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Church Community Builder

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Top leadership has strong buy-in to vision, mission, and values - Anonymous employee Church Community Builder Employee Review

5.0
Nov 27, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Top leadership has strong buy-in to vision, mission, and values. They're generous, humble enough to seek council, admit when they're wrong, etc. amazing character all-around! - The CCB peeps are amazing to work alongside; they, too, are passionate and a LOT of fun - The clients (churches) are amazing :) - Christmas bonuses can be really generous, (and creative), good benefits package (401k, etc) - While some of the cons seem harsh wrt bureaucracy, they *do* try to eliminate what they can

Cons

Any company transitioning from start-up to grown-up has some challenges, (many of these, they've already overcome!) so take these with a grain of salt :) - salaries weren't as (historically) competitive as they might have been, though they've made great strides here! - technical expertise wasn't (historically) as highly-valued (or understood) as it should have been - culture and policies had a hard time identifying and parting ways with under-performing employees (referring back to the general lack of technical-expertise) - lack of technical/business expertise rarely, but sometimes, trickled into decisions informing team size and structure (growing staff instead of growing revenue) - org-structure changes were frequent (though humble and well-intentioned): sometimes informed by large-faceless-organizational-growth-coaches instead of organic need-based growth - in some rare examples, leadership seats were filled quickly out of necessity and not from competence/skill/expertise; however unlike a short-lived (and appropriate) battle-field promotions, these lasted perhaps overlong - lack of technical or business acumen sometimes led to misdirection or misestimation (eg. solving the wrong problems, solving them wrongly, or, when questioned, requiring fundamental explanations for why their solutions shouldn't be implemented) - remote-work wasn't implemented (well) - sometimes in an effort to be 'equal' to all employees, Church Community Builder failed to extend exceptions in exceptional circumstances (ie. what once was a start-up culture of exceptional individuals with exceptional roles/responsibilities/rights became slowly mired in the bureaucratic muddle of unified performance matrices, half-applying quarterly metrics, etc) - impatience with how long it takes a lumbering org to accomplish something could cause well-intentioned leadership to make quick-turnaround dramatic changes - the aftermath of which would (sometimes tragically) result in more bureaucracy to prevent from happening again - in rare cases, a hierarchy of competence (expertise in business management or technology) was supplanted by a hierarchy of globally-synergistic-solutions-managers who could speak the right language TLDR; some growing pains :) to butcher (the infamous) author GK Chesterton: when CCB missed on technical leadership, they did not get liberty; they did not even get anarchy. They got bureaucratic leadership.

Explore other reviews about Church Community Builder

5.0
Dec 30, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Church Community Builder has a great work environment, everybody helps each other and you can feel you are doing something meaningful to people's lives. Even though it is a product for the Church, no one tries to push you into anything.

Cons

The stack is quite old and it's hard to move out of it. I feel the development of new features is quite slow paced, but this could have a positive impact if you are seeking balance of life.

2.0
Nov 26, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Most people care, work hard, and have good intentions. This leads to an environment of trust within your team. Plenty of avenues to give feedback (both formal and informal). There is a purpose behind your work (helping church partners). Catered meals and retreat.

Cons

When I started at Church Community Builder we relied upon common sense and pushed authority & autonomy to those doing the work. Strategic direction still originated from the leadership/product team, however, tactical leadership was handled by those doing the work (and we had no middle-management). This was true for all teams (development, customer success, etc). Unfortunately, the company has grown into a sluggish bureaucracy. There are far too many "middle-managers" who provide little to no value on a daily basis. As a result, managers attempt to prove value by implementing change, creating policies, and adding processes. This is incredibly demoralizing for those who just want to get the work done. Meetings, approvals, committees, etc. are barricades to progress, and they give a false sense of job security for middle-managers. Let your employees take risks, own their decisions, make mistakes, and learn. I'm sorry to say, but Church Community Builder has turned into the kind of environment the CEO says he used to hate. A final note on salary... I see several reviews talking about "below average" compensation. That's not entirely true across the board... At certain leadership levels, you have access to see salary bands for roles. Generally, the customer-facing roles (customer success, on-boarding, implementation) are in much lower salary compared to management and software development. As a Developer, I was paid very well (better than most) but I certainly wasn't the best Developer. If you're fortunate to be perceived as valuable by the Leadership Team (as I was) you'll probably have a competitive salary.

4
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Church Community Builder Response
7y
Thank you for the feedback. We are a growing company and that is exciting. We realize the challenge of wanting to maintain how it has been while becoming the organization we want and need to be. I am glad that you felt you were paid well and valued. We will take your feedback and continue to strive to be a place where everyone feels they are valued. Best wishes for your new adventure.
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