This describes the database that is being provided for. What information to collect and how aggressively to collect it is matter of policy. The design certainly provides for more than will be collected, but it may be easier to provide for more than is needed than to later redesign the database. To see how information is to be publicly displayed, see St. Gregory's Episcopal Church as an example. The symbol precedes information on persons. Where green italic words appear, it means we have the information but have suppressed it for display on the internet.

1. Top priority is to protect personal information. Data is divided into two sections. Some is identified with a faith community ("INSTITUTION") and that is not considered confidential. Other data is identified with persons and that data is considered private. While building the database it is important to be able to learn what data we have, so the availability of private data in our database is shown with a green italic font which identifies the field for which we have data but not the data itself. We need to develop procedures so that private information is available when it is needed.
2. The next big addition to our database will be to add information from Pastor Alex Bess.
3. When we have the address for a faith community, the name is linked to a Google map showing how to get there. If we only have a P.O.Box, then we can't link to a map.
4. This database is for congregations, not for service providers even if they are faith based. Service providers, including those faith based, are in a separate database called "Helping Agencies".
9. The following are the fields provided for "persons" in the database. How much of this information to collect for each person depends on policy yet to be decided and the willingness of persons to provide this information (despite our care to protect privacy).
   1. CONTACT — name, as in John Jones
   2. Title — e.g. "Rector"
   3. Phone — direct line to this person at place of work
   4. PhoneH — home phone
   5. Fax — fax (not needed if fax at place of work applies)
   6. Cell — mobile phone number
   7. Email — email address for this person at place of work
   8. EmailP — personal or home email address for this person
   9. Fam — Denomination (family of congregations, e.g. Catholic)
   10. Status — reserved for later use
   11. Comment — reserved for later use
   12. Abbr — acronym to identify this person's primary faith community
   13. Prefix — Mr., Mrs., Rev., etc. (might eliminate this if not needed for Mail Merge)
   14. FName — first name (might eliminate this if not needed for Mail Merge)
   15. MI — middle initial or middle name (might eliminate this if not needed for Mail Merge)
   16. LName — last name (might eliminate this if not needed for Mail Merge)
   17. Suffix — Jr., Sr., II, III (might eliminate this if not needed for Mail Merge)