Five Main Records
There are five closely related records in MinistryPlatform:
- Contact – Everyone. Holds personal information such as birthday, phone number, and email.
- Household – Almost everyone. Holds information such as contacts, physical address, home phone, and congregation.
- Donor – Anyone who has given money. Holds information such as donations and pledges.
- Participant – Anyone involved in the life of the church. Holds information related to participation in groups and events.
- User – Anyone who creates an account online or has rights to the Platform. Holds username and password.
A person always has a Contact record and a Household record, regardless of how they entered into the database. And depending on how they entered, a person also may have a Donor, Participant, and/or User record.
Contacts
Think of the Contact record as a person's profile or a Rolodex, if you're familiar with that. All people in your database start as a contact. The Contact record contains personal information such as gender, birthday, mobile phone, and email. For more details, see Contacts.
Participants
The Participant record tells you how people are involved with your church. Or, in other words, how they participate in your church's groups and activities. If a contact participates in the church, they will also be a participant. The Participant record contains all the contact's participation in groups and events. For more details, see Participants or Members.
Donors
A donor is someone who contributes financially to your church. While every donor will have a Contact record, not every contact has a Donor record. If a contact donates to the church, they will also be a donor. The Donor record contains all the contact's donations and pledges. For more details, see Donors.
Users
Users include church staff and volunteers who access the Platform for their work, as well as people who give online, register for events, or manage groups through various MinistryPlatform applications.
If a contact uses any of the Platform applications, they will also be a user. The User record contains the username, password, and permissions. For more details, see Users.
Households
A household is a collection of contacts who live together and are usually related. A contact belongs to a household. The Household record contains the contact's physical address, home phone, and congregation/parish. The household can also contain other contacts, such as family members or other people who live at the same address. For more details, see Households or Families.
Linked Records
To help you navigate the Platform, records are automatically linked to their related records. For example, a Contact record links to its Household record so you can easily jump between them when needed.
When you open a Contact record, you'll see handy-dandy record facts and record insights to get a quick snapshot of the contact. You'll also see a series of link icons . Click the link to go directly to the related record.
The Participant record links to the Contact, which makes it easy to navigate back to the Contact record, which is the hub for the other records.
Follow the Household links to navigate to the Contacts record. From there, you can jump to the Donor record, a specific Donation, back to the Donor, and end back on the Contacts page. The jumping possibilities are endless!