Zapier

Zapier is the easiest way to push GCM events into the rest of your stack. New member added? Pipe it into your Google Sheet of pastoral visits. Donation recorded? Post a thank-you in your church's Slack channel. Member completed a workflow? Tag them in your CRM.

GCM ships a native Zapier app built on REST Hooks — meaning Zapier subscribes to a webhook on our side, and we push events as they happen. No polling, no delay, no wasted Zap tasks.

How the integration works

1. You create an API key in GCM (Integrations → Zapier → API Keys).
2. In Zapier, you create a new Zap and pick GCM as the trigger app.
3. Zapier asks for your API key and validates it against our /v1/me endpoint.
4. You pick a trigger event (e.g. Member created).
5. Zapier registers a subscription with our /v1/subscriptions endpoint — this is the REST Hook.
6. From that point forward, every time the event fires, GCM POSTs the payload to the subscription's target_url (an opaque Zapier-hosted webhook URL).

You can have as many subscriptions as you want, across as many Zaps. They all live under one API key.

Step 1 — Generate an API key

In GCM, go to Integrations → Zapier. On the API Keys tab, click New key.

Give it a label you'll recognize later — Zapier — Production is a good default. When you click create, GCM shows you the raw key once. Copy it immediately and paste it somewhere safe (a password manager, your Zapier connection screen).

WARNING

We don't show the raw key again — for security, we only store a hash. If you lose it, revoke the key and create a new one.

The key starts with a recognizable prefix (gcm_live_…) so you can tell which environment it belongs to at a glance. The visible portion in the key list is the prefix plus an ellipsis — useful for "which key is this Zap using" without leaking the secret.

Step 2 — Connect in Zapier

In Zapier, search for the Genius Church Manager app, click + Create Zap, and pick a trigger. When Zapier prompts for authentication:

• API Key: paste the gcm_live_… key from Step 1.
• Organization: auto-detected from the key. You don't need to enter your org slug.

Zapier hits our /v1/me endpoint, confirms the key is valid, and stores the connection.

Step 3 — Pick a trigger event

The Zapier app exposes these triggers:

Event	Fires when
member.created	A new member is added (any source — manual, visitor form, import)
member.updated	Any tracked field on a member changes
donation.created	A donation is recorded (online, manual, or recurring charge)
attendance.recorded	A check-in or attendance row is saved
workflow.completed	A member finishes a workflow run
form.submitted	A public form is submitted
group.member_added	Someone is added to a small group or ministry

Each event sends a JSON payload that mirrors the corresponding GCM resource. See the API webhooks reference for the exact field shapes.

Active subscriptions

Once your Zap is turned on, it appears on the Subscriptions tab.

Each row shows the event type, the Zapier webhook URL (so you can confirm it's pointing at the right Zap), when it last delivered, and a failure counter. After 10 consecutive failures we auto-disable the subscription — Zapier itself does the same on its end, so this protects you from a runaway Zap firing thousands of times against a deleted endpoint.

A disabled subscription gets a red badge. Turn the Zap off and back on in Zapier to re-create it.

Recent deliveries

The Recent deliveries tab shows the last 50 events GCM has pushed.

Each row has:

• A green check (HTTP 2xx) or red exclamation (4xx / 5xx).
• The event type.
• The HTTP response status Zapier returned.
• A short excerpt of the response body (usually the Zapier ID and a hash).
• A retry counter — we retry failed deliveries with exponential backoff up to 4 times before marking the row as failed.

This log is your single source of truth when a Zap "stopped working." Check here first.

Revoking a key

When a staff member leaves or you suspect a key has leaked, hit the trash icon on the API Keys tab.

WARNING

Revoking a key immediately breaks every Zap using it. The Zap shows a red banner in Zapier ("authentication failed") and you'll need to reconnect with a fresh key. Plan a rotation window.

What Zapier can read

API keys created through this UI default to read-only scope (read:*). That means a Zap can list members, donations, attendance — but cannot create or modify them. Write scopes are available through API keys but should be used sparingly.

Limits

Limit	Default
API keys per org	20
Active subscriptions per org	100
Delivery rate	60 events / minute / subscription
Payload size	256 KB
Retry attempts	4 (1m, 5m, 25m, 2h)

If you bump into the subscription limit you almost certainly have orphaned Zaps — delete the unused ones in Zapier and they'll fall off our side within an hour.

Cross-references

• API keys — full scope reference and rotation policy.
• Outbound webhooks — same delivery infrastructure, but pointed at your own endpoint instead of Zapier.
• Webhooks reference — exact payload shapes for every event.