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Manage Contacts and their Contributions

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Note: Excepting anonymous contributions, which are free, adding and managing non-member contributions are paid features.

If your church receives contributions from non-members, you can save these contributors as Contacts, who can be kept track of and contacted via ChMeetings. 

You can find and manage your contacts under Contributions > Contacts.

Who are the Contacts?

Anyone who donates to your church without having a ChMeetings profile is a non-member contributor, which we call a Contact. Some examples are event guests, visitors, former members who still donate, people who donate via your donation link without logging in, anyone from your wider audience/community, organizations, etc. 

How does ChMeetings Manage Contacts?

All non-member contributors are stored within ChMeetings as Contacts, manually when adding a new contact contribution or automatically when they donate online. 

Contacts are NOT added to your People list - they only display within the Contributions section. Therefore, they cannot be registered to ChMeetings as users, have any activity within the app, or be added to groups or follow-ups. Their event attendance cannot be tracked or displayed in any reports, as they are not registered as members and do not have a full profile. Contact profiles work with limited information. For all these features to be available, Contacts must be converted to People (members).

Contacts are primarily managed from under Contributions > Contacts. Unless otherwise specified, this section is the starting point for all processes explained below.

Add Contacts Manually

  1. Click Add Contact.

    add-contact.png

  2. Enter the contact’s details: Name, Nickname, Gender, Mobile and Home Phone, Email, and Address. Click Save when ready.

    contact-profile.png

Edit or Delete Contacts

To edit or delete contacts:

  1. Find the Contact that you want to edit or delete.
  2. Click on the Contact’s name. This will open up their profile.
  3. Click Edit to update the required information and Save your changes.
  4. Click Delete if you want to remove the contact. You will be asked to confirm your choice

edit-delete-contact.png

Delete Multiple Contacts

You can delete multiple contacts in one go from under Contributions > Contacts.

  1. Select the contacts that you want to delete.
  2. Click More Actions.
  3. Select Delete. You will be asked to confirm your choice.

delete-multiple.png

 

Communicate with Contacts

You can communicate with Contacts via Text/Voice Messages and Email.  

  1. To communicate with everyone, click Text or Email without making a selection.
  2. Otherwise, select the Contacts you want to communicate to. 
  3. Click Text or Email. See how to send text messages or emails for further details. 

comms.png

 

Export Contacts

To export Contacts, click the Export button. This downloads a .csv file of your entire list of contacts. To only export specific people, select them before clicking Export.

export.png

 

Convert a Contact to a Member

This process is useful if a Contact becomes a member. After conversion, the Contact will have a complete profile and can be integrated into all ChMeetings features as full members. If the Contacts you convert have previously been converted from members, their information will return to their profile.

To convert a Contact to a Member:

  1. Go to Contributions > All Contributions > Contributors.
  2. Find the Contact that you want to convert to a member.
  3. Under their name, click Add Person. You can also find the Add Person option by clicking the Options button corresponding to the contact you want to convert.add-person.png
  4. Once you click Add Person, the profile will be created, and you will see a message saying ‘Updated Successfully.’ At this point, you can edit the person’s profile as for any other member. Learn more about Working with people and their profiles.

To convert multiple Contacts to Members:

  1. Go to Contributions Contacts,
  2. Select the Contact(s) that you want to convert,
  3. Click More Actions,
  4. Select Convert to People.

convert-to-member.png

 

Convert a Member to a Contact

When converting from a Member to a Contact, most of the profile information is hidden but still kept within your database. If you convert the Contact back to a Member in the future, you can do so as described below, and their full profile information will return. 

This process creates a Contact profile. After conversion, the person’s profile will display limited information (everything else being hidden but stored), and the Contact will behave as described above under How does ChMeetings Manage Non-Member Contacts. 

To convert one or multiple contacts to members:

  1. Go to Contributions > All Contributions > Contributors,
  2. Select the Person/People that you want to convert,
  3. Click More Actions,
  4. Select Convert to Contacts.

convert-to-contact.png

Add Contact Contributions Manually 

When non-members donate in-person / offline, you can add their contributions by following the same process you would for any other contributor, 

You must add non-member contributors as contacts. You can do so from under Contributions > Contacts or right from the New Contribution screen, as follows: 

  1. Go to Contributions > New Contribution,
  2. Under Person or Envelope Number, click the arrow to open the dropdown, then click Add Contact.add-contact-contribution.png
  3. Enter the contact’s details: Name, Nickname, Phone, Email, and Address. Click Save when ready.
    contact-profile.png

Filter Contact Contributions and Contributors

You can use the Advanced Search feature in Contributions > All Contributions to filter non-member contributions and contributors.

Filter Contact Contributions

Go to Contributions > All Contributions > List, and filter by Contacts. Feel free to add any other criteria of your choice.filter-contributions.png

Once your contributions are filtered, you can perform other related tasks, such as exporting or generating statements. 

 

Filter Contact Contributors

Go to All Contributions > Contributors and filter by Contacts. You can add other criteria as needed.

Once Contacts are filtered, you can use the features available within the Contributors tab to email or text them, export the filtered list, or create member profiles from existing Contacts.

filter-contributors.png

Contributors are managed the same way, regardless of whether they are members. To learn more about the available features (e.g., exports, generating statements, printing mailing labels, etc.), please see How to view, export, email, print, and mail existing contributions.

 

Tip: 

An easy way to distinguish contacts from members within the All Contributions List is by the default profile image: 

  • Contacts:
  • Members:

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