This is a sample church website made with Hillfold. The church and its people are made up.

Hillfold

Download church data and the Activity log

Download all of your church's information as spreadsheets or one file, and see who changed what in the Activity log.

Who does thisOffice staff

Your church’s information belongs to your church. You can download all of it at any time: to keep a copy, to open in a spreadsheet, or to move to other software.

Before you start

  • Only the secretary or webmaster (or whatever your church calls those roles) can download church data or read the Activity log.
  • The download includes members’ contact details. Keep it somewhere private, and delete copies you no longer need.

Download church data

  1. Go to Administration → Download church data.
  2. Choose Prepare the download. It takes a moment to gather everything.
  3. When it says Ready, choose what you want:
    • Download everything (one file) saves every list in one file. This is best for keeping a full copy or moving to other software.
    • Under Spreadsheets, each button saves one list as a spreadsheet (CSV) that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. The number beside each button shows how many rows it has.

The download covers lists like households and people, announcements, prayer requests, church offices, serving schedules, Sunday school, bulletins, sermons, financial reports and website settings. It also lists sign-in accounts, without any passwords.

Photos and PDFs are listed by name only. To get copies of the files themselves, ask whoever set up your church’s website.

Online gifts aren’t in this download. The treasurer can download them from Administration → Giving. See /help/giving-records.

Every download is recorded in the Activity log.

The Activity log

The Activity log shows who approved, changed or removed what, and when.

  1. Go to Administration → Activity log.
  2. Each line shows When, Who and What, newest first.
  3. Choose Show older to see more.

It records things like approvals, staff roles, removed families and people, published or removed financial reports, changed church settings, started or closed small groups, shared computers added or removed, and data downloads.

Entries are kept for three years and can’t be changed.

If something goes wrong

  • “The download could not be prepared.” Refresh the page and try again.
  • A spreadsheet button is greyed out. That list is empty, so there’s nothing to download.
  • The Activity log says “Nothing has been recorded yet.” Nothing that the log records has happened yet.
  • I can’t see either tool. They’re only for the secretary and webmaster. Ask one of them to check your staff role. See /help/staff-roles.