Legal
Privacy policy
What Joined collects, why, who helps us run it, and the choices you have.
This policy covers the Joined website, the Joined app your church’s team uses, and the church app your members use.
Updated October 19, 2026
Who we are#
Joined is church management software built and run by Mission Ready Strategies ([OWNER TO CONFIRM: legal entity name and type]), called “we” or “us” here.
This policy explains how we handle information about the people who visit our site, the churches that use Joined, and the church staff, volunteers and members whose information those churches keep in it.
Your church controls its data#
When a church uses Joined, the church decides what to keep about its people and how to use it. In privacy law terms, the church is the controller of that information and we are its processor: we store and process it for the church, following the church’s instructions and these documents.
If you are a member of a church that uses Joined and you want to see, correct or remove what the church keeps about you, ask your church first. It decides what its records hold. We will help the church answer your request.
Some churches need a written data processing agreement (DPA) with their software providers. [OWNER TO CONFIRM: whether we offer a DPA, and how a church requests one.]
Information we collect#
Your account. Clerk, our sign-in service, handles your name, email address, password or emailed sign-in codes, two-step verification and the devices you are signed in on. We receive your name, email address and sign-in details from Clerk. We never see your password.
Early access requests. When you ask for early access, the email address you enter goes to Clerk’s waitlist so our team can review the request and invite you. We use it only to reply about early access.
Your church. A church’s name, logo, colors, campuses, settings, team members and their roles, and its plan.
Church records. What a church’s team enters or imports about its people: names, email addresses, phone numbers, households, photos, notes, tags, follow-ups, serving, groups, events and sign-ups, attendance, gifts, and the messages the church sends.
Children’s information. When a church uses kids check-in: children’s names, age or grade, allergies and medical notes, the adults who may pick them up, and each check-in and pickup. See the next section.
The church app on iPhone. If you use the Joined app and turn on notifications, the app sends us a notification token, your phone’s platform, the app version and a random ID for the installation, so we can deliver your church’s reminders to it.
Payments. When a church takes gifts online through Joined, card and bank details go to Stripe, on the church’s own Stripe account, not to us. We keep what the church needs to record each gift, such as its amount, fund and status. Paid plans are not open yet. A church can also record gifts it receives in other ways. [OWNER TO CONFIRM: legal review of the online giving wording before live giving opens.]
Technical information. Like most websites, our hosting provider records ordinary request details, such as IP address, browser, pages requested and times, to deliver pages and keep the service secure.
Children’s information#
Churches use Joined to check children in and out safely, so Joined stores information about children. That information is entered by the church or by a parent or guardian, never collected from children directly. Children do not have Joined accounts.
Allergies are shown next to a child’s name at check-in and on labels so the people caring for them can see them. Only team members whose role includes check-in can see check-in records, and a child’s full last name and medical notes are shown only to those who also have People access for that campus. A child’s photo is added only after a parent or guardian agrees on the church’s device.
The church is responsible for having the right to keep this information and for any notice or consent its families need. A parent or guardian who wants a child’s information changed or removed should ask the church.
How we use information#
We use information to run Joined for your church: to sign you in, show your church’s records to the people allowed to see them, send the email and notifications your church asks us to send, provide support, fix problems, and keep the service secure.
We do not sell church or member data, and we do not use it for advertising. We do not use church records to build profiles of people for anyone else.
The assistant#
Joined includes an assistant that can answer questions and propose changes for a church’s team. It is off for every church unless we turn it on for that church. Nothing it proposes is saved until a person confirms it.
When it is on, what you type and only the record fields the assistant needs to answer are sent through Vercel’s AI Gateway to an AI model provider, currently Anthropic. Requests go only to providers that keep no copy and do not train on them.
The church chooses how long conversations are kept, from 1 to 365 days. After that the words are removed, and a record of what was asked for and what ran stays.
Who helps us run Joined#
We use a small number of service providers to run Joined. Each one handles information only to provide its service to us.
Clerk: sign-in, accounts and the early access waitlist. Clerk sends sign-in codes and email verification. When someone is invited to Joined, Clerk prepares their sign-up link, and Joined sends the invitation itself.
