Managing people and households

The community directory is where every person and family in your organization lives, and it's the foundation the rest of Forge connects to. This article covers adding people, grouping them into households, finding them, and bringing in records you already have.

The community directory

The directory holds a profile for each person, with their contact details, roles, and history in one place. You can view it as a sortable list, as visual cards with photos, or, when addresses are available, on a map.

Each profile is organized into sections so you can find what you need:

Adding a person

1. Open the Community directory.
2. Click Add Person.
3. Enter the first and last name (the only required fields).
4. Add contact information such as email, phone, and address.
5. Assign one or more roles: member, donor, volunteer, or staff.
6. Optionally assign the person to a household.
7. Click Save.

A person can hold more than one role at a time. Someone can be a member, a donor, and a volunteer all at once, and Forge keeps that single record connected across modules.

Working with households

Households group related people into a family unit. They share an address, can receive combined giving statements, and can be messaged together.

Common household actions include:

• Create a household and add existing people or new ones.
• Move a member to a different household.
• Split a household into separate units.
• Merge two households that turned out to be duplicates.
• Generate a combined statement for the household.

To create one, open the directory, choose New Household, name it (usually the family surname), add a primary address, and search for the members to include. You can designate a head of household if you like.

Finding people

The directory is built for quick lookup.

• Search across name, email, and phone.
• Filter by role, status (active or inactive), group membership, or engagement level.
• Save a filter combination as a segment to reuse later.

Segments are useful for outreach and reporting. For example, you might save "active volunteers" or "members who haven't attended recently" and return to that group whenever you need it.

Bulk actions

When you select multiple people, you can act on them together:

• Send a bulk email.
• Export the selection to CSV.
• Add tags to many records at once.
• Update status in bulk.

Importing your data

If you're coming from spreadsheets or another church management tool, you can import people, households, and giving history rather than re-entering them. This is the fastest way to get a new directory populated.

Tips

• Set up households early. Many features, including combined statements and family messaging, build on them.
• Use tags and saved segments instead of memorizing who belongs to what.
• Privacy settings let you protect sensitive pastoral data while keeping general directory info accessible.

Common questions

Can one person be in more than one role? Yes. Roles are additive, so a single record can be a member, donor, volunteer, and staff member at the same time.

What if I have duplicate households? Use the merge action to combine them into one.

Do I have to enter everyone by hand? No. Import from CSV or another tool to bring records in at once.

Was this helpful, or missing something? Let us know.