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⛪️ Adding, Building, & Managing Your Church's Response Teams

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CarePortal Training
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Estimated read time: 14 minutes

Overview

This article walks you through what a CarePortal Response Team is, why they are important, practical ways to recruit, train, and manage your teams, as well as the technical steps to create and build your team in the CarePortal platform.

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What is a Response Team?

Response Teams are a feature in CarePortal that enables Churches to organize and build teams of responders. Response Teams can help Churches create greater impact in their communities by having more options for people within the Church to rally together to respond to requests. Having multiple Response Teams not only improves response rates but also minimizes turnover and burnout. Although building these teams may require some effort, it sets the stage for sustained, meaningful engagement by your Church.

Response Teams are the primary vehicles that Churches have to create meaningful connections. Team Leaders have the incredible opportunity and responsibility to help prepare, train, and debrief their responders as they meet local needs together.

Benefits of Response Teams

There are many benefits to having Response Teams, including (but not limited to):

  • Increased impact: More responders, more responses, more kids served!
  • Decreased burnout and bottlenecks: More responders help diversify the work across more people and teams. This prevents any one person or a few people from becoming burnt out.
  • Lasting meaningful connections: more responders, more possibilities for lasting connections!
  • Leadership development: Response Teams create a unique opportunity to build up and raise up leaders who can become Response Team Leaders.
  • Discipleship process: Having Response Teams allows hands-on discipleship opportunities as responders meet requests and Team Leaders come alongside to offer support and discipleship.
  • Larger community influence: More members of the Church with training to engage trauma and poverty within your community

Responder types in a Response Team

Resource Responder

  • Default type for all responders
  • Respond to requests by offering items or help, but do not connect directly with the family
  • Their Provided responses must be approved by a Team Leader before they appear in the request's Activity Feed.
  • Team Leaders coordinate the approved responses and communicate with the request submitter

Relational Responder

  • Assigned manually by Church and Team Leaders
  • Have appropriate training and are considered ready to serve at the Point of Care
  • Respond to requests by offering items or help, and connect directly with the request submitter and family
  • Provided responses do not require approval unless their Response Team has the Manually Approve All Provided Responses setting (formerly known as Respond to Team Leader) turned on
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Best Practice: A Resource Responder can still join a delivery or meet-up when a Relational Responder or a Church/Team Leader is taking the lead on the request. This helps your team serve together while keeping the right level of oversight and connection.

Recruiting Response Teams

Each Church will have a different posture when it comes to best practices for recruiting Response Team members, based on its own ministry and process. It can be helpful to think through how your Church already asks people to be a part of things. Here are some additional suggestions:

  • Ask people directly
  • Ask through ministry groups
  • Ask through digital media
  • Ask from the pulpit

Your Local Network Leader will be the best guide to equip you and direct you to the available resources.

Managing your Response Teams

Preparation

There is an incredible opportunity when new responders join a team or a completely new team is formed to learn best practices on creating meaningful connections. It is vital to always remember that the child is our why. CarePortal does not exist as a delivery tool but rather as a facilitator tool to create and help sustain meaningful connections through the means of meeting tangible needs.

A Response Team's primary function is not just to meet physical (Tier 1 - Tangible) needs, but also to create connections where relationships can be built, spiritual healing can take place, and hopefully, where the most vulnerable in our communities can find sustainable communities that care.

Team Leaders can meet with their team to prepare responders on a few things and answer a few questions:

  1. What request are we responding to?
  2. Where is the request?
  3. What can we expect as we respond to the request?
  4. How can we lead in our response with humility, gratitude, and servanthood?
  5. How can we see beyond the need to address spiritual needs or other physical needs?

Response Teams are set up to help create discipleship within your Church.

