software that can bring it all together?  

Have you ever been a part of or had to interact with a team that hated what they do?  All of us have and it's no fun.  In fact, relational issues are the #1 reason people leave a job.

Not so with Churchteams.  We have an incredible team that loves Jesus, each other, what they do and serving you!  I offer this blog post on recent upgrades as evidence.

As a church leader, you know the impact that online giving has had on the financial stability of your church through the Covid Pandemic.  It has been a life-saver.

You've also seen the improvements we and most online giving providers have made in the past few years in terms of user experience and things like giving donors the option to cover fees.  These have made it easier for them to give and help with costs.

A lapsed donor is someone who used to give consistently to your church but has stopped.  Since giving data is generally the most accurate data in your database, it's relatively easy to measure.

You guys, email is not dead!  Sure, texting is emerging (we have you covered there) and social messaging and apps are vying for attention, but check out this stat in the Hubspot article, The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2021.

Your birthday is a pretty big deal on Facebook.  If you use it a lot (or a little), you get to hear from dozens or hundreds of friends and family.  Even if you know that all they did was click a link or take 30 seconds to jot a note, it still makes you feel special.

Kids love getting mail, especially on their birthday.  Many children's ministries I know do a great job of making kids feel special by sending them a simple card on their day.

Last week in our Roundtable on Reports, we talked about different ways to use group reports.  If you're interested in more, here's the podcast.  It's Episode 13.

Typically, you probably think of group reports as enrollment rosters or group attendance.  Of course, those are important because they help you see how well the ministry is doing.  But, data can also be a life-saver for dealing with two challenges that every church faces during this season of the ministry year.  Let's personalize those and see how group reports can come to the rescue.

If you've ever created reports in software, you know that it can be challenging.  So, last week we started our fall Rountable on the topic of reports.  Check out episode 12 in the Roundtable Podcast to view the entire briefing.

If you ask around, I think you'll find that our clients love our software not just because of the technology, but also because our team cares about them.  Here's an excerpt from an email I got just last week from a Media Arts and Tech staff person after James helped them set up check-in.

"My friend was 100% right. ChurchTeams has been fantastic as we have gotten set up.  If you ever need an example person for a new church getting started please consider giving them my contact information. I would be happy to talk to anyone who has questions about what it is like to work with your software and your team."