Set up Church Email Accounts Ending in Your Domain

Sign up for Google Workspace for Nonprofits to create unlimited professional email accounts under your domain with 30GB of storage each.

The service is totally free of charge, and you can sign up in less than 10 minutes! To get started, grab your EIN (Nonprofit ID) and follow the instructions outlined below. 

1. Sign up for Google Workspace for Nonprofits with your church's admin email address using the link below. (Make sure to use your church's domain name email!) You will just have to answer some basic questions such as your church's location and Mission Statement. 

• Sign up for Workspace: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/account/home?pli=1

2. Await an email from [e-mail] confirming your approval status. If you do not receive a response within 2-14 days, try checking your spam folder. You can reach out to Google Support via the link below if you run into any problems. 

• Contact Google: https://support.google.com/nonprofits/contact/contact_us%C2%A0 

3. After approval, request access to manage your Workspace by signing up for a Google Workspace Admin account using the link below. Please note, the email address submitted on this page has to match the one used to sign up (from Step 1). This can be updated later on if need be. 

• Sign up for an Admin account: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/account/signup

4. In order for your Admin account to be approved, Google will likely request that you add a TXT record to your domain to prove that you own it. If you receive this from them, please provide it to a Ministry Designs Representative via chat, or by sending us an email. Links to our support channels are listed below. (Skip to Step 6 if you gain immediate access to your Admin account)

• Ministry Designs 24/7 Live Chat: https://ministrydesigns.com/
• Ministry Designs Email: [e-mail]

5. A member of Ministry Designs will let you know once the TXT record has been successfully added to your domain. You will then want to contact Google to let them know that this step has been completed. Please click on the link below to contact them. 

• Contact Google: https://support.google.com/nonprofits/contact/contact_us%C2%A0 

6. Once Google has confirmed your church's ownership of your domain they will let you know. At this time, you will be able to log in to the Admin Portal at the link below. Again, please use your church's admin email address to log in (outlined in Step 1 and Step 3). 

• Login to the Admin Portal: https://admin.google.com/

If you have any trouble with the approval, simply contact a member of our team using our Support Channels (provided in Step 4).

7. Once you have logged into your Workspace account, please recreate any domain email accounts currently being used at your church or by your staff. If you do not have any domain emails set up at this time, go ahead and create any email accounts you wish to use. You can add to this list at any time. 

8. In order to activate these email accounts, you will have to provide Google with the authority to manage your domain email accounts. This is accomplished by adding Google MX records to your domain via your registrar, or domain host. Your registrar is most likely the company that your domain name was purchased from. If you are not certain who this is, you can do the following to find out.

• Search email archives with the following keywords: registration, transfer, domain.

• Search through old billing record files or emails. Your domain host should be listed on an invoice.  

• Visit https://lookup.icann.org/lookup and enter your domain name in the search field. Then click 'Lookup'  (the blue button to the right). Information regarding your domain will generate below your search. Scroll down to the Contact Information section and look for the title Registrant. The organization listed here is your registrar. Take a look at the screenshot below if you get stuck. 

If the Registrant section for your domain lists Ministry Designs LLC, as shown in the photo above, please send us a chat at https://ministrydesigns.com/. We will take care of Step 9 for you.  If there is any other registrant listed, please move forward to step 9.

9. Find your registrant on the document linked below and click on their name. Then follow the instructions provided to add the Google MX records to your domain. 

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tJnftEWnVAKUkzayFc1QL8NOyAiU6BFpbhm6r_qTJwg/edit?usp=sharing

If your registrar is not listed in the document, please find generic instructions on how to update your domain settings by clicking here:

***If you need any assistance through this process, please contact your registrant's support team. You will likely be able to find a support phone number for them with a simple Google search, and most hosts are happy to take care of any updates to your domain for you! 

10. Within 24 hours of making the changes to your domain, you should be able to send and receive mail at the domain email accounts that were created in your Admin Portal in Step 7. Any new email accounts added to your Workspace will automatically be ready for use with no additional setup. You can log in to these accounts via a Gmail app or at Gmail.com. 

https://support.google.com/a/answer/173555?hl=en

https://support.google.com/a/topic/14586

https://support.google.com/a/answer/179832?hl=en&ref_topic=14586

https://support.google.com/a/answer/33310

https://support.google.com/a/answer/9400082?visit_id=637568676081140807-1765220001&rd=1#zippy=%2Cstep-create-a-group

https://support.google.com/a/answer/9942027

https://workspace.google.com/products/admin/