Training

In addition to briefing responders on what to expect, it is also vital that Team Leaders take the time to understand and train their responders on best practices and mindsets to remember when responding to a need. There is a seemingly endless list of training topics that are relevant to Response Teams, including:

  • Best practices for responding to requests
  • Poverty
  • Trauma
  • Dignity
  • Working with Agency Workers
  • Discipleship and evangelism

CarePortal has developed a recommended Response Team Training curriculum covering these topics that your Network Leader can facilitate for you and your teams. The video below introduces that curriculum. You're welcome to ask them about that and develop a plan to equip your team in this way.

Response Teams are truly at the front lines of the James 1:27 ministry, caring for the widows and orphans. As your team grows in these areas (and the countless others you can dive into), you will likely identify new leaders who can create another Response Team, helping diversify your Church's reach in your community.

link to video

Debriefing & next steps

After a Response Team meets a need, there is an opportunity to connect and process what they just experienced. Some needs are very straightforward and may warrant little debrief time, while others can be very weighty and difficult to understand. It is important to help team members process what they are feeling and what they experienced to prevent them from burnout or discouragement.

Taking time to process through some prepared debrief questions can also be a place where you discuss how you and your team can further your support of the family that was just helped, if appropriate. This time is also a great space to discuss the impact and gather stories. Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used to help create momentum, cast vision, and pull others into the mission of serving vulnerable children and families. 

Here are some storytelling best practices to keep in mind when it comes to photos and videos.

Technical steps to add a new Response Team

Church Leaders with any of the following roles have permission to create a new Response Team:

  • Primary Point Person
  • Pastor
  • Connecting Church Leader
  • Church Needs Leader

Technical steps to add responders to Response Teams

There are several ways responders can be added to Response Teams. A Church Leader can manually add them through a bulk upload or individually. New responders can also sign up independently through your Response Team's custom sign-up form or by responding to a request and selecting your Church during their account creation. Continue reading to learn more about each of these options. And remember: you can always reach out to your Local Network Leader when it comes to these settings for further support or clarification if needed.

Church Leaders manually add responders

Add pre-approved Response Team members one-by-one

  1. Navigate to the Responders Tab.

    • From the sidebar, click Team Management and select the Responders tab.

  2. At the top of the page, click Invite Responder.

  3. Fill out the form and choose the correct responder type. Choosing the right responder type helps your team know who can provide resources and who can lead the connection.

    • Resource Responder
      Responders who want to help by giving items or funding, but either aren’t currently approved to connect directly with families or aren’t interested in serving that way at this time. Their responses are reviewed by a Team Leader, who follows up with the request submitter if the response is approved.
    • Relational Responder
      Approved responders who can both offer resources and connect directly with families. When they respond to a request, they are put in direct contact with the request submitter, unless their Response Team is using the ‘Manually Approve All Provided Responses’ setting.
  4. Click Submit to add the responder to your team.

Upload a list of pre-approved Response Team members

This option lets you bulk-upload a list of responders without adding them individually.

  1. Open the Upload pop-up

    • From the Responders tab, click Upload list.

  2. Download the Sample File

    • In the pop-up window, download the sample file. This file shows the exact format needed for a successful upload.
      💡 Tip: There is no limit to how many responders you can add to a Response Team.

  3. Complete and Upload Your File

    • Follow the instructions in the pop-up window to upload your completed file.

  4. Assign Responder Types
    • After uploading, review the list and assign Relational Responder status where appropriate.

Add existing Response Team members to additional Response Teams

If you have multiple Response Teams and want to add existing responders to a new Response Team, this method is for you!

  1. Navigate to the Responders Tab
    • Go to the Responders tab under Team Management in the sidebar.
  2. Select Responders to Add
    • For a single responder: Click Edit to the left of the responder’s name.
    • For multiple responders: Use the checkboxes between the Edit button and the Status badge to select all the responders you’d like to add.
  3. Assign Responders to the New Team
    • For a single responder: In the pop-up, check the box next to the new team where you'd like to add the responder.
    • For multiple responders: Click the Bulk Actions button at the top left of the Responders table. Then, choose Add to Team and select the appropriate team from the pop-up.
  4. Save Your Changes
    • Click Save to confirm the updates.

