.. done

Ministry Records
----------------
We recommend that you create people records for the various ministries
of your church for the purpose of emailing via TouchPoint on behalf of that record
when sending newsletters or other informational types of emails,
instead of emailing those from an individual staff member.

.. admonition:: Use Case

    Your Next Gen ministry emails a weekly newsletter to parents and students,
    and you would like for it to come from the Next Gen email address that your
    IT department created for them. Example: NextGen@MyChurch.org
    When recipients see that email address they instantly know the email will be
    related to the Next Gen ministry.

Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In order to be able to send emails from a ministry via TouchPoint,
you need to do the following:

-  Create a people record for the ministry in your TouchPoint database.
   The first name should be the name of the ministry itself (Next Gen or Preschool)
   and Ministry can be the last name.
-  Have your IT department create an email address for the ministry.
-  Make sure a staff member has access to the inbox for that email address,
   so it is monitored, in case people reply to your emails.
-  Enter that email address as the Primary Email address
   on the new record and flag it as Active.
-  Create a User Account for the record
   and assign the role Access.
-  Using the User Email Delegation process
   assign one or more staff users the ability to
   email on behalf of the ministry.

.. note::
    The last 2 bullet points above must be performed by the the
    System Admin user.

.. seealso::
    - :doc:`../Administration/Roles_Index`
    - :doc:`../EmailTexting/UsersCanEmailFor`

Benefits of Using Ministry Records for Emailing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are several benefits of sending newsletters and other emails from a ministry
instead of from an individual staff member.

#. Instant recognition of the sender by the recipient.
   When he sees NextGen@MyChurch.org,
   he knows the email is about that ministry.
#. Ministry names will stay basically the same,
   whereas staff members may come and go.
#. If a recipient unsubscribes from one of these emails
   he is unsubscribing from the ministry email address
   and not from an individual staff member.
   So, he will still receive emails from your staff.

.. seealso::
    :doc:`../EmailTexting/Unsubscribe`

Tips Regarding Ministry Records
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#. If your church has Add Person turned off on the home page,
   which requires you to add new records in context,
   just add the first ministry record to your family.
   Then split it into a new family.
#. Add any other ministry records to the new family you created,
   so they are easy to manage.
#. Use the address for the church or omit an address altogether.
#. Use Unknown for the Gender and Marital Status for each record.
#. Make one of the ministry records a Primary Adult and
   make all of the others Secondary Adults.

.. seealso::
    :doc:`NewFamilyMember`