The process of planning events is such an important aspect of any church. Events bring your congregation together in times of joy as well as sorrow. However, all that work is for nothing if you don’t have tools to help bring those all-important events to reality.
Let’s take a look at how Realm’s event registration solution can help you properly set up your event in a way that works best for your ministry, collect needed details from registrants, and even take payments when needed.
Virtual Events
The type of event you’re planning is probably dependent on whether or not your congregation will attend in person. Many churches have decided to host their events virtually, and some are offering combination events for convenience. Whatever you decide, you can accomplish it with Realm.
Realm’s event registration allows the church to add a link for virtual attendance. Simply copy the link from your provider, like Google Meet or YouTube Live, and add it to your event in Realm. Once your congregation begins to register for the event, they can click the link and view the event remotely.
In-Person Events
Similarly, if you’ve decided to hold your event in person, then naturally you’ve thought about what the best location would be for that event. Is it at the church? If so, where? And how do you manage capacity to prevent more people attending than you can serve?
When you create a registration event in Realm, you can easily set locations and even manage event capacity. This allows everyone who might be considering attending the event to know where it is, but also prevents too many people from signing up to attend.
Address any Special Needs or Diet Restrictions
When considering a new event, it’s key that you’re able to serve everyone who registers regardless of their personal restrictions. For example, if your church is hosting a Wednesday night supper, you may want to offer different types of meal choices such as vegetarian or vegan options. Additionally, understanding food limitations (such as allergies) is very important and helps keep your congregation safe.
That’s why Realm’s event registration solution offers you a way to capture both of those. You can easily add an option for registrants to let you know if they have special dietary restrictions. Similarly, you can also ask if there are any foods that can cause allergic reactions so you don’t include them on the menu. Best of all, you can have this information written back to their profile so you’ll have it for the future.
Paying for the event
It’s understandable if you strive to host free events at your church. It offers the potential to interact with more in your congregation and community. And, sometimes, you have the budget to make that work. The reality is, though, that most churches don’t have the finances on hand to host completely free events.
However, using registration events in Realm, you can make that payment process as easy as possible. First, you can allow discounts if you choose to do so. For example, maybe you put an amount cap on larger families or organizations that visit your church for events. Simply choose your discount type, set your reduced dollar or percentage amount, and the minimum group size.
Secondly, all registrants need to do now is pay for the event. You can allow credit, debit, or ACH payments, enable registrants to partially pay or pay in full, and set minimum payment amounts if needed. Churches using Realm Accounting can even select the checking and income accounts to tie registration payments to so you cut down on the work your accountant has to do post-event.
Share your event
At this point, you’re probably excited to share your event with your congregation. Depending on your goals, there are a few ways you can do this. However, like most church-wide events, you’re no doubt interested in letting those in your community know about it as well.
When creating your event in Realm, you’re given the option to share it in several ways. One way is through your church’s website. You’ll be provided with links you can easily add to your website as well as share through social media.
You’ll also be provided with a QR code. If you are creating flyers to pass around your church or community, you can add the QR code to the flyer. Those that wish to attend your event simply use their mobile device to scan the QR code. From there, they can register for your event.
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