What this helps you do
Your church management software keeps the directory, the households, the giving record and the check-in; your giving platform keeps the gifts. The Hub holds only the members who connected, the ministry audiences they follow, and what you sent. Churches are the one vertical with a released named connector: Planning Center People can carry your active people into the invitation funnel and write a Blasts field back, so staff can see reach without leaving Planning Center. Whatever the system, the doors are the same four: a CSV export you upload on Connections, the inbound webhook that invites one person at a time, signed outbound events that tell your systems who connected or replied, and the Zapier app when both ends are apps rather than code.
When to use it
Use Planning Center if that is where your directory already lives. Use CSV when your directory is somewhere else and you have an opted-in export. Use the inbound webhook when a website form should invite someone the same day. A church can also run entirely on the code in the bulletin.
How to do it
- Planning Center People: open Integrations and connect with a Personal Access Token. Active people with an email address enter the invitation funnel nightly, and a Blasts field is written back on each person.
- Otherwise, export the opted-in part of your directory and upload the CSV on Connections. Email is the only required column.
- Point a website form's confirmation step at the inbound webhook on Integrations.
- Add your HTTPS endpoint under events out if your own systems should hear about connections and replies.
- Create your ministry audiences in the Hub by name. They are yours, and nothing imports them for you.
Example
A church connects Planning Center People, and its active directory enters the invitation funnel overnight. Each person still accepts for themselves and picks their ministries. The next Sunday's weather closure goes out from the Hub, and staff can see in Planning Center who is reachable on Blasts.
Good to know
- Planning Center People is the only released connector in the portfolio. Everything else, in every vertical, uses the four generic doors.
- Even through the connector, every person is invited, never added: they accept for themselves and choose their own ministry audiences.
- The Hub takes no giving and holds no gift record. A giving-statement notice is fine; the giving itself stays on your giving platform.