Your contacts are the people who receive your announcements, so getting them into Hey Church is one of the first things worth doing. The good news: you don’t have to type everyone in by hand. There are four ways to add contacts, and most churches use a mix of them.
You’ll find all of these on the Contacts page in your dashboard.
Option 1: Add a Contact Manually
The simplest way. Click Add Contact and fill in the person’s first name, last name, email, and (optionally) phone number. You’ll also set their consent — whether they’ve agreed to receive email and/or text messages.
Manual entry is great for one-off additions: a new family that filled out a connection card, a volunteer who just joined a team, someone who asked to be added after the service.
Option 2: Upload a CSV
If you already have a list — in a spreadsheet, or exported from another tool — you can bring everyone in at once. Click Upload CSV and select your file.
Hey Church will match common column names automatically (first name, last name, email, phone, and consent columns), so you usually don’t need to reformat anything. This is the fastest way to get an existing list into Hey Church in one step. If you’re moving over from another platform, our guide on the best way to email church members has more on making the switch cleanly.
Option 3: Import From Planning Center
If your church uses Planning Center to manage people, you can sync directly instead of exporting and re-importing. Connect your account, then use Import/Update Contacts to pull your people into Hey Church — and pull in updates later without creating duplicates.
This keeps Planning Center as your source of truth while letting Hey Church handle the sending. See our Planning Center integration for the details.
Option 4: Let Members Sign Themselves Up
The best lists grow themselves. Instead of collecting information and typing it in, you can share a QR code and sign-up link that lets members add themselves — name, email, and consent included, automatically. Anyone who scans lands on a simple, church-branded page and is added to your contacts the moment they submit.
This is the lowest-effort way to grow your list over time, and it’s covered step by step in how to share your sign-up QR code and link.
A Word on Consent
However you add someone, consent matters. Hey Church tracks email consent and text consent separately, and only sends through the channel a contact has agreed to. Someone who opted in to email hasn’t automatically opted in to texts — and that’s on purpose. It keeps your sending reputation clean and respects your congregation’s inboxes.
When you add contacts manually or by CSV, make sure you’re only marking consent for people who actually agreed to hear from you. Contacts who sign themselves up through your QR code or link have given consent as part of that process. We explain exactly how this works, including for synced contacts, on our Proof of Consent page.
Which Method Should You Use?
Most churches start with a CSV upload or Planning Center import to bring in their existing list, add the occasional person manually, and then put up a QR code so the list keeps growing on its own. You don’t have to pick just one.
Once your contacts are in, you’re ready to create your first announcement and start sending.
Get started free and bring your congregation together in one place — you can be set up in minutes.