CHUMS
Church management software
Church software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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What is CHUMS
CHUMS is a church management system used to track member and family records, attendance, contributions, and involvement. It supports administrative workflows such as directory management, reporting, and communications lists for churches and ministries. The product is typically used by church office staff and volunteers who manage congregational data and giving records. Deployments vary by organization, with functionality centered on core ChMS database and reporting needs.
Core member and family database
CHUMS focuses on maintaining household and individual profiles, including contact details and participation history. This supports common church-office tasks such as directories, labels, and segmented lists. For churches that primarily need a central record system, this aligns with the core requirements of a ChMS. The data model is oriented around congregational relationships rather than generic CRM objects.
Contribution and giving tracking
The system supports recording and reporting of donations and contribution statements. This helps churches manage year-end giving summaries and routine reconciliation workflows. Contribution reporting is a baseline requirement in this category, and CHUMS is positioned around those administrative needs. It can reduce reliance on spreadsheets for donation history.
Operational reporting for staff
CHUMS provides reporting outputs commonly used by church administrators, such as attendance summaries and member lists. These reports support recurring operational tasks (board reporting, ministry rosters, and follow-up lists). In practice, this can simplify internal visibility compared with maintaining separate tools for each function. The reporting emphasis fits churches that prioritize back-office administration.
Limited public integration clarity
Compared with many modern church platforms, publicly documented integrations and APIs for CHUMS are not consistently easy to verify. This can make it harder to connect with online giving, texting, streaming, or accounting tools without custom work. Churches that expect plug-and-play connections may need additional evaluation. Integration constraints can also affect data portability over time.
Less emphasis on engagement tools
CHUMS appears centered on administrative recordkeeping rather than built-in member engagement features like mass texting, app-based messaging, or digital forms. Organizations that want communications and engagement in the same system may need separate products. This can increase total cost and operational complexity. It also introduces the need for duplicate data entry or periodic imports.
Unclear deployment and roadmap details
Publicly available information about hosting options, security posture, and product roadmap is not consistently verifiable from a single authoritative source. For churches with formal IT governance, this can slow procurement and risk assessment. It may also complicate comparisons against vendors that publish detailed compliance and uptime information. Buyers may need direct vendor confirmation for requirements such as SSO, backups, and audit logs.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Completely free / Open-source Free plan/trial: Core platform is 100% free forever (no paid tiers) Example costs: None (no subscription or per-user pricing listed on official site) Notes: CHUMS is developed and maintained by ChurchApps (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit). The platform is open-source and hosted free of charge; churches may optionally donate or partner to support the project.
