Planning a mission trip, no matter how far you're traveling, involves a lot of work! Use Registrations to help you manage the details by collecting information from trip participants, receiving payments, and much more. Follow these suggestions to get everything in order as you launch your trip.
After creating your signup, adjust the signup settings from the About and Settings tabs on the Configuration page. Pay close attention to the Settings tab, where you can adjust things like:
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Church Center availability
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Registrant options that determine what information is collected from the Registration Contact
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Allowed payment methods
Create selection types to collect attendee information. Consider who will be attending and create a selection for each group.
For example, create a selection for team leaders, adult participants, and student participants.
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Name your selections to help direct people who are registering.
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Add an overall mission trip cost (not including additional options) and set a minimum balance due.
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Use restrictions, such as age or grade, to guide people to choose the correct selection while registering.
Tip
Set age restrictions for adult and leader selection types to allow background checks to be run automatically through Automations.
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If your trip has a capacity, set the maximum per selection or overall capacity.
Note
Price changes can be common when planning a mission trip. Maybe flight prices increase before you're ready to purchase, and the total cost needs to increase. When this happens, follow the change a selection's price guide to update the cost for those already registered.
Add-Ons can be used to collect information about additional options, preferences, or extra costs from each trip participant.
Create an add-on for volunteering preferences, team t-shirt sizes, free-day activities, and more!
Collect additional information from those registering by creating questions.
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Use registration questions to collect information from the entire registration group.
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Use attendee questions or the Attendee Information Form to collect information from individual attendees.
Tip
Attendee questions are best for simple questions you'd like a response to immediately. Use the Attendee Information Form for questions that might take attendees longer to answer or when the answers can wait until after the initial registration is submitted.
From the Registration Questions tab, create questions that apply to the registration group as a whole. These questions will be answered once, no matter how many people are registering at one time.
From the Attendee Questions tab, create questions that apply to the individual attendees. Use the question settings to adjust who the questions apply to based on their selections. During the main registration workflow, these questions will be answered for each attendee.
From the Forms tab, create attendee-specific questions on the Attendee Information Form. This form can be used for application-type or long-form questions, as the form is sent after the initial registration process, and the 15-minute timer does not apply. Use the question settings to adjust who the questions apply to based on their selections.
The confirmation email received after a registration is submitted includes a link to the Attendee Information Form. Registrants can also access the form from the My Registrations tab of their profile on Church Center.
There may be instances where trip participants need to complete extra forms. For example:
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You are traveling with an outside organization, and they have release forms to complete.
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Your travel agent has traveler information forms needed to book travel.
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Your church has a child protection policy that every adult needs to fill out to participate.
In these scenarios, attach additional forms to your signup from the Forms tab. Forms can be created in People, PDFs that must be filled out and returned to the church, or externally to be completed online.
Note
People Forms are automatically marked as complete on a person's registration, but an admin must manually check off PDF and external forms.
Create discounts and scholarships to help manage the trip cost and organize any fundraising efforts.
Create a scholarship to track money collected for trip participants through fundraising. When money is received, add it to the scholarship total. At your discretion, distribute the raised money across the team by applying a payment to the trip participant's balance. This amount is deducted from the remaining scholarship balance on the Scholarship tab.
Payments made through Registrations cannot be tracked as deductible. Instead, create a fund in Giving and allow people to donate to the scholarship.
Important
If someone wants to apply donations directly to a specific trip participant's name, it cannot be tracked as tax-deductible. Please contact your finance team or tax advisor for more direction on this topic.
Create assignments to sort trip participants into groups. Use assignments to assign people to vehicles, travel groups, rooming assignments, or anything else helpful!
Take your signup even further by creating Automations that complete actions whenever someone registers for the mission trip!
For example, create an automation that adds people to a Group when registering. Use this group for your team training to help keep track of meetings, share resources, and chat with one another!
Tip
Use a list and Automation in People to order a background check for everyone who registers using an adult selection type.