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Nov 10, 2020

Giving Free for Any Church Stuck Under Contract

One of the most common obstacles between churches and using Planning Center Giving is a contract with another company—covering two payments is too much of a financial commitment. We genuinely want your church to use tools that work for you and your congregation, and we want to remove any potential obstacles between you and the software you want to use. So if your church is under contract with another donation management company, we will waive your subscription fee to Planning Center Giving for

Planning Center

3 min read

Oct 29, 2020

Fall Update 2020

Happy Fall, friends! We have exciting new features and updates to share from all eight of our products, as well as a few bad amazing seasonal puns we want to force on bless you with. 🤓 So watch the video to see what’s new—it’s our last seasonal update of 2020! Hey, look, a new product—Planning Center Publishing! Level up your presence in Church Center with custom content and a way to chat while they watch sermons! Create a directory in the Church Center mobile app and we

Planning Center

3 min read

Oct 19, 2020

Pro Tips for Christmas Prep

A Christmas post in October?! You either think we’re behind the curve or right on time. Whether you follow the Hobby Lobby holiday calendar and have been planning Christmas services since July, or you just realized that it’s Fall, you have one thing in common—the challenge of planning anything in 2020. To help, we put together this blog to help you get ready for a safe, healthy, and adaptable season of special holiday services and events. Each best practice includes links to our articles wh

Jeff Berg

4 min read

Aug 04, 2020

Announcing Planning Center Publishing: Create Custom Web and App Content

Today we are announcing Planning Center Publishing—a brand new product to power your presence in Church Center, the mobile app and website, with custom pages and video sermons! Church Center is an online experience where your congregation can explore, engage, and stay connected throughout the week. Publishing is how you make this app your own—how you connect with your congregation in unique ways through your own custom content. Each feature of Publishing gives you options. Church Center is yo

Planning Center

4 min read

Jul 30, 2020

Summer Update 2020

What month is it? The heatwave in San Diego is telling us it’s summer, so we’re here with our quarterly update. Whether you and your church are working on mask-shaped face tans as you meet outside, or living the Zoom life and planning for reopening, watch the video to learn about our newest features. Pledge Campaigns: Plan budgets and projects. Invite your congregation to join a long-term vision by pledging to give towards a goal. Simple Signups: Plan simple events. Somet

Planning Center

3 min read

Jun 04, 2020

Taking a Stand

There are moments when a company needs to take a firm stand on an issue because silence and neutrality are themselves a statement. I believe this is one of those moments, and we must speak up. Over the last several weeks I, along with our staff, have mourned the injustice and systemic oppression consistently experienced by people of color, particularly in the Black community. And we want to turn our mourning to action. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of a

Jeff Berg

Owner / Developer

2 min read

Jun 01, 2020

Introducing Donor Pledge Campaigns

An annual church budget or a plan to build a new church building usually starts with a question: what can we accomplish as a community? A pledge campaign can help your church find the answer. Unlike a fundraiser, which asks for a donation today, a pledge campaign asks for a commitment to long term giving. For this reason, a pledge campaign is typically designed for your regular, consistent donor base. As we talked to churches about how they use donor pledges, two common use cases we found were

Jeremy Ricketts

Product Manager

3 min read

Apr 22, 2020

Spring Update 2020

We know ministry looks a little different right now...and so does this update. We have a few exciting new things to share, but mainly we want to focus on features uniquely helpful for doing ministry during the pandemic. You can watch the video to learn more or just to see if we managed to pull it off with webcams and no studio! Connect your church with group messaging! No more group texts and email strings! Groups now have a central place to keep in touch. Make onl

Planning Center

3 min read

Apr 13, 2020

Create New Opportunities for Community

I haven’t seen my small group friends in over a month. I miss them. Thankfully, we have our weekly video calls to catch up, pray, and talk about the sermon. It isn't the same, but it's good to have something. You and your church might be in the same boat—missing your people, and trying to figure out how to stay in touch as best you can. Nothing can replace being face-to-face, but community is still possible, and we want to show you how to lean on Groups to help your church find it. First, we’

Jeff Berg

4 min read

Apr 06, 2020

Announcing Group Messaging: It’s in beta!

