User Support Forum

I am relatively new to the role of Church Secretary and am trying to get used to PowerChurch.

I am really perplexed by the Personal Status Codes and Mailing Categories (under the Family profile). I am trying to use them for newsletter mailings & directory creation, but am having difficulties - one of the categories we have (pre-dating my arrival) is "member - inactive". Some people in this category should recieve the newletter, some shouldn't. I have similar challenges with the directory.

So, I need to set something up that is more definitive. And perhaps should be managing the newsletter mailing and Church Directory creation though some other module. through the codes that appear in the Other Info Tab?

ANY tips, help, ideas you can provide as to how you manage these tasks and these codes would be greatly appreciate. There has got to be an easier, less confusing way that what I've got here.

Thanks!!!

Susan

Our church uses many different ways to handle our mailouts. We have one mailing category that is called "church-wide mailing", which handles newsletters and blanketed announcements; then we have other mailing categories that are ministry-specific, like "ladies ministry", to mail out info to a certain group of people. It has taken over a year to get the database tweeked, but all the hard work has blossomed into the other modules, like attendance and skills, where we can pull accurate lists of sunday school classes for youth and adults (the skills codes are used for each age group or class, so rosters can be pulled accurately). We don't use the personal status codes, so I can't offer advice on those. We also use the Other Info tab for specialized mail runs (homebound, VBS, etc.) to simplify those periodic mailouts. It really has a lot of flexibility...just decide how and where you want to code things, then find the slot to put the codes in and run the reports/labels using your coding system. Just remember that it will take time to re-organize and re-code your current database; new records/members can be entered immediately into the new format you choose. Hope this helps you!

SusanG wrote:I am relatively new to the role of Church Secretary and am trying to get used to PowerChurch.

I am really perplexed by the Personal Status Codes and Mailing Categories (under the Family profile). I am trying to use them for newsletter mailings & directory creation, but am having difficulties - one of the categories we have (pre-dating my arrival) is "member - inactive". Some people in this category should recieve the newletter, some shouldn't. I have similar challenges with the directory.

So, I need to set something up that is more definitive. And perhaps should be managing the newsletter mailing and Church Directory creation though some other module. through the codes that appear in the Other Info Tab?

ANY tips, help, ideas you can provide as to how you manage these tasks and these codes would be greatly appreciate. There has got to be an easier, less confusing way that what I've got here.

Thanks!!!

Susan

Susan,

Mailings normally should be controlled through the Family Mailing List. In the Integrated Data Entry its the main screen you see with the address.

The Mailing Category is where you should have the main categories of your church members/attenders.

The default codes in Powerchurch are member, visitor, and so on.

We use these, as well as Friend of church and courtesy copy.

We usually keep the mailing list code of Member for families who are members of the church.

Friend of Church are people who are regular attenders, but not members, they get newsletters, as do the 'courtesy copy' families. Visitors do not get any newsletter mailings.

To further filter out member mailings, we use one of the special codes that you can setup on the second 'tab' of the Family Mailing List screen. Some of the ones we use are Change of Address Notice, Notified of Move, P.O. Returned Mailing, and Inactive Member. This last one is self-explanatory, however, in the Presbyterian Church USA, this is a special category that we still mail newsletters to.

You can use these special codes in the same way to filter out inactive members who do not get mailings.

The Personal Status Codes, are just that personal codes. They identify members of a family as church members, family group members, visitors, etc.

They really should not be used for newsletter mailings, as you may have four members in one family, and sending four newsletters to one address is not a good stewardship of resources.

There are mailings that should use the Personal Status Codes depending on your target audience, mostly we use them to filter out non-members in reports, and so on.

Susan, regarding personal status codes, those really reflect the different status of the people in each of your families. We used to only keep "members" in our database because we didn't realize we could use personal status codes to include other people who come into contact with our church and still filter them out with these codes.

For example, we used to not keep a non-member spouse in the database because we didn't want to mess up our reports, etc. We created a personal status code of Non-Member Spouse so we can include their name on a label if we want, to be inclusive, but exclude it when we need to. Same with Child Baptized, Child Non-Baptized, Adult Child Non-Member, Memorial Contributor, Visitor Current, Visitor Past, and then Deceased also. Having a personal status code of Deceased allows you to keep that person in your database (along with all their contributions, committees served on, all history of their being in your church) rather than deleting all that information which you may need/want at a future time, especially the giving information.

We DO use the custom coding at the personal level to help email PDF versions of our monthly newsletter and church directory. Because emails are attached to personal profiles, and not families, we can email a newsletter/directory to someone, saving time/money/effort, etc.

Hope this helps!

Suzanne