cleaning up membership, etc.

[SMSMART]

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been helping my church with the accounting and other items for approximately two years. We are attempting to clean up our membership and other lists on powerchurch. It appears to me that we have a lot of names/addresses and I do not know quite where to begin to clean it up. Most people were added when they gave a donation. Some children have been input. Some codes have been used and some haven't been. We have people included in "membership" modules who were not members. Any ideas on where or how to begin?

Thanks!

[NeilZ]

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been helping my church with the accounting and other items for approximately two years. We are attempting to clean up our membership and other lists on powerchurch. It appears to me that we have a lot of names/addresses and I do not know quite where to begin to clean it up. Most people were added when they gave a donation. Some children have been input. Some codes have been used and some haven't been. We have people included in "membership" modules who were not members. Any ideas on where or how to begin?

Thanks!

What I would do is first, definitely determine who are members of the church. Set their Mailing List Profile status to Member, and the Personal Profile status to Member, and any children who are not members mark them as a Family Group Member.

Those persons who were members, but are no longer, should be changed to Member - Inactive or Member Tranfrd/Removed (or something like that). You may need to track them for at least four years to cover the time needed from their last contribution year.

Those persons who were members, but are now deceased, change their Personal Status to deceased. If there are no survivors in the household, change the Mailing List Profile to Deceased. Again, you may need to keep them in the system until four years after their last contribution. Example: last contribution in 2010, they should be deleted in 2014.

Those familes who regularly attend, but who are not members, I'd change them to 'friend of the congregation' or Non-Member - Active.0

Then I would mark everyone else as visitor, even those who may have attended or given a contribution once or twice. Again, you have to maintain those who gave in the system for at least 4 years.

What I do is purge those who were visitors every 2 years unless, as mentioned above, they gave a contribution.