Frequently asked questions

These answers are written to stay true as the app is finished. Step-by-step “how do I click through X” answers will be added once the interface is final.

About the product

What is Volunteer Circle? A volunteer management platform for churches that helps leaders care for, communicate with, and train their volunteers. See What is Volunteer Circle?.

How is it different from our church management system (ChMS)? Most ChMS tools focus on the database and scheduling. Volunteer Circle focuses on the relational and developmental work they don’t do well — noticing who needs care, reaching out, and training volunteers. It’s meant to sit alongside your ChMS, not replace it. It can even import your people and teams from your ChMS so you don’t start from scratch.

Does Volunteer Circle do scheduling? Not in the first version, and that’s deliberate — nearly every ChMS already does scheduling well, and it isn’t where leaders are stuck. Volunteer Circle concentrates on care, communication, and training. Scheduling may be considered in a much later version.

Is there a mobile app? Yes. Leaders and admins get the full product on both web and mobile — full management on either. Volunteers use the mobile app for their own focused experience. Everyone shares one login.

Can volunteers use the web version? In the first version, volunteers use the mobile app; the web product is for leaders and admins. Leaders and admins can do everything on mobile too.

Signing in

Can I sign in with Google or Apple? Yes, on the web app and installed PWA — use Continue with Google or Continue with Apple on the sign-in screen, alongside email and password. The one rule: the email on that Google/Apple account must match the email your church has for you, so it links to the right person. Social sign-in is also built into the mobile app. See Sign in with Google or Apple.

A sign-in button says it “isn’t set up yet” — what do I do? That provider just isn’t enabled yet. Use your email and password instead; that always works.

Roles & access

What are the roles? Church admin, team leader, and volunteer (plus a platform role our support team uses). See Roles explained.

Can a volunteer be a leader? Yes. Leadership access can be granted to anyone, not just paid staff. A trusted volunteer can lead and coach other volunteers.

Can one person have different roles on different teams? Yes. Roles attach to team memberships, so the same person can be a leader on one team and a volunteer on another with a single login.

Who can see care information about volunteers? Admins see all care data. Team leaders see and log care for their own team by default, and how much leaders can see is configurable by the admin. Care information is never shown to a volunteer about themselves.

People & onboarding

How do volunteers get into the system? Two ways. They can use your church’s join link (which creates a pending request an admin approves), or an admin/leader can add them directly (which invites them straight in). See How the join link works.

Can I import our existing volunteers? Yes. You can bring people in from your church management system (ChMS) — Planning Center, Church Community Builder, Breeze, and Rock RMS — or by CSV. You pick which groups/lists/tags to bring in and map each to a Volunteer Circle team; imported people arrive as pending for an admin to review. The import is one-way and read-only — Volunteer Circle reads your people; it never writes back to your ChMS. Start with How importing your people works, then the guide for your ChMS: Planning Center, CCB, Breeze, or Rock RMS.

Who sets up the ChMS connection — does it need our ChMS admin? Planning Center connects in one click with no setup. CCB, Breeze, and Rock need a read-only API key or user created in the ChMS, which usually means your ChMS administrator. Each connector guide has a section you can forward to them with exactly what to create and what to send back.

The same person got imported twice — can I fix it? Yes. Admins get a “Possible duplicates to review” panel on the People page that flags likely duplicates (same email, or same first and last name). You pick which record to keep and merge; all of the duplicate’s history — teams, training, care, messages, guardian links — moves onto the kept record, and the extra is archived. Merging can’t be undone from the app, so check your “keep” choice first. See Merging duplicate people.

Can volunteers edit their own information? This is an evolving area. The intent is to let churches choose how much volunteers can self-manage. Until that’s finalized, treat profile changes as something a leader or admin handles. (This answer will be updated when the setting ships.)

Care

What do the green, yellow, and red colors mean? They show how long it’s been since a volunteer was last contacted — green is recent, yellow means it’s been a while, red means too long. The thresholds are set per church (defaults are 20 and 30 days). See Understanding care prompts.

How does a contact get logged? Automatically when you reach out through the app, or manually when you record an in-person or outside conversation. Logging resets that person’s clock.

What does the AI do in care? It can draft a personalized message to a volunteer and suggest who’s overdue for a check-in. You always review and edit before sending — it’s a drafting aid, not an autopilot.

Communication

Who can see messages? Church admins can see all messages. This transparency is a deliberate, non-negotiable part of the platform. You can edit or delete a message from your own view, but the original is retained and remains visible to admins.

How does Volunteer Circle keep minors safe in messaging? Conversations involving a minor always require at least two adults to be present. This rule is enforced by the system, not left to anyone to remember.

Training

What can I build courses out of? Courses are organized as modules and lessons, and lessons can include video, audio, rich text, file downloads, and images. You can assign a course to a whole team or to individuals and track who has completed it.

Is there ready-made training, or do we build our own? Both. Volunteer Circle includes a starter library of platform courses, and churches on the right plan can author their own custom courses.

Plans & billing

How much does it cost? Pricing builds in three steps: Care (the base plan), Care + Communicate (adds messaging), and the full Care + Communicate + Train bundle (adds training). Each is priced by volunteer-count band, and founding churches get the full bundle at the Care + Communicate price, locked while they stay subscribed. Check the pricing page for current figures.

How do we pay? Through web checkout on our site, outside the app stores. You create the account on the web, check out, invite your team, and everyone logs into the apps.

Still stuck?

Ask the in-app assistant, or reach a human through the contact options on volunteercircle.com. If you’re a church admin and a teammate is blocked, check their role first — many “I can’t see X” questions come down to permissions (Roles explained).