> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.thefaithapp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Use and moderate Needs & Offers
> Share practical needs and offers safely in the mobile app, then review and coordinate them from the web dashboard.
Needs & Offers gives adult members a moderated place to request or offer
practical help without publishing personal contact details. The board is
disabled by default so staff can review its safeguards before members begin
using it.
## Find the member board
In the mobile app, open **Connect**, select **Community**, then choose
**Needs & Offers**. This option appears only after the church enables the board
and the signed-in member is eligible to use it.
Use the top filters to switch between needs and offers or narrow the board by
category, campus, Community Group, audience, or status. Each card shows only a
safe summary, approximate audience, published age, and expiry information.
## Publish a need or offer
Select **Post**, choose whether you need help or can offer it, and complete the
short form. You can choose an allowed audience, such as your campus, Community
Group, or leaders only.
Keep phone numbers, email addresses, exact street addresses, and other direct
contact details out of the title and description. Responses begin privately in
the app. Depending on church settings and category, a post may appear
immediately or be sent to staff for review.
### Donation drives
Choose **Donation drive** when the church is collecting items or funds for a
shared response. Staff review the post and connect it to an active Outreach
Campaign before publishing it.
Once connected, the post shows **View campaign & contribute**. This opens the
church's existing campaign page with the current requested items, payment
options, delivery details, and progress. Members do not need to choose between
two different donation forms.
### Employment help
Choose **Employment information** for a job opening, a request for work,
career mentoring, or résumé and interview help. The form also records whether
the help is on-site, remote, or hybrid and whether it is one-time, short-term,
or ongoing.
Employment posts use the same reviewed Needs & Offers workflow. The app does
not score or automatically match members, and contact details remain outside
the public post. The saved help type, work mode, and time commitment remain
visible on the member post and in the staff review drawer.
### Future community pilots
When your church opens relational research, the mobile **Community** screen
shows **Help shape future community support**. Open it to privately select
future ideas you may consider, such as skills sharing, recurring rides,
intergenerational connections, nearby practical help, or newcomer connections.
This records research interest only. It does not create a match,
recommendation, chat, or relationship-risk score. Your church sees only
combined counts, and small counts are hidden. You can update your choices or
withdraw at any time, including after the church pauses new interest.
## Borrow or lend a community resource
When your church enables **Community resources**, open **Community** and select
the resource card. Use **Browse** to find reviewed lending items and
staff-coordinated medical equipment. Select **Request item** and add an optional
private note without contact details.
Use **My items** to lend an item you own. Staff review every listing before it
appears. You can approve or decline a request, mark an approved loan checked
out, and record its return. **My loans** shows your requests, due dates,
overdue state, cancellations, and returns.
Medical equipment is always reviewed and coordinated by staff. Members never
see its exact storage location, and only staff approve, check out, or return a
medical-equipment loan. A borrower sees staff-coordination guidance instead of
a return action.
## Respond and coordinate privately
Open a post and select **Respond privately**. The response is visible to the
post author and authorized staff, not to the public board.
The author can accept or decline responses. Once a response is accepted, both
members can continue in a private in-app conversation. The author can then mark
the post fulfilled or close it for another reason.
Open **My activity** to review your posts and responses. From there you can
edit or extend an eligible post, mark it fulfilled, close it, withdraw a
response, or return to an accepted private conversation.
Use **Report** on a post when staff should review a safety or conduct concern.
Needs & Offers is not an emergency service; contact local emergency services
or a trusted church leader when immediate help is needed.
## Set up the board
Open **Members**, select **Needs & Offers**, then open **Settings**.
Before enabling the board, review:
* Whether every post must be approved before publishing.
* Whether church-wide posts are allowed or audiences stay limited to a campus,
Community Group, or leaders.
* Whether an author may choose to show their name.
* Which categories are enabled.
* Which categories always require review.
* Default and maximum expiry periods for each category.
* Whether the separate research-interest registry is open to eligible adult
members.
* Whether the reviewed Community resource library is available to eligible
adult members.
The safest launch settings are already selected: the board is off, every post
requires review, church-wide visibility is off, and author names are hidden.
Sensitive categories remain leaders-only and always require review.
After staff confirm those safeguards, this is also the screen where they can
enable or pause the member board.
## Review relational research readiness
Open **Research pilots** to see voluntary interest before designing any future
pilot. This page never lists participating members. It shows combined counts
only and displays **fewer than 5** when a church or research area has fewer than five
active opt-ins.
The page also keeps the research boundaries visible: no automatic matching,
no member identities, no precise location, no relationship-risk scores, adult
participation only, and withdrawal at any time. Interest is discovery input,
not approval to launch a matcher. Complete pastoral, safeguarding, fairness,
and explainability review before proposing a pilot.
