# ShelbyNext Websites Reviews **Vendor:** Ministry Brands Holding **Category:** [Church Website Builder Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/church-website-builder) **Average Rating:** 3.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 18 ## About ShelbyNext Websites ShelbyNext Membership is a church management software that offers solutions in member and donor management ## ShelbyNext Websites Reviews ### 1. Year in thru installation and pulled the plug **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeffrey G. | Comptroller, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 08, 2021 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** cloud based. Had everything we were looking for: membership, financial, giving, online and text giving. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** The entire thing. Spent a year looking at different ChMS and ShelbyNext hit all of our requirements. But after spending 6 months plus trying to implement, the decision was made to pull the plug. Membership was huge selling point, but didnt have a good reconconcialtion/reporting to make sure we filled out all forms. And financials didnt talk to membership..and I dont even want to get into their giving solution. I really hope the make improvements as it was not what ministry brands should have as their go-to-market solution. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** look elsewhere **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Nothing as we didnt implement it after 6+ months. ### 2. ShelbyNext brings next-gen accesibility and control to complex database management **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephen W. | Pastor for Connections and Outreach, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2021 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** The ability to access all my data on any device, anywhere **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Some functions are limited on some devices. ShelbyNext is great on mobile devices, but it really shines on a computer. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** Do your homework. Compare it against other ChMS systems. You'll ultimately choose ShelbyNext. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Management of a lot of constantly changing data. Data is entered by a number of different people, and accessed by both staff and volunteers. In addition, for the first time, Members are able to enter their own information. It is a complex dance. ShelbyNext handles it beautifully. ### 3. ShelbyNext | Membership Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jason P. | Associate Pastor of Administration, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 31, 2020 ### 4. Arena - A Helpful Database for Connecting **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Grace S. | Grace Sincock, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 23, 2019 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena has been instrumental in connecting to our congregation, tracking serving and small group involvement, and following up with people for countless reasons! Arena's profiles for individuals are extremely helpful and clear. I have to train many employees on this program and it is very user friendly and easily understood for use. I also have found great value in the attendance tracking, report building, and data inputting. It is easy to edit, mark notes, input dates, etc. If you are looking for a data system, I highly recommend Arena! They also have helpful support and conferences where you can really dig deep into the depths of use of the program. There is great potential in this program! **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** While sections of Arena are very user friendly, there are some 'attributes' of the program we have found unhelpful so we simply do not utilize every aspect. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** If you are looking for a place to track members, attendees, prospects to an organization I highly recommend! It is easy to learn, use and teach! It also has a great support staff at the corporate level with helpful training on-site or over the phone. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to follow up with individuals who are not connected and it has been so helpful! We could not do it without Arena! We are benefitted with following up with people who do not attend through reports. We are benefitted with knowing who is in a LIFE Group and who is NOT so we can follow up! We are benefitted with knowing who is currently serving and in what category and what that involvement entails. We are benefitted with marking who is "interested" in activities, events, small groups which then allow for reports and reminders to follow up with these individuals and get them plugged in! ### 5. Shelby Membership **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 07, 2020 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** I like the ability to create a registration form for events **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** I don't like the fact that the system doesn't keep track of the number of times and dates of visitors. In fact, that has made my job cumbersome. I have created a spreadsheet on which I keep the visitors, dates visited, family members, address, phone and email on. It would be much more simple if I could put all of that in the system without going over our maximum number allotted for our Shelby plan that we have purchased. It's also not clear (maybe that is just me) about how to run specific reports. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Haven't contacted them. ### 6. Arena - A Better Database **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Religious Institutions | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2019 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena’s system for managing volunteers, keeping tabs on church members, and organizing teams is very efficient and more useful than my old Excel spreadsheets. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** I’m not overly thrilled with the fact that Arena works best on Internet Explorer, since I use Chrome to access it, often on a Chromebook or iPad. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** N/A **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mass email is much easier through Arena and it simplifies my communications with various serving teams. ### 7. Still learning the ropes **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Roger V. | Lead Pastor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 15, 2019 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** It connects with our financial system and it offers an iinhouse photo directory. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** The learning curve is somewhat steep, but the support is helping with this. