Musing over the CRM for churches situation a moment ago, I began to read over my original post on the topic. The description of the solution sounds like some kind of networking software. Not the type of networking that involves cabling, electricians and tech-geeks, but the type networking that involves people.

The real world needs of a church are more complex than just managing people relationships, but it would be an important aspect of the software. In this regard, I think you could use a networking focus and still have a software package that could be easily “translated” across different industries. Networking exists in any business, church or other non-profit organisation, so that would be a standard “module” or feature of the software. From there, you could design a few more standard modules, asset management, POS and accounting that all businesses would find useful.

Some business modules that would unnecessary for a church would be sales and similar functions. Churches would definitely use other common modules such as rostering, staff management and marketing.

Come to think of it, there are many shared functions between a business and a church. I think the main reason why most current CRM systems fall down for churches and other non-standard businesses is that most software focuses on sales (not to mention the company-contact relationships mentioned in the comments of my original article), where churches are focused on people (God being the first focus of course).

Can anyone suggest any people focused CRM packages that are currently available? Do you think that this focus could work for an interested software developer, while still leaving open opportunities to target the current market?

Well, my post regarding CRM for churches got such a response that I’ve decided to give it a dedicated category all to itself. I guess it’s not just me who has been asking for this type of product, which is great news.

I may even be able to be convinced to dust off one of my attempts at designing such a system. You’d probably have to be fairly convincing!

I’ve been contemplating the need for a CRM solution for churches. Church is all about people, so why not have a software package that assists with managing all the related data about people?

Churches probably have more people interaction than a small business. A small business (in general) has set bounds that their people fit into, suppliers, customers, etc. Whereas a church has interactions with all sorts of people that aren’t bounded by anything! Some examples may be visitors, members, neighbours, council members, school principals, other church relationships, missions organisation relationships, equipment suppliers and local businesses, the list goes on!

There is an immense amount of people data that church have to deal with on a daily basis, yet most churches that I know of use technology sparingly. Why is that? Does this mean that there is no solution available for them? Maybe they don’t realise the power of a CRM system? I think the answer would be interesting, and a good challenge for a CRM solutions provider to overcome.