Fitting the pipeline to your church

GiftWell does not know your church until you tell it. The demo shows a generic church with Attend, Connect, Serve and Train, and roles like Small group leader. None of that is meant to stay as it is. This page walks through making it yours, in the order most churches find easiest.

If the words are new, read Pipeline, track, stage, step and role first. It takes two minutes.

Start with what you already do

You already have a path, even if nobody has written it down. Take a sheet of paper and list what someone actually does between their first Sunday and leading something. For most churches it looks something like this:

What you already do	Stage it sits in	Track it grows
Fills in a connect card	Attend	Belong
Goes to a newcomers' lunch or Starting Point	Connect	Belong
Joins a small group	Connect	Belong
Gets baptised, or finishes the membership class	Connect	Become
Meets regularly with someone older in faith	Serve	Become
Joins a serving team	Serve	Belong
Takes the gifts assessment	Serve	Lead
Walks with someone newer in faith	Train	Lead
Co-leads a group, or leads a team	Train	Lead

The middle column is when in someone's life it usually happens. The right column is what it grows: are they more connected, more formed, or more able to lead? A step answers both.

Two rules help:

• Keep each stage short. A stage holds at most twelve steps and practices, and most churches need three or four. If you have twelve, some of them are classes inside one step.
• One step, one track. If a step seems to grow two things, pick the one you would worry about if it were missing. Baptism is usually Become; joining a group is usually Belong.

Put it in under Settings → Pathway. Drag each step to its stage, open it to pick its track, and press Save as a new version. If your church has an AI key, Start from your own words drafts it from your membership class outline or a page on your website. See Editing your pathway.

Name the tracks in your words

Belong, Become and Lead are only defaults. If your staff say "assimilation, discipleship and leadership", or "Connect, Grow, Go", use that. An admin renames the tracks from the Tracks page, and the new names are used everywhere: the funnels, each person's page, My GiftWell, roles and Planning Center fields.

Change the question each track asks too. "Are they plugged in?" might read better at your church as "Do they have friends here?"

Add the one role you most need

Do not add every role on day one. Add the one you talk about most in staff meetings. For most churches that is small group leader, kids volunteer or a serving team lead.

1. Open Pipeline → Roles and press Add a role. Pick the closest starter or Start from nothing.
2. Set how many you need. Be honest: the number you would have if you could. Without a number, the role is listed but never counted as short.
3. Say who holds it now. Point it at Planning Center (everyone who leads a group, a Services team, a position) or add holders by hand.
4. Say what it asks. Choose two or three requirements GiftWell can check, such as "At Serve or beyond" and "Has served 6 months". Resist adding more: every one you add makes the Ready list shorter.
5. Speak to character for the people you already know. On the role page, press I can say character next to anyone you would vouch for. A new role usually has nobody Ready until someone does this.

When the first role is working, add the next. Seed and Small keep one role, Growing keeps five, and Large has no limit.

What we need

What we need is the list of roles at the top of the Roles page, and the short version on the Overview. People often ask whether it is automatic. Part of it is, part of it is not:

	Who decides it
Which roles are listed	You. GiftWell never invents a role. Every row is one someone on your team added on Pipeline → Roles.
The order on the Roles page	A to Z by name.
The three on the Overview	Worked out: the three roles furthest below the target you set. A role with no target, or already at it, does not appear there.
How many hold it	Planning Center, if you pointed the role at it, plus anyone you added by hand.
The target	You.
Who is Ready or Growing	Worked out each time you open the page, from the role's requirements and the qualities your team has spoken to.

So yes, you can add a role by hand at any time. And if something you need is missing from the list, it is because nobody has added it yet.

A weekly rhythm

GiftWell works best as fifteen minutes in a staff meeting you already have. A rhythm that works:

1. Open the Overview together. Look at the three roles shortest of their target.
2. Pick one. Open it and go to Ready, then Growing.
3. For each name, ask "who knows them?" Press Who knows them? and decide who will have a conversation this week. Nobody is asked twice: the Asked tab shows who has already been asked, by whom.
4. Look at one track. Open Tracks and find the step that says Stuck or Slowing. The faces at the end of that bar are the people who have been quiet longest. Pick one or two to follow up.
5. Before next week, speak to character, chemistry or calling for anyone you know well enough to.

Nothing on these pages is shown to the people on them. The conversation is still yours to have.

Your first four weeks

• Week one. Write down your path and put it in Settings → Pathway. Rename the tracks if you want to.
• Week two. Add your one role, with a target, its holders and two or three requirements. Speak to character for the people you already know.
• Week three. Run the weekly rhythm above for the first time. Expect the Ready list to be short. Growing is where the conversations are.
• Week four. Look at one person's page with someone who knows them. Under Next steps, you will see where they are on each track and the one step that comes next. Decide together whether that step is right for them, or whether your pathway needs a different one.

By church size

• Under 150. One role is enough. You probably know everyone on the Ready list already, so the value is in Growing: the people one step away whom nobody has asked.
• 150 to 500. Two to five roles, usually one per ministry area, such as group leader, kids volunteer and guest host. Ministry leaders see roles marked Leaders and pastors, so they can work their own lists.
• Over 500. Roles for every ministry, pastors-only roles for elders or deacons, and Planning Center lists and workflows as requirements, so a membership class or a background check counts without anyone typing it in.

Common questions

Does GiftWell decide who is ready? It checks what it can see: stage, gifts, months served, a background check. It never decides character, chemistry or calling. Someone on your staff says those, by name.

Can I change the order of What we need? The Roles page is A to Z so you can find a role. The Overview orders by how far short each one is, because that is the question it answers. Set a target to bring a role there.

Why is my Ready list empty? Usually because nobody has spoken to a quality yet. Open the role and press I can say character for the people you know. See What a role asks.

What if our path is not linear? It rarely is. A person has one stage but a next step in each track, so someone serving on a team who has never been in a group still shows a Belong step to take. That is why the tracks cross the stages rather than following them.

Will people see that they are "stuck"? No. In My GiftWell a person sees their own next step in each track, in your words, and nothing else.

Where to go next

Set up your first role on Roles. Then see where people are on Tracks.