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Organizing our membership at the church. Having access to their contact info via the app is crucial and time saving. ### 8. Use Shelby Arena **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pablo M. | Gerente asistente, Internet, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 02, 2018 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** It appears to be unordinary Arena would give you so much customizing opportunity. You can thoroughly switch up the look, route, fields, alternatives, reports, and so forth to extremely meet your requirements or make it less demanding for your staff to complete things. We're using Arena to cross-reference information and computerize to streamline procedures and help individuals making meaningful associations. For instance, we just began using an Arena driven process where supplication demands are doled out to senior citizens. A calculation (worked with SQL and the Holy Spirit) is utilized to pick the best association. Instead of an overwhelming rundown of all petition demands, Arena sends an email to every senior every week with only a couple of solicitations so they can make more close to home associations and they development and ask with individuals. I hear the senior citizens adore it. Gracious, in light of the ongoing audit, 'Arena check-in system for kids church': Check-in is one little piece of the colossal program. I would not propose Arena only for check-in. However, it's check-in is very adjustable with some effort. That adaptability accompanies a measure of many-sided quality which takes some training, and on the off chance that you don't have the assets to make the coveted customization, there are organizations out there that can help. The benevolent folks at Arena can help associate you up. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** The best piece of Arena is additionally its hardest part - its capacity to be altered. Each occasion of Arena is one of a kind. It takes a great deal of work to move in and get services set to work productively. It takes a solid lead individual to have a dream that gets the entire staff cooperating and moving a similar way. Services are frequently used to working in disengagement from each other. On the off chance that they don't figure out how to institutionalize the manner in which they work so the entire association works a similar way, everybody comes up short. Following heading of the mentors is fundamental! Mistaken set up of check in, amass structure, and so on causes gigantic cerebral pains and sits idle. Without a very much created technique for setting up Arena it doesn't work. Solid direction is required for effective set up. Speaking with PARENTS (or split families) of understudies who are associated with gatherings or labels isn't powerful. Custom methods are expected to do this effortlessly. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** You only need any smart device with a network connection. Use it !!! **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Working with a typical reason in general staff. Subsequent to getting the greater part of the services working with a shared objective and brought together procedures work turned out to be more effective and reasonable to staff individuals. It genuinely encourages us work to help God's work in our reality. ### 9. Some hits, a bunch of misses **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jon A. | Communications Director, Religious Institutions, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 28, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Out of the box, it includes a lot of features that are at the core of what a church might need. People database, giving reports, attendance reports, etc. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena is a rarely updated piece of software that has bugs and fixes that don't work. Their API is non-existent and when there is something that says an API exists, only exists between Shelby Systems products. Most developers in today's markets understand that when they offer an API, it should work cross product and with different vendors. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** I would highly recommend evaluating what you need and not be sold on what potential is communicated. Depending on which level of your contract, and if you have a developer on staff, it can be a decent product. I would also evaluate ROCK CMS and Breeze CMS. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are tracking attendance, giving, sending bulk emails (50-250 email addresses), reports for attendee research, forms for attendees to fill out that tie back to their personal or family account and intercompany common files that get updated weekly (budgets, year to date attendance reports per location). ### 10. Gets the Job Done **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joel W. | External Communications Generalist/Project Manager, Religious Institutions, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** The interface is pretty streamlined, but also offers a number of customization options based on our/your specific needs. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** It can be challenging to get Arena to work with other systems and processes, but that could just be user error. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** Shelby Arena has a lot of flexibility, so depending on your tier you can get a lot done. We utilize Arena for a wide range of purposes, for a larger church it's a must have in order to ensure you're building relationship with all your attenders. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** We're utilizing Arena to help us track attendance, pastoral care and a variety of other needs ### 11. Arena is a good but not great asset and membership management tool. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris N. | Worship Pastor, Religious Institutions, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** I like that it is web based, has easy search functions, and can produce pretty helpful and important reports if you take the time to figure out how to do the reports and get the right settings to make them bring up the information you really wanted. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** I dislike that it isn't very intuitive for what you are wanting to do most often. For anything beyond basic searches and reports it makes you dig really deep in to the program and usually consult a help book or article just to figure out how to make it work. It also just doesn't have all the features we would like that comparable products do have. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** I would really recommend this for smaller churches that are looking for a all encompassing asset and membership management solution. For any churches that really use statistical data fairly often to drive their decisions or that would like to have better ways to integrate with sign-in's and sign-up's I would recommend looking for a different product. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to track our financials pretty well with this which helps us budget well. It also helps us to track our people and where they are plugged in so we can follow up with them when needed. ### 12. Great for tracking your Members **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Religious Institutions | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** It's really great as a database! It works really well-keeping track of all the people that go to your church. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** I don't like the look. Also, the way that it works with the children's check-in system. It doesn't talk well to other programs as well. