Donorbox + Planning Center: An Integration to Connect with Your Congregation

Donorbox + Planning Center helps churches take their church management to the next level. This integration saves you time by streamlining your process and allowing donation data to flow directly into your Planning Center account so you can see everything in one place. Read on to learn more about this exciting integration and how it can help grow your church’s giving!

5 minutes read
Donorbox + Planning Center: An Integration to Connect with Your Congregation

Church staff members work hard to support their ministries and they’re often stretched thin. On average, churches have only one full-time staff member per 75 worship attendees. 

Between planning services and other church gatherings, managing the books, sending out church newsletters, and raising the necessary funds to continue growing, your small staff does a lot! 

That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce you to Donorbox + Planning Center, a new native integration that combines our powerful fundraising platform with a strong church management system to streamline your workflow and help you increase your church donations. 

In this article, we’ll walk you through how this integration will benefit your church and provide a step-by-step guide to activating the Planning Center integration on your Donorbox account.


What is Planning Center?

Your church has a lot of moving parts. From in-person and hybrid services and meetings to classes, outreach, and community support, there is a lot of activity on the front end – which doesn’t even touch all the administrative tasks behind the scenes. That’s where church management systems can help. 

Planning Center is a church management system that offers a suite of tools designed specifically for churches. These tools help you manage your memberships, coordinate events, organize information, and create a more meaningful connection with your congregation. 

Planning Center’s tools are designed to work together and are entirely modular, so you can add what you need as you grow your church

The free plan includes access to People, Planning Center’s membership manager. From there, pricing depends on which of the following tools you’d like to add –

  • Calendar 
  • Check-ins (for child and volunteer attendance) 
  • Giving 
  • Groups 
  • Publishing (for web and app content)
  • Registrations (for events)
  • Services 
  • Music Stand 

Pricing increases incrementally depending on your needs, so this church management system can grow with you. Learn more about pricing here

Check out our list of the best church management software options to learn more.


The Benefits of Donorbox + Planning Center

Donorbox helps thousands of churches boost their fundraising through our dedicated pillar, Donorbox MinistryMomentum. These features include – 

  • Sleek and accessible donation forms that you can embed on your website or host on ours. Customize them to share your story and collect the donor information you need! 
  • Recurring donation functionality that lets donors log in at any time to update or cancel their recurring gifts – perfect for regular tithing. 
  • Cashless, in-person offerings with the Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app, which turns your tablet and card reader into a nimble donation kiosk. 
  • Easy repeat donations with QuickDonate™. Donors can simply log in to their donor portal and repeat donations with one click. 
  • Crowdfunding and Peer-to-Peer fundraising to harness the power of your congregation.
  • Event ticketing with Donorbox Events to diversify your revenue. 
  • More in-person giving options with Text-to-Give and automatically generated QR codes for every campaign. 

And more! 

With the Donorbox + Planning Center integration, the donor, campaign, and donation data you collect through Donorbox seamlessly flows into your Planning Center account. 

Within Planning Center, you can manage everything from your church’s calendar to your contacts. You can also use their tools to create content, plan out services, and even read music. This helps you stay on top of every little thing you need to do to create valuable services for your congregation while handling the nitty-gritty of growing your church – and ultimately reaching more people. 

The Donorbox + Planning Center integration allows you to collect and manage donations, contacts, and funds with ease so all your key data lives in one easy-to-access place.


How to Integrate Donorbox and Planning Center

Setting up your Donorbox + Planning Center integration is easy. And once it’s set up, your donor data will flow directly to your Planning Center account! Just follow these few steps –


1. Create a Donorbox account or log in 

If you don’t already have one, you’ll first need to create a Donorbox account. You can do this for free or sign up for a Pro or Premium plan to access even more features with lowered fees. The Planning Center integration is available for $50 a month. 

If you already have an account, you can click here to sign in!


2. Activate the integration in your Donorbox account 

Once you log in to your Donorbox account, find the “Add-ons and Integrations” menu on the left-hand side of your screen. Expand that menu and click “Planning Center.”

Click the “Activate Add-On Button.” 


 

3. Log in to Planning Center 

As soon as you enable the integration on Donorbox, you’ll be taken to the Planning Center login screen. Enter your credentials. 

If you don’t already have an account with Planning Center, creating one is your first step. It’s free to get started with their People tool. 

You can sign up for Planning Center here


 

4. Authorize data access 

After signing in, Planning Center will ask if you would like to access data from Donorbox in your People and Giving applications. Click “Allow.”


 

5. Enjoy your integration! 

You will be redirected to the Donorbox + Planning Center integration page which now shows that you have successfully integrated your Planning Center account with Donorbox.

That’s it! Once these steps are complete, data will start flowing from Donorbox to Planning Center. This data will include – 

  • Your Donorbox supporters, which are transferred to your Contacts/People on Planning Center 
  • Your Donorbox donations, which flow into your Giving tools on Planning Center 
  • Your Donorbox campaigns, which are transferred to Funds on Planning Center 

Any errors that occur during the sync will also be logged in Donorbox on the Planning Center integration page. 

With all this data in one place, your team will be empowered to track important insights to help your church grow.


Standard Mappings

This native integration takes care of all required mappings for you, including Donorbox campaigns, donations, supporters, and recurring donations. The integration automatically maps this data into Planning Center’s Donation, Person, and Fund objects. Standard mappings can be seen below:

Donation:

Donorbox Donation FieldPlanning Center Donation Field
AmountAmount
Donation TypePayment Method
Processign FeeFee

Person:

Donorbox Donor FieldPlanning Center Person Field
First NameFirst Name
Last NameLast Name
EmailEmail
Phone NumberPhone Number
City City
StateState
Zip CodeZip
AddressStreet
CountryLocation

Fund:

Donorbox Campaign FieldPlanning Center Fund Field
Campaign NameCampaign Name
DescriptionDescription

Additional Mappings

This integration automatically maps your existing Donorbox campaigns to the Planning Center funds with the same name. You can also manually map your campaigns by clicking the edit button if you don’t want to use the default mappings.

Additional custom questions can now also be mapped to Planning Center fields. A dedicated section has been added to the campaign mapping page, allowing users to easily map and update these questions for each Donorbox campaign.

 


Over to You 

If your staff is feeling the pressure of running every aspect of your church, it’s time to figure out the best way to streamline their work – while raising more money to support your important programming. 

The Donorbox + Planning Center integration connects two powerful platforms that help churches grow. Donorbox is your one-stop-shop for all things church fundraising with our dedicated pillar, Donorbox MinistryMomentum. We have the tools you need to bring in more money for your church and the resources to help you work smarter, not harder. Planning Center helps you get your church organized so you can do more for your congregation. 

For more church fundraising tips, check out the church section on our Nonprofit Blog. We also have church-related resources available for free download in our Library. Subscribe to our newsletter for curated fundraising tips delivered straight to your inbox every month!

Lindsey Baker

Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.

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