Group Messaging is in public beta, which means your small groups can make the Church Center app their official center for communication. No more cycling between Facebook Messenger, the dreaded group text, and infinite email strings! Read in browser We know many of you have temporarily suspended weekend services due to COVID-19, and some of you are also under state-mandated shelter-in-place orders, making even small gatherings impossible. We

Jessica Fleming

Product Manager

3 min read

Mar 25, 2020

Coronavirus: Connecting with the needs of your congregation

The ripple effects of COVID-19 are relentless, and we are all feeling it as the days pass and we work our way toward a new normal alongside the rest of the world. Still others (like you) are figuring out how to continue carrying the unique burdens of your entire congregation. You are in the business of caring for the well-being of souls—challenging work in the most normal of times. But in this abnormal time, when you can’t be physically present with your community, the task can feel overwhelmin

Jeff Berg

4 min read

Mar 16, 2020

Coronavirus: What has (and has not) changed at Planning Center

Things have changed rapidly for many of us here at Planning Center, and we know they have for many of you as well. Since schools are closing, many of our employees are now homeschooling their children; and with the arrival of COVID-19 to San Diego County, we've officially closed our Carlsbad office for the foreseeable future. We have been a remote company for a long time, so we can continue to do our jobs from anywhere we have the internet. This has helped us make some adjustments to our sched

Planning Center

3 min read

Mar 13, 2020

Coordinating Community during the Coronavirus

If your week was anything like ours, you might be feeling a little whiplash from so many major life changes in such a short period of time. Events canceled, schools closing, travel plans postponed—all because of the spread of COVID-19. Many health officials and city, county, and state governments across the country are making recommendations for how people should handle large gatherings of people, which we know impacts you, the church. We are not here to advocate for any kind of action apart f

Planning Center

6 min read

Feb 06, 2020

Resources has a new name—Calendar!

Every successful event takes teamwork—from the smallest prayer group on Wednesday mornings to the largest Sunday services. Facilities teams have Resources to help them communicate and coordinate these details, but they’re not the only ones who need to know the event schedule. People from ministries across your church need to have easy access to what is happening when, where, with what stuff, and know who is responsible for it all. In the last year, we’ve expanded the scope of Resources to meet

Planning Center

4 min read

Nov 20, 2019

Fall Product Update 2019

Anyone else feeling like fall went by too fast? It seems the window of time in which it is seasonally appropriate to go apple-picking has officially passed. Now we're in that in-between space when we debate whether or not we’re allowed to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Well, before you fully transition into the holiday season, take a minute to watch this video and learn how to make the most of Planning Center during this hectic time of year! Updating family

Planning Center

3 min read

Jun 18, 2019

Lower Processing Fees

When it comes to processing online payments, our commitment to you is twofold: we will only partner with providers that meet our high standards of reliability and extensibility; and we will strive to keep your fees as low as possible. Starting today, the credit and debit card processing rate for Giving and Registrations will be reduced to 2.15% + $0.30 for US* customers. Compared to the prior rate of 2.3% + $0.30, this new rate will save our customers at least $1.6 million collectively over th

Planning Center

2 min read

May 15, 2019

Spring Product Update 2019

Get a quick walk through of all exciting feature updates by watching the video, and then dive a little deeper into best practices by checking out the announcement blog posts for each update! Speed Up Check-in Lines Encourage families to pre-check in to events through the Church Center app. Unlock Permissions in Forms Give people on your team access to Forms without giving them higher permissions in People. Simplify Form Collection for Events Attach

Jeff Berg

3 min read

Dec 11, 2018

Announcing the Church Center App

The core purpose of all Planning Center apps is to serve the needs of church staff and volunteers with ministry tools. We are now expanding our attention to provide you with tools to support your congregation with our new mobile app Church Center, a dedicated space for people to connect with the life of your church. Instead of directing people to a specific URL or your website to find more information or get involved, you can tell them to download an app on their smartphone a

Benson Lee

Product Manager

3 min read

Nov 29, 2018

Planning Center Fall Update 2018

Over the last few months, our team has been hard at work on new features across our suite! Watch our Fall Product Update to learn all about these exciting changes. If you want to learn more about the features mentioned in the video, click Read the Blog under each feature below for tips to help you get started! People Collect information with Forms! Create forms for people in your church to complete — and when they do, automatically send them an email, add them to a work

Planning Center

4 min read

Jul 23, 2018

Introducing Forms in Planning Center People

Are you ready for one of the most exciting and frequently requested features in the history of Planning Center? We are too. Say hello to Forms. Forms is a way for you to hear directly from the people in your church by giving them opportunities to share information with you. At some point, every ministry in your church will need a way to collect information from your congregation, which is why we built this powerful new feature in the application all of our customers a

Daniel Murphy

Product Manager

4 min read