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** It's good for keeping track of your members. I would try implementing a lot for your children's ministry. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing church members. ### 13. Mediocre CRM **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Executive Office | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2018 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Shelby has great tools/parameters to search clients. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Shelby is inaccurate when scanning and importing important documents. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Shelby Arena allows centralized use for all departments. ### 14. It does the task, but that's about it... **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 07, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena is a very capable tool, allowing you to do just about anything you can think of. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** With so many features, the learning curve is very high. It's also not a very "pretty" or user-friendly tool to use. Could certainly use a refresh! **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Arena allowed us to manage everything at our church, from donations, to kids check-in, to our website. ### 15. Helpful to manage information, but sometimes difficult to navigate **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Religious Institutions | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2017 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Organizing lists, storing information and data **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Can be difficult to navigate, not easy to figure out on your own (always had to ask our person on staff who knew it well for help/support) **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating distribution lists ### 16. Great utility, Weak asthetics **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Julia S. | Administrative Assistant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2016 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Shelby Arena happens to be one of the only programs out there that allows you to keep extensive records of financial donations and giving, along with records for those giving financial contributions. The book keeping system allows you to keep a database and give specific qualifiers to individual organizations or people so you can pull multiple and specified spread sheets. Shelby also allows you to create comma delimitated files to create spread sheets, is great with imports and exports, and allows you to import checks where the system will recognize account numbers and save them to specific names. Shelby also assigns you a personal IT associate to work along side you and your business, and set up your system to accommodate your business needs. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Shelby still looks like a 90's Microsoft Office product. While the program is the most effective bookkeeping product for non-profits who need to keep precise records for donations and income allocation, it is not easy to use. While most of the common functions including pulling statements, updating records, and making deposits, are relatively simple, setting up details to pull specific reports is difficult and often requires IT help. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** This is a great product if your work requires precise financial records, as well as extensive data bases of both donors and individuals who interact or are associated with your business. Shelby has also integrated many contemporary online giving products and is able to take in an import and recognize donors and their designated allocations. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** Shelby is pretty limitless when it comes to it's ability to create different types of reports, you just have to know how to build those reports and set the outliers. Once you know how to use the program Shelby can create a spreadsheet to include any information that you have put into the system instead of having to hand document and maintain many different spreadsheets. It is also extremely convenient that the records of individuals are linked to the giving documentation, but can also be used separately. ### 17. Powerful Tool **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Religious Institutions | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 27, 2016 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena can track anything you need, with ultimate reporting capabilities. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Arena is very powerful. If you need basic tracking, it is too much. Additionally, you must be able to write SQL code in order to customize it in anyway. **Recommendations to others considering ShelbyNext Websites:** Go to the annual Shelby Conference and learn all you can about the product from other churches using it before buying. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to track trends in attendance and follow up with missing people. ### 18. Does 80% of 80% of what we need it to do **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 31, 2015 **What do you like best about ShelbyNext Websites?** Good database to keep basic information for people. easy to use. **What do you dislike about ShelbyNext Websites?** Doesn't send text messages, which would be huge. Also would be helpful to integrate a better record keeping like a CRM or allow for automation. **What problems is ShelbyNext Websites solving and how is that benefiting you?** keeping records. ## ShelbyNext Websites Discussions - [What is the domain for ShelbyNext?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-domain-for-shelbynext) - 1 comment - [How much does ShelbyNext cost?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/shelbynext-how-much-does-shelbynext-cost) - 1 comment - [View ShelbyNext Websites pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/shelbynext-websites/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-17+00%3A43%3A29+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=2db9673e-5ea1-49e2-9eee-76a35ab3e87e&secure%5Btoken%5D=8ace64e263b9d7c0b9882a977501a73b84b842185ceefd8d961bd9267cabdb1f&format=llm_user) ## ShelbyNext Websites Features **Administration** - User Dashboard - Donor Profiles - Reporting - Templates - Customization **Platform Customizations** - Templates - Drag and Drop - HTML Input - Domain Name **Donor Management** - Moves Management - Pledge Tracking - E-Document Storage - Acknowledgments & Communications **Platform Content** - Communication Integrations - Content Management - Church Specific Content - Permissions **Interoperability** - Event Tracking - Gift Tracking - Fund Accounting **Platform Support** - Customer Support ## Top ShelbyNext Websites Alternatives - [NetSuite](https://www.g2.com/products/netsuite/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (4,608 reviews) - [Bloomerang CRM](https://www.g2.com/products/bloomerang-crm/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (875 reviews) - [Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-raiser-s-edge-nxt/reviews) - 3.9/5.0 (619 reviews)