Missionaries

Editor+Editors, Admins, and Super Admins can add and edit missionaries

Media+Media role can only upload prayer letters and videos to existing missionaries

Missionaries are the core of your map. Each missionary record appears as a pin on the public map. Each missionary also has a Brief description — a 25-word summary shown on the kiosk carousel instead of the full bio (the editor counts the words for you). If left blank, the carousel uses the first 25 words of the full bio automatically. The bio itself can be up to 3,000 characters.

Adding a Missionary

The editor is one scrolling form in two parts: Part 1 is who they are, Part 2 is their prayer letters and videos. A row of section buttons at the top jumps to any part. It is laid out the same way as the self-service invite form, so what a missionary fills in and what you see in the editor match.

Click "Add"Opens the editor. Choose Missionary / Family or Ministry / Org at the top.

Fill in the required fieldsFamily name (or ministry name) is required, and so is a map pin for anyone shown on the web map. In Location, enter the city and country, click Find on map, pick the match, then click the map to fine-tune. Only the city is recorded — no street address. A profile kept off the web map (a closed country, or an older record without a pin) can be saved and edited without one.

Set visibilityToggles control whether they appear on the website map, the kiosk, or both.

SaveSave & close finishes; Save & keep editing saves without closing (needed before photos and updates can be added to a new record). Closing with unsaved changes asks first.

Family Members

Each missionary can have multiple family members (spouse, children, team members) added in the Family section with a first name, role and birth year. These appear as name pills in the missionary's detail popup on the public map. A ministry/organization has a Leadership section with a director or contact name instead.

Profile Photo & Gallery

Deleting a photo also removes the file from your storage, so your quota is freed up immediately. Photos, prayer letters, videos and organization logos all count toward the same storage allowance.

Manage photos in the Photos section of the editor (on a new record, click Save & continue there first). The current profile photo shows a gold ✓ Profile badge and gold border. Tap Set as profile on any other photo (it works by touch as well as with a mouse), frame the crop, and it is applied immediately without saving. Photos must be under 100 MB each (video files on updates may be up to 4 GB).

Organization

Pick the Sending organization in the About section. The organization's logo appears alongside the missionary on the map. Organizations are created under the Organizations page; a missionary filling in the invite form can also add a new one from the form.

Supported by

Tick the campuses, partner churches or giving circles that support this missionary in the Supported by field of the About section. It is optional — a missionary with none is shown everywhere as before. The sources themselves are set up under Settings → Support Sources; until there are some, the field shows a link there instead. The sources a missionary has are listed on the profile card on the public map and the kiosk, and in the Supported by column of the missionary list.

Prayer Letters & Updates

Media+Open the missionary and jump to Updates (Part 2). You can add:

Prayer letters — a PDF or Word file, or photos of each page of a paper letter. Photographed pages are cleaned up like a scanner app would (shadows removed, paper whitened, text sharpened) and bound into one PDF. Drop the photos in page order; arrows let you reorder them.
Videos — paste a YouTube or Vimeo URL, or upload a video file (up to 4 GB).

The title starts as the file name and can be changed. The letter or video date is optional — leave it blank if unknown and the map and kiosk simply show no date. Updates are listed newest first by the date they were uploaded. Each one can be edited (title, date, description, published or hidden) or deleted; to replace the file itself, delete and add it again.

Web Map vs. Kiosk Visibility

The Visibility section has two independent toggles:

Show on web map — whether the missionary appears on the public-facing web map and embeds. Turn it off for missionaries in sensitive or closed-country contexts; their profile cannot be accessed publicly in any way when it is off. A missionary can ask for this themselves with the sensitive country checkbox on the invite form (see Closed-Country Protection).
Show on kiosk — whether the missionary appears on lobby kiosk displays. Can be on independently of the web map setting.

Active vs. Inactive

Turning off Active hides a missionary from all public displays (web map and kiosk) without deleting their record. This is useful for missionaries on furlough or who have completed their term.

Importing missionaries

You can bulk-import missionaries from a CSV file or a previous export. See the Import & Export section for details.

Let missionaries fill out their own profile

Use the Invite button to send a missionary a secure self-service link. They fill in their own photos, bio, location, family, prayer letters and videos on a form laid out like this editor — no admin account needed. See Missionary Invite Links.

Missionary vs. Ministry/Organization

Some supported ministries are organizations rather than individual missionary families — for example a legal defense ministry, a disaster relief org, or a Bible translation society. Use the toggle at the top of the editor (and of the invite form) to switch between Missionary / Family (default) and Ministry / Org.

When Ministry / Org is selected:

Ministry name replaces Family / last name, and the editor title follows
A Leadership section with a director / contact name replaces Family
Focus area replaces Field of service, and "On the field since" is hidden
A Website section replaces Support (no support % or giving link)
On the map the pin shows a building icon instead of a name initial
The profile card shows the director name and a Visit Website link instead of family member pills

In the CSV importer, set the profile_type column to ministry and use the director and website columns.