Leading a CRM Migration: Pushpay to PlanningCenter

Problem

Our organization was paying for multiple disconnected tools to manage volunteers, donor relationships, and check-in, none of which had been configured to fit our actual workflows. A part-time admin assistant was manually managing an 85-person volunteer team, resulting in roughly 10 hours per week of administrative overhead, and our data was fragmented across systems with no single source of truth.

Action

As Product Owner, I led the transition from Pushpay to PlanningCenter as our unified CRM, owning the roadmap, coordinating planning sessions across departments, and clearing blockers including a complex data migration. I established Agile and Scrum practices across the team, coaching staff on ticket hygiene, sprint discipline, and definitions of ready and done, and facilitated async standups and retrospectives to keep delivery moving without adding meeting overhead. I'm now leading the continued rollout of PlanningCenter's broader product suite, including Check-In, Services, and Groups, alongside configuring the system to automate volunteer scheduling with self-service tools for team leads.

Result (so far)

The migration eliminated fragmented, duplicate data across systems and gave the organization a single source of truth for people, giving, and scheduling. Volunteer scheduling automation has already cut administrative labor by 9 hours per week, and the platform has seen over 90% user adoption while reducing operational costs. The Check-In, Services, and Groups rollout is ongoing, with a ChurchCenter mobile app launch planned for Fall 2026.

Highlights

Owning end-to-end CRM migration and data transition, including roadmap development and cross-department coordination
Established Scrum practices (async standups, retrospectives, ticket hygiene, definitions of ready/done) across a cross-functional team
Leading multi-product rollout (Check-In, Services, Groups) alongside the core CRM transition, with mobile app launch planned for Fall 2026
Configured and automated volunteer scheduling, reducing admin labor by 9 hours/week