Grace Presbyterian Church, located in Fort Mill, SC, has an average attendance of 200-215 and has been using Realm Connect and Realm Accounting since 2016. In August of 2022, Jason Davenport joined the staff, serving in both the youth ministry and in a financial role.
He spends most of his time in Realm Accounting and Giving, favoring the ease of importing checks and printing them to pay bills. Being able to do all his tasks in one place saves him a lot of time.
Jason processes several paper checks from people using Bill Pay with their banks, and the church receives about 50% of its donations through Realm Online Giving. They chose to give the option of two or three central funds on their giving forms, but once in a while, they will provide a designated fund for special events or ministries. Doing it that way keeps things cleaner and easier to manage.
Jason’s favorite feature of Realm Giving is the ability to print Giving Statements. They process quickly, and getting what he needs just takes a few clicks.
“I love the way it produces the giving statements. Basically, you click a button or two, and there’s your giving statement for your members.”
– Jason Davenport, Finance Administrator, Grace Presbyterian Church
Another part of Realm Giving he uses is pledging, especially this time of year when they are gearing up for next year. Entering pledges and seeing where they stand throughout the year is very helpful for budgeting and planning.
Event Registration is also used frequently for RSVP and paid events. For the youth especially, with several trips a year, it is beneficial for them to pay their fees online and print out the permission slips and forms they need.
Grace Presbyterian also has a thriving senior ministry of about forty active senior adults. They go on several trips to a local community theater as a group. One person will purchase the theater tickets, and the church can reimburse them from the money collected through the registration event. They also utilize the RSVP feature for group lunches to be able to coordinate transportation and make reservations as needed. Jason encourages new Realm users to use Event Registration.
“The registration event feature, I think, is a little more unique to other church management systems in that it lets you create your event, import your graphics, put in your activity details, and then set your rates. I like how you can request things like T-shirt size or have different rates for different things.”
– Jason Davenport, Realm Administrator, Grace Presbyterian Church
Jason also uses Realm Event Registration to manage week-long events and trips more efficiently. Adding in multiple rates for registration types allows members flexibility to register for only one day or the entire week. They can select different rates for double occupancy or single occupancy hotel rooms for trips and even utilize the discount feature so you can have an early bird rate or a maximum rate for families. Realm allows event registrations to be customized for your church’s needs.
With the features in Realm and Realm Accounting, Jason can better manage finances, donations, and events with ease.
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About Stacey Smith
Stacey joined the ACST team in 1998 in the support department and joined the marketing team in 2021 as an Associate Marketing Coordinator. Today she runs the ACST Ministry Champions program, which involves all references, reviews, and testimonials for all of our products and services. When she isn’t at work, she is spending time with her husband, two teenage daughters and furbaby Copper.
