Just hope everyone is ok - Church management ending

@Jennifer Dever
Yes, this will be a new challenge. We have been looking for something that operates on an organizational level for all of our churches, far more so than just a localized congregation. We are so intertwined with Blackbaud on many levels as we buy many of their products that this was not well received. Hopefully, another solution with appear soon. Had an interview with Breeze, and it's not the answer for us. We'll continue to search.

@Scott Holthaus
Thanks for the suggestion! We actually moved off of FellowshipOne (Shelby Church Management) when we made the switch to Blackbaud. Not sure I'm willing to go crawling back.

@Kristin Spacek I am liking what I have seen with Planning Center but your concern for support by them concerns me.

@Alicia Adams can you tell me why you moved away from Shelby in the first place? That is one of the products we are considering.

Are there any former Realm users out there that were with Realm before moving to Blackbaud? Would you mind sharing your experience? We were with ACS OnDemand previously and considered Realm before switching to Blackbaud (via Seraphim). I was not impressed with the product then (5 or so years ago), but it looks like it has come a long way from what I remember about the demos back then. It is concerning to me that many churches have moved away from Realm, and I would appreciate feedback for those who may have been with Realm prior to Blackbaud or maybe considering Realm now. Thanks! Josh

@Danielle Clark Yes, but we have not met with them yet. We have an introductory meeting on Friday. It looks like they have a great product based on their website. I spoke to a counterpart at another church in town today that switched from Realm to Touch Point today, and they are pleased with Touch Point so far.

@Jennifer Dever
Thanks for the referral Jennifer. We've received a bunch of calls from Blackbaud customers already. As you note, the main thing several of us here at Enable do is help churches choose, implement, optimize, and train on ChMS software. We work for churches, not for any particular ChMS platform - and our main process is to help the church staff understand what their needs are so that as they evaluate their options, they do so based on the functions that are important to the church. I'm working on several options right now to help provide support to Blackbaud customers at rates that are affordable for churches of all sized (ranging from a few hours of video conference consulting to narrow your search to our more typical full-blown onsite discovery and selection facilitation services.

If we can help, even just to spend half an hour with you to point you in the right direction, we'll be happy to… you can reach us at (info (at) enable.email) or enableministry.com

@Phillip Kinson Yes, we can certainly help in that context. I think for most people in this situation, where you are forced with a decision of where to go because BB ChMS is not longer available, or best assistance is in our selection facilitation consulting services. In those services, we focus on meeting with key stakeholders and software users to get clarity on what your church, organization, or association needs the software to do (what are the requirements?). I phrase it as “what does the software need to do” because that differentiates from looking at “feature lists" which focus on checking a box (has “volunteer management,” has “multi-site support,” “has custom reports” and we get really specific about HOW the software needs to support those needs. For example, in an organization model, what access to data should the organization have? Does the organization level have access to individual member or parishioner data (names, attendance, etc.) or just summary information. If there are certain summary data points that the organization needs to see, for example, # of baptisms, weekly attendance in certain types of classes or programs, gender or racial counts, etc. that will define the requirements at the local church level, for gathering attendance, demographic fields, and the format of those data points so that they “roll up.”

Our role would be to help define the requirements, identify a short list of candidates that can potentially fulfill the requirements, distribute and manage the Request for Proposal phase, and then facilitate your evaluation of the candidates' responses to the RFP. We can provide some context, including some help in considering how recent mergers and acquisitions might affect a candidate's roadmap in the future. This is important because no one wants to make a new selection only to find out that in a couple of years the software they just moved to is now being shuttered to consolidate to another product. We aren't fortune tellers - but we can offer some help in making those considerations in an educated way.

A key component of the way we do requirements gathering is the involvement of many of your users, so that those closest to your ministry processes are involved in the process, able to provide input regarding their needs, and gain buy in to the final decision.

We don't have a particular product that we represent, but we have lots of experience with the top providers in this market, and good relationships with their teams, so we can help make good connections. We also keep up with many of the 3rd party integrations that work with the various ChMS products so we can help our clients understand how they can fill gaps in the primary ChMS application.

I know that's the long answer! Please do reach out if we can help! elliott.wood(at)enable.email or info(at)enable.email

@Jennifer Dever - Hi folks – I wondered if it would be helpful, and if any of you would be interested if I offered an hour of “office hours” to answer questions about selection new software, what kinds of considerations you might want to include in your search, developing your requirements list, how to make sense of the current client of mergers and acquisitions, etc. We've helped over 40 churches define their requirements and select new ChMS, so we've been down this road many times.

I'd love to help in anyway we can - no strings attached. You can join the meeting below next Thursday, November 3 at 10:30AM CST and ask away. No sales pitches for any software packages. I won't chase you down with sales follow-ups unless you ask me to (you don't even have to give me your contact info). But if it's helpful and you'd like someone to be a sounding board, I'd love to be a resource for you.

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@Danielle Clark Sure, I'd be happy to record. If you will, send me an email at elliott.wood(at)enable.email as a reminder.

@Tara Cain Fantastic – I'll record, and if anyone would like me to send a link of the recording, please email me at elliott.wood(at)enable.email.

Thanks to everyone who was able to join in! What a great turnout. If you are interested in the conversation - here's a link to the recording. If you are interested in more information from Enable, the best way to reach us is info@enable.email or check out enableministry.com

Choosing New ChMS Post Blackbaud-20221103_103325-Meeting Recording.mp4

Has anyone made a decision and started the moving process yet? I'm curious to know what everyone else is doing. So far we have ruled out three for our needs, and are still looking at Realm.

Who do you like that you've checked out so far?

@Josh Heath
Hi Josh: Have you heard any specific reasons why churches have left Realm?