Vercel: hosts the website and app and delivers every page. When a church’s assistant is on, Vercel’s AI Gateway passes its requests to the AI model provider.
Supabase: runs the Postgres database that holds church records, in the United States (Ohio, us-east-2).
Amazon Web Services: stores people’s photos privately in Amazon S3, and church logos publicly through CloudFront, in the United States (Ohio, us-east-2). Joined sends its own email, including invitations, messages a church sends, volunteer reminders and giving statements, through Amazon Simple Email Service.
Inngest: runs Joined’s scheduled and background work. It receives record IDs and outcomes, not the contents of church records.
Expo: delivers notifications to the Joined app on iPhone, through Apple’s push notification service.
Anthropic: the AI model behind the assistant, reached through Vercel’s AI Gateway, only for churches whose assistant is on.
Stripe: processes online gifts through each church’s own Stripe account, where the church is the merchant, and will process Joined subscriptions once paid plans open.
Joined does not send text messages today. If we add a provider that handles personal information, we will add it to this list before it is used.
We may also share information when the law requires it, to protect people’s safety, or as part of a sale or merger of our business, in which case this policy would continue to apply to it.
Where information is stored#
Church records and uploaded files are stored in the United States. Our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries where they operate, under their own security and privacy commitments.
Access by our staff#
Mission Ready Strategies builds and runs Joined. When your church uses Joined, authorized Mission Ready Strategies staff can access your church’s data and your members’ information to provide support, fix problems, maintain and secure the service, and meet legal obligations.
Staff can open any church in Joined with the same access as an owner. To see exactly what one of your team sees, they can also sign in as that person. Our developers can also read and repair data directly in the database.
This access is limited to staff who need it for those purposes. It is always available to them, and your church is not notified each time they use it. Every church page or action a staff member opens in Joined, including while signed in as one of your team, is recorded in an internal log that churches can’t see. Direct database access is recorded in our database provider’s logs.
When a staff member changes something in your church, it shows their name with a Joined Staff marker. A change made while signed in as one of your team shows that team member’s name.
We do not sell church or member data.
How long we keep information#
We keep a church’s records for as long as the church uses Joined. [OWNER TO CONFIRM: how long a canceled or closed church’s records are kept, and when they are deleted.]
A download of your account data can be saved for 24 hours, and is then removed. A spreadsheet a church uploads to import people is kept for 24 hours while it is reviewed, and is then removed. A People export is created when it is asked for and is not kept.
We stop sending notifications to an iPhone that hasn’t checked in with Joined for 30 days. Assistant conversations are kept for the period the church chooses.
Database backups are kept for [OWNER TO CONFIRM: backup retention period], then overwritten.
When you delete your account, we keep a record that the request was made and completed, with dates, so we can show it happened.
Download or delete your account#
You can download a copy of your account data from your account settings. It includes your profile, your preferences, the churches you belong to and what you can do in each, your data requests and your account history. It does not include the records a church keeps about you; ask the church for those.
You can also ask to delete your account, from your account settings or the Joined app. Your account is deleted 30 days after you ask, and you can cancel until then. We then remove your profile, preferences, saved downloads and any church setup you didn’t finish, remove you from every church’s team, and delete your sign-in account at Clerk.
If you own a church, hand the church over to another owner first, so no church is left without one. Records that belong to your church, such as your People record, stay with the church.
Depending on where you live, you may have other rights over your information. To use them, or for anything this page doesn’t answer, write to us at the address below.
Security#
Each church’s records are kept separate from every other church’s, and each person sees only what their role allows. Sensitive work such as giving, kids check-in and exports needs its own permission. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will tell affected churches if a breach involves their data, as the law requires.
Changes to this policy#
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell church owners by email or in Joined at least [OWNER TO CONFIRM: notice period] before it takes effect.
Contact#
For privacy questions or requests, contact Mission Ready Strategies at the address below. [OWNER TO CONFIRM: mailing address for privacy and legal notices.]