Volunteer scheduling with swaps for small churches

The idea

In a 100-person church, one exhausted volunteer coordinator runs the entire Sunday operation from a spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group. The failure mode is always the same: someone drops out on Saturday night, the coordinator ring-arounds for a replacement, and half the time the sound desk is unmanned at 9:45am anyway.

Planning Center owns this market at the top end, but it is a sprawling suite that buries a small church in features and setup. The wedge is the swap that completes itself: a dropout triggers an SMS cascade to eligible teammates, the first yes takes the slot, and nobody ever holds a slot that has no confirmed replacement. That one mechanic removes the coordinator’s worst weekly hour.

Who pays

The church pays 19 USD/month from an ops budget that already buys software, approved by a treasurer who finds Planning Center’s pricing tiers baffling. The buyer-user is the volunteer coordinator, who will champion anything that ends Saturday-night phone duty. Distribution: church admin Facebook groups, denominational small-church networks, and word of mouth between coordinators, who all know each other locally.

MVP scope

• Teams and volunteer roster with mobile numbers
• Monthly rota builder grid with double-booking and burnout warnings
• Reply-1-to-confirm SMS reminders before each service
• Self-serve swap cascade that only completes on an accepted replacement
• Live per-Sunday status view and printable rota
• Skip for v1: volunteer mobile app, song planning, check-in, email channel, multi-campus support

Build RotaGrace, a web app that runs volunteer scheduling for small churches with SMS confirmations and self-serve swaps.

Stack: Next.js (App Router), Supabase (Postgres + auth), Twilio for SMS.

Core flow: the coordinator sets up teams (greeters, sound, kids, coffee) and adds volunteers with name, mobile, and team memberships. For each month they build a rota on a grid of services by teams, assigning volunteers per slot, with warnings when someone is assigned two roles in one service or has served three weeks running. On Thursday before each Sunday, assigned volunteers get an SMS: you are on sound this Sunday 10am, reply 1 to confirm, 2 if you cannot make it. A reply of 2 triggers the swap flow: the app texts the other members of that team who are not already serving, first to reply 1 takes the slot, the rota updates, and the coordinator gets a summary text. Critically, the original volunteer stays assigned until a replacement accepts, so slots never silently go empty.

Pages: magic-link login, teams and volunteers admin, monthly rota builder grid, live status view per Sunday (confirmed, unconfirmed, swap in progress), message log, settings for reminder day and service times.

Implementation details: handle Twilio replies statefully per volunteer, since one person may have multiple pending prompts. Print-friendly rota view for the foyer noticeboard.

Pricing: 19 USD/month flat per church, 60-day trial.