Experience.FellowshipOne.com

I would like to know how others handle the following situation:

When a child comes to church with another family and is put under that family's household as a visitor, what seems to be the best way to obtain mailing/contact information on this visiting child?  We like to send out letters to the parents of all children with a new check in status. 

Also, is there a report that would list those families with visitors attached?  This would be helpful to go back and clean up the data.  Get their own contact information and set them up as thier own houshold.

Thanks! 

This is a common issue that is best handled by a process first and then the system.  The first thing that you need to consider is that you want to encourage families to bring the neighbor kids to church with them.  If you make the process of checking in a "One Time Visitor" difficult then families will not be excited about bringing guests.  The check in system was designed to make it as easy as possible to add one time (or the occasional) guest.  You could ask the family to write down some family information for their guest on a first time visitor card.  Being a parent that brings my children's friends to church with us I will have to say that this will not work.  I am lucky if I can get a date of birth out of the kids much less their parents names.  "UHHHH do you mean Mom?" "I just call her Mom" is what I get back.  Now of course this is dependent on the age of the children. 

So back to the process... get them checked in as quickly as possible.  With Jr High and High school kids you can get them to fill out a first time visitor card.  I have asked our reporting team to submit their report recommendation after I post this response.  Run that report and send the family that brought the child a thank you note as well as other information that they can give to the kids parents.  Let them continue on where they started and encourage them to invite the family to attend.

 I hope this helps. 

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager
 

I would recommend using report M1025E: Attendance Roster to pull up these 'Visitors'. I have included a screen shot of the 'Additional Filters' section of this report. Note that I used the Status of 'System - New Checkin' and the Household Member Type of 'Visitor'. This will pull the individuals that attended the selected activity that are First Time visitors under a different family.

Hi Jen,

At our church, we're trying to figure out the same thing.  We've tried some different things; this is what we are currently doing . . .

We add the child as a one time visitor at the check-in kiosk and have the parent bringing the child fill out a Guest Form.  Then Monday all age divisions give copies of Guest Forms to our church's Communications Assistant (CA) who sets those kids up as their own household (including parents if we have that info.)  Then the CA assigns them as contacts to the minister over that child's age division.  The CA makes an initial contact note that includes who the child visited with along with any other details from the Guest Form.   

The minister contacts the family the child came with if contact info for the child is missing.  The minister gives new info gained from the contact (like siblings names, etc.) to the CA who then enters that info. 

The EXCEPTION that we have encountered regarding setting first-time guests up as their own household is with relatives.  So, currently, we leave grandchildren, cousins, nieces, etc. under the household of the relative that originally brought them.  We are still trying to figure out the best way to handle those cases. 

I'm not convinced that this is the BEST system, but it's working for us right now.  Like you, we want to send mail to the child's address, not the family that brought them.  Our ministers also make a lot of home visits and therefore want the child's address. 

Emily

Hi Jen,

This is how our church currently handles that.  I'm not sure it's the best way, but it's working ok for us right now. 

The visiting child is assingned as a one-time visitor and the family bringing the child is asked to fill out at Guest Form for the child.  Then Monday, our church's Communications Assistant (CA) receives all those Guest Forms and sets up the visiting kids as their own household (with the parents info if it is on the Guest Form).  The CA makes an initial contact note that includes who the child visited with along with any other details from the Guest Form and then assigns the child as a contact to the appropriate age division minister.

The minister calls or visits the child and turns in new info (like siblings names, etc.) to the CA who then enters that info, too.  If contact info for the child is missing, the minister contacts the family who brought the child for that information, and again, turns any new info into the CA who enters it into F1. 

We have gone back and forth over how to handle relatives.  Currently we leave grandkids, nieces, etc under the household of the relative that originally brought them unless the child's immediate family is considered a prospect.  Relatives are kind of handled case by case right now. 

Our children's ministers are big on home visits, so they really like to have the child's address.  And they also want the child to receive mail at their own address.  So that is one reason we set them up as their own household.

Hope this is somewhat helpful.

Emily

IT KEPT TELLING ME "OOPS THERE WAS AN ERROR" WHEN I TRIED TO POST A RESPONSE. THAT'S THE REASON FOR THE SECOND POST.  JUST IGNORE IT.  I TRIED TO DELETE IT.