There are many systems required for managing the needs of an evangelical church.  I’ve listed the following 8 systems in an effort to get to a comprehensive “core” of what church management software should help manage.  There are many systems not listed here such as Workflow/Process Routing, Strategic Planning, and Web Content Management (although it’s touched on), as these merit their own discussion.  It’s not merely about having features, but having usable software that can handle real-world scenarios.  How does your church management software rank against this list?  What’s missing?

1. People & Families - It should go without saying that a church management database should manage people records.  On a scale of 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Quickly & easily add a new family or individual record
   • Add a new family member when a couple has a baby or adopts
   • Easily create a new family out of two individuals when they get married and remove them from their original families
   • Remove a family member when there is a divorce
   • Remove a family member when there is a death
   • Assimilation, journey, or growth management should help staff recognize where people are on their “spiritual walk”
2. Small Groups: Classes (Growth), Teams (Service), & Communities (Fellowship) - The church management solution should handle these 3 common types of groups in which people participate.  From 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Select several people and quickly add/remove them to/from a group
   • Manage people’s roles or leadership positions in groups
   • Manage people’s responsibilities in groups, allowing group members to go “on leave” and temporarily delegate their responsibilities
3. Departments & Ministries - These structures offer oversight, management, and accountability to the small groups.  These are separate entities from small groups and should be managed as such.  From 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Structure departments & ministries with unlimited hierarchy
   • Ability to separate a ministry into two new ministries
   • Ability to combine two or more ministries into one ministry
   • Ability to staff a ministry with volunteer & paid staff and manage staffing needs
4. Events & Activities - This is at least a church calendar; however, most churches also need an attendance tracking solution and a room reservation system.  From 1-10, how does your current system rate with the following?:
   • Event planning & budgeting 
   • Recurring meetings should be visible on the calendar as separate meetings, allowing for exceptions when conditions call for a cancellation
   • Event registrations should ideally be available online, but must at least be easily handled by church staff over the phone or via email
   • Attendance & participation management should show not only who attended, but how did they participate
   • Online or kiosk-based check-in
   • Room availability management
   • Resource availability management (projectors, tables, etc)
   • Servicing management (catering, childcare, etc)
5. Contributions - This area handles tithes & offerings as well as pledge campaigns.  From 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Contributors should be able to distribute their donation across multiple funds/appeals
   • Contributions statements should be made available monthly, quarterly, and, at least annually
   • The system should be able to quickly and intuitively process contributions
6. Finances & Accounting - The software must have sufficient accounting capabilities so the church can pay its bills and manage payments received for event registrations or products sold.  From 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Double-entry book keeping capability
   • Budgeting
   • Payroll
7. Communications - The software should at least be able to assist in bulk email and bulk postal mail.  However, these days, you should look for integration with your web site and publishing information via RSS feeds.  From 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • Simple bulk email capabilities, with merge field capability
   • Create labels, print on envelopes
   • Create letters, preferably from templates, with merge field capability
   • Allow recipients to receive communications based on their delivery preference (email, web, rss, postal mail, phone call, personal visit, etc)
   • Manage web content with approval and document versioning
8. Reporting - The church must be able to perform complex queries against the database as well as obtain regular analysis on their efficiency as stewards of people’s time and God’s money.  Again, on a scale of 1-10, how does your current solution handle the following?:
   • A comprehensive report library which covers all aspects described above and provides parameterized input
   • The ability to execute and deliver (via email or other) reports on a scheduled basis
   • The ability to provide charts, graphs, and pivot tables
   • The ability to provide “drill through” capabilities, allowing users to investigate further
   • The ability to perform trend analysis by revealing changes in data over time
   • Should provide “Venn Diagram” ad-hoc querying capabilities such as “Give me all the people with criteria A, B, & C who do NOT have criteria D, E, or F”