You can connect AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and others to Planning Center using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once connected, you can use natural language to look up information across your Planning Center account.

With the addition of Giving, Publishing, and Calendar, the MCP now works with every product. You can ask your AI tools about data across all eight products (People, Groups, Services, Registrations, Check-Ins, Giving, Publishing, and Calendar), all through natural language.

If you're already connected, you'll need to reconnect to get access to the new products. Remove your existing connection and add it again, then approve the products you want during setup.

What's new

These three products add 22 new read-only tools to the MCP:

Giving: 10 tools

  • Batch groups – view deposit groups that organize batches together

  • Batches – view donation batches with totals, status, and commit dates

  • Donations – search individual donation records with filters for date, fund, amount, and payment method, with optional totals

  • Donors – look up donor summaries with lifetime giving totals, donation counts, and first gift dates

  • Funds – see your designated fund categories and visibility settings

  • Payment sources – view payment platforms and method types used for donations

  • Pledge campaigns – view pledge campaigns with goals, date ranges, and progress toward targets

  • Pledges – track individual pledges toward campaigns, linked to people

  • Recurring donations – view scheduled repeating gifts with amounts and status

  • Refunds – view refund details for a specific donation, including fees returned

Publishing: 5 tools

  • Channels – list your podcast and media channels

  • Episodes – browse individual episodes across channels

  • Episode statistics – view play counts and download stats for episodes

  • Series – see how episodes are organized into content series

  • Speakers – look up speaker profiles associated with episodes

Calendar: 7 tools

  • Calendars – list your organizational calendars

  • Events – search and filter calendar events

  • Event instances – view specific dates and occurrences of recurring events

  • Resources – see rooms, equipment, and other bookable resources

  • Resource bookings – check room reservations and resource assignments for events

  • Conflicts – identify scheduling conflicts between events and resources

  • Tags – browse event categories and tags

Try it out

Here are some examples to get started with the new products:

  • "How much did we receive in the General Fund last month?"

  • "What events are on the church calendar this week?"

  • "Which episodes of our sermon podcast have the most plays?"

  • "Which pledge campaigns are on track to meet their goal?"

And since every product is now connected, try questions that pull from multiple products at once:

  • "Which donors from last month are also in a small group?"

  • "Are any of our Sunday volunteers scheduled to serve on a day with a calendar conflict?"

  • "Show me everyone who registered for VBS and also donated to the Missions fund this year."

  • "Tell me everything about this person, including their giving, groups, services schedule, and check-in history."

Your data is secure

Giving, Publishing, and Calendar follow the same security model as the other products. Only people with a Planning Center login can connect, and they'll only see data their permissions allow. Like the other products, all three are read-only — AI tools can look up information but can't modify anything.

Keeping your private data private

Depending on your AI provider and account type, your conversations may be used to train and improve their models, which means information from Planning Center could be included. We recommend checking your provider's data usage settings and opting out of model training before connecting.

For setup instructions and troubleshooting, check out our help article on connecting AI tools to Planning Center.

The full picture

With this release, every Planning Center product is now available through the MCP:

People · Groups · Services · Registrations · Check-Ins · Giving · Publishing · Calendar

That's eight products, all respecting your existing permissions. Join this group in our community to share feedback and tell us what you'd like to see next. We can't wait to hear how you're using it!

💙 The API Team