Realm

Privacy Information and Settings

Your information is your information.

You have complete control over who can see your contact and personal information.

• Contact information is never public or searchable on the Internet. Any information you elect to make visible to your church family is always protected behind a login.
• Authorized staff will always have access to your profile information.
• You and certain authorized staff may update your profile information. In some cases, your group leader may update your contact information if you have made it visible to group leaders.
• For safety reasons, sharing contact and personal information for children under 18 is limited.
• Parents determine whether or not to display their child’s name in the church directory.
• Children under 13 may not participate and will not be able to sign in.

What People May See
By default, the viewing of your contact and personal information is limited to members of groups you are in, group leaders, and staff members. If you choose to, however, you can make your information visible to the entire church. But if you prefer to be more private, you can customize how people see specific information.

• Contact Information: Name, Address, Phones, and Email.
• Personal Information: Marital Status, Family Position, Member Status, but you also have the option of sharing your birthday, gender, allergy information, and skills with people in your church.
• If you are a group leader or host an event, certain contact information may be visible regardless of the settings you choose.

Privacy Settings

Everyone—Like a church directory listing, everyone in our church will be able to see whatever profile information is marked as visible to everyone.

My Groups + Group Leaders + Church Staff—This setting means information will only be shared with the people you are involved with at church. This is the default setting.

Group Leaders + Church Staff—You would use this setting if you wanted to keep some profile information hidden from anyone who is not a group leader or on staff.

Church Staff Only—This setting effectively removes you from the church directory. Your information will only be available to authorized church staff.

Custom Privacy—Choose different privacy levels for specific contact fields and personal information. You can do this in two places: when you edit your profile information or when you manage your privacy settings.

Family Privacy—A family member with a primary position such as “Head” or “Spouse” can change privacy settings for other members of the family and opt family members into the church directory.

Birthdays are required for children (as a means to prohibit access), but it’s up to you if you want to share the birth date with your church family.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Realm invitation one per household, or one per person?

Each adult in your household can and should have their own Realm invitation and account. Since the internal communications we’ll send will be targeted at the specific groups in which you participate, it will make more sense for each person to have their own account.

I can’t find my invitation email.

Contact the church office and we’ll send you a reminder email with the invitation link in it again. We will be sending reminder invitation emails periodically during this roll-out period as well.

I click the link in my email, and it sends me to a login page, instead of a create password page. But I don’t have a password yet.

Click “sign in” and then “forgot password”. Be sure you use the email address to which the invitation was sent. You’ll get another email to reset your password which will count for setting it the first time.

If this still doesn’t work, our representative at Realm may need to validate your email. Please contact the church office and we’ll escalate it to Realm and let you know when to try resetting your password again.

I don’t want to use Realm with the email address you sent the invitation to.

No problem! Please log into Realm for the first time using the invitation email account. Then, you can update your profile with a new account email.

If you have difficulty with that, please contact the church office and we can reset your account email. Please be patient with us as it will require that you reset your password again.

Can I still give my donations by check, cash, stock, etc.?

ABSOLUTELY! You are not required to change the way that you give to St. David’s. The Realm platform does offer a cleaner online giving system, and it will host event payments. It also allows you to manage your giving status, confirm that your donations were received, download statements, and more – even if you continue only to donate by check, stock, or other non-electronic means.

If I don’t give online, what do I need Realm for?

The Realm platform is your new directory. The Church Life app connected to our previous database is obsolete, and Realm Connect is your new directory. That said, you MUST OPT IN to the directory to be seen and contacted by your fellow parishioners. This is done through your privacy settings (see above).

Realm will be a key means for internal communications among St. David’s members allowing people connect with their groups, ministry teams, and activities. Sometimes an RSVP will want you to log into the system. You might need to contact a leader directly in that case if you choose not to join Realm. The system will empower group leaders with access to their members to email reminders, invite people to events, and manage RSVPs and volunteering. Empowering group leaders internally will allow our communications staff to focus more on storytelling and external communication.

Does this mean that all communications will go through Realm? Will I stop getting eNews or mail?

We’ll still be sending the weekly eNews, Clergy Letter & Sunday Look ahead, and other content-specific emails. However, the focus may shift over time as we rely more on Realm to communicate internally to small groups.

We’ll also continue to mail some important things out, including Stewardship materials, Christmas and Easter letters, and other periodic materials. If you choose the mail-only option, you’ll also receive your quarterly giving and year end statements by post.