ChMS selection goals

As we go through our NextGen ChMS project, I find myself torn by the competing demands of multiple important goals:

1. Speak openly and candidly about my thoughts on ChMS (church management systems) in an effort to help my fellow church IT leaders and the ChMS suppliers.
2. Build up the competing suppliers, treat all of them with respect, and ultimately bless them whether or not they sell us anything.
3. Thoroughly examine and give careful consideration to each of the suppliers on our short list.
4. Avoid wasting anyone’s time, insofar as that is possible.
5. Ensure that our user community doesn’t lose any important functionality they now rely upon in Shelby V5 Church.
6. Achieve executive management’s desired result – to greatly improve our ability to track interactions with congregants (CRM-type functionality) and to provide better reporting/graphing for decision support (management dashboard).
7. Obtain as much “wish list” functionality as possible.
8. Stay within my established budget and time line.
   
9. Select a great company with great technology, products, and support that we can stick with for the next 5-10 years.

There! What’s so difficult about that???