Responders enroll themselves

There are a few strategies and options to encourage your various Church members to add themselves to a Response Team according to your Church's approval settings:

Responder Sign-Up Form

  1. Share your team's Public Responder Sign-up Form
    You can access your team’s Public Responder Sign-Up Form in either place:

    • From the Dashboard tab, scroll to Custom Links

    • From the Responders tab, use the sign-up form button at the top of the page

  2. Once you have the link, share it with Church members in ways that work best for your community.

    • Ideas for sharing the form:

      • Set up a tablet or laptop at your Church with the link open

      • Send text invitations that include the form link

      • Ask members to text a keyword (like “CarePortal”) to an auto-reply service that sends the sign-up link
        💡 Tip: This option works especially well for Churches that want responders to opt in before serving.

Guide members to respond to a request and select your Church in the sign-up process

  1. When responding to a request, CarePortal guides new users to create an account, including selecting their Church (if applicable).
  2. When they choose your Church in the sign-up process, they will be added to your Default Response Team (which is based on your Church's settings).
  3. Direct Church members to your Church or team's Public Page, where they can respond to local requests. Public Page links can be found on the Church Leader Dashboard under the Custom Links section.

How to email responders

Church and Team Leaders can email responders right from the platform. This is a great way to share updates, plan a response, or keep your team engaged. All Church Leaders have access to this feature.

  1. Go to the Responders tab
    • From the sidebar, click Team Management, then select Responders.
  2. Select the responders you want to email
    • To email one responder: select the checkbox next to their name
    • To email several responders: select the checkboxes for each person you want to include
  3. Click Email Responders
    • At the top right of the Responders table, click Email Responders.
  4. If you didn’t select anyone
    • If no responders are selected, you’ll see a message letting you know you need to select responders first.
  5. Write your message
    • The To: field will show up to the first 10 selected email addresses
    • If you selected more than 10 responders, click + XX more to see the full list
    • Click Show less to collapse the list again
    • Use the formatting tools to style your message
    • You can include links
    • You can’t add images
  6. Send your email
    • The Send button stays disabled until your message has at least 10 characters.
      When you’re ready, click Send.
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Best Practice: Use Email Responders for team-wide updates, reminders, and next steps. For private or sensitive topics, use your normal Church communication tools instead.

What responders will receive

When you send a message, responders receive a CarePortal email with:

  • Subject: “[Your Full Name] sent you a message”

  • Header: “You’ve got mail!”

  • Body: A greeting, plus your message shown in a quoted block

  • Button: Go to CarePortal

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Tip: If a responder replies to the email, their reply will go to the email address on your CarePortal user account.

How to deactivate a Response Team

To deactivate a Response Team, any Church Leader can easily do so from the Response Teams tab. Here's how:

  1. Access the Response Teams tab in one of these ways:

    • From the sidebar, click Team Management, then Response Teams

    • Or go to the Settings tab and click the Teams header

  2. Deactivate the team
    • Click the 3 dots icon, Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 12.02.47 PM.png, next to the team you'd like to deactivate
    • Select Deactivate Team

⚠️ Important! If the team is your Default Response Team, the Primary Point Person must first assign another team as the default.

To reassign the Default Response Team

  1. Click the 3 dots icon Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 12.02.47 PM.png next to the team you'd like to make the new default team
  2. Click Set as Default Team

Reactivate a deactivated Response Team

Should you ever need to reactivate a team that has been deactivated, follow these steps:

  • Under the filters iconScreenshot 2024-03-19 at 1.32.29 PM.png, select the Deactivated status to display any deactivated teams
  • Click the 3 dots icon Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 12.02.47 PM.png
  • Click Activate Team

Customizing your Response Team Settings

See our Everything You Need to Know About Response Team Settings article to learn more about the options and settings that determine:

  • How new responders are approved to join your Response Team,
  • Who those responders are connected with when they respond,
  • What kind of requests your team receives,
  • And more!

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