How To Create a Ward Hotline

Somewhere a bishop’s phone is ringing. And if it isn’t ringing then it’s probably the relief society president’s phone. Each ward has different demands. Some have a high volume of transportation requests others have moves happening every week. This typically results in a variety of phone calls to local church leaders. Any opportunity to streamline such calls is worth consideration.

In my ward we have an assisted living center that houses individuals that struggled with different levels of mental illness. Recently their transportation funding was cut. Now their ride to the grocery store, doctors appointments, or to church meetings are no longer available. We discussed this as a ward council and came up with a Mormon Life Hack.

We created a rides hotline using a Google Voice account. We then distributed this number throughout the ward with some guidelines. As long as the individual lives within the ward boundaries they can call this number. When they call the number it goes directly to a message asking for a detailed message of where they need a ride and when. This message is then automatically attached to an email and send to a Gmail account. The rides committee (which includes a member of the Elder’s Quorum, Relief Society, and High Priest group) receives the email and works on calling a member in the ward that can fulfill this act of service.

This same type of hotline can be customized to a moving committee, welfare requests, and any other type of consistent request.

What hotline does your ward need?