## Review a post
Staff with Needs & Offers view permission can open the moderation queue and
review a post's requested audience, safe location, author context, responses,
reports, and audit history.
Staff with moderation permission can:
* Approve and publish a pending post.
* Ask the author for a safer edit without rewriting their words.
* Restrict a post to leaders only.
* Assign a staff coordinator.
* Reject or close a post with a recorded reason.
For a donation drive, staff who also have Outreach Campaign access select an
active campaign in the **Donation coordination** section. The post cannot be
approved until a campaign that accepts items or cash is linked. Use **Manage
campaign** to update requested items, payment options, delivery instructions,
and pledge progress in the existing Outreach Campaign workflow.
## Coordinate an assigned post
A staff member assigned to a post gets an **Assigned Needs & Offers** entry
even when they do not have the board-wide view or moderation
permissions. It shows only the assigned post and its private responses. The
coordinator can accept or decline a response, mark the post fulfilled, or close
it with a reason.
Assignment does not open the moderation queue, reports, audit history,
settings, staff directory, or any other post. Reassigning the post removes the
previous coordinator's access immediately.
Time-sensitive and sensitive-category posts show a pastoral review warning.
Needs & Offers is not an emergency service; use your church's existing
safeguarding and emergency procedures when urgent follow-up is required.
## Handle reports
Open **Reports** to review member safety concerns. Reporter identity is visible
only inside the permission-gated staff queue and is never shown to a post
author or other members.
Three reports from different members within 24 hours pause an open post for
review by default. Staff can resolve or dismiss a report with an optional note.
## Manage resources and ministry chats
Open **Resources** in Needs & Offers to review member lending items, add
church-managed medical equipment, approve or restrict listings, and coordinate
loan approval, checkout, overdue, and return states. Resource access reuses the
Needs & Offers view and moderation permissions.
Open **Volunteers → Ministries** and select the chat action for a ministry to
create one private discussion and one leader-posting announcement channel.
Active ministry membership controls chat access, ministry leaders become chat
moderators, and **Sync membership** reconciles any drift.
## Choose communication preferences
From the mobile Notifications screen, open **Communication preferences**.
Members can schedule recurring quiet hours by local time and weekday. The app
automatically starts with the church's time zone, and a dropdown of valid time
zones is available when it needs to be changed. Members can then enable or
pause push notifications for direct messages, ministries, Community Groups,
and Needs & Offers.
Inside an individual chat, choose **All messages**, **Mentions only**, or
**None**. The server applies quiet hours, topics, and the channel choice before
sending push notifications. Messages and in-app activity remain available.
## Automatic expiry and private contact
Posts expire automatically according to their category. The author receives a
generic in-app update that does not repeat the post title, description,
location, or other sensitive details.
Phone numbers, email addresses, and exact street addresses are rejected from
post content. The offline mobile board stores only safe card summaries and does
not store post descriptions, author details, response notes, or contact data.
Responses begin privately inside the app.
## Staff permissions
Needs & Offers uses three separate permissions:
* **View Needs & Offers** reads the moderation and reports queues.
* **Moderate Needs & Offers** approves, restricts, assigns, rejects, closes,
and resolves reports. A moderator also needs view permission.
* **Configure Needs & Offers** changes the board's church-level settings,
controls whether research interest is open, and reads thresholded research
readiness. It does not expose participant identities.
Being assigned as a coordinator is post-specific access, not a fourth broad
permission. It provides only the assigned coordination actions described
above.
Main administrators receive all three permissions automatically.
Linking or changing a donation drive's campaign additionally requires the
existing **Outreach Campaigns** permission. Assigned coordinators can see the
linked campaign summary but cannot change it unless they also have the full
view, moderation, and Outreach Campaign permissions.
Report access follows the existing **View Needs & Offers** permission; a second
recipient-role system is not created. Community Group chat provisioning also
stays in the existing **Chat channels** action for each group.
## Launch or pause the board
Use a small canary group of churches before enabling Needs & Offers broadly.
For each church, leave the board disabled while staff confirm permissions,
categories, review rules, audience choices, expiry periods, and safeguarding
ownership. Then enable it from **Members → Needs & Offers → Settings**.
Monitor the moderation queue, report rate, time to first response, expired
posts, and private-chat handoffs during the canary. These measures are for
workflow health and must not become public member rankings or generosity
scores.
To pause a church immediately, turn the board off in the same Settings screen.
Members will no longer see the board or be able to read or change posts. The
existing posts, reports, decisions, and audit history remain available for a
safe investigation and later re-enable; do not delete them as part of a pause.
The research-interest registry has its own setting. Leave it off until a named
pastoral owner approves the research notice. Turning it off pauses new and
updated interest while keeping withdrawal available to anyone who previously
opted in.