Okay, before you say yes, let me narrow it down. I’m looking for people using Planning Center for scheduling volunteer outside of just programing and production stuff. Is anyone using it to schedule nursery volunteers, check-in volunteers and elementary small group leaders? The whole thing?
Several years ago I looked into Planning Center Online and even had one of my campus Childlren’s Pastors give it a try and it just wasn’t a good experience. This wasn’t because it’s not good software, but because it seemed geared mostly toward the program and production side of ministry where those volunteers typically fill a roll for all services on a given weekend where a chidlren’s ministry will usually have different volunteers for every service. It seemed workable, but not worth the hassle.
However, last week I spent some time with Bent Tree Bible in Dallas and someone from their kidmin programing team showed us planning center. Although they’re using it primarily as a tool to plan out services, it looks like they’ve developed it further to schedule all your volunteers and for multiple services. We’re totally pumped.
However, as it most things, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Rather than try this and try that, I’d like to talk to some people who are using it the way we’re looking to use it. So, if you’re using it to schedule volunteers in multiple areas (beyond just program and production) and you run multiple services, please let me know. Comment below and I’ll get in touch with you!
I’ll wait with baited breath for a response…I need the same thing. I have access to Planning Center; but no idea how to use it!
Waiting here too…
We use PCO for all of our volunteer scheduling including Children, Worship, and regular Sunday morning volunteers.
If I can, I’ll answer any questions!
Kenny,
Will you let us know how your conversation goes with Wayne and post what you find out?
We also are only using for scheduling our worship teams, but wanted to try to figure out a way to use it for all our volunteers. Looking forward to hearing what you find out.
We also use PCO for all ministries on our weekend Services. It is an extremely effective tool for unifying all ministries and eliminating confusion for volunteers who serve in multiple ministries.
I’d be more than happy to answer question anyone might have regarding set-up, administration and functionality.