---
title: Understanding Organizations
description: "## How Organizations Work in PrayerConnect Organizations are the backbone of PrayerConnect’s community features. They represent real-world groups — churches, small groups, ministries, prayer circles — and control how prayers are shared and who can see them. ### What Is…"
url: "https://support.prayerconnect.church/docs/understanding-organizations/"
updated: "2026-10-14"
category: Organizations
---

# Understanding Organizations

## How Organizations Work in PrayerConnect

Organizations are the backbone of PrayerConnect’s community features. They represent real-world groups — churches, small groups, ministries, prayer circles — and control how prayers are shared and who can see them.

### What Is an Organization?

An organization is a group of PrayerConnect users who are connected for prayer. Each organization has:

- A **name** and **description**
- An **owner** (the person who created it)
- **Members** who have been invited and accepted
- Optional **sub-organizations** (child groups under a parent)
- A **visibility setting** (public or private)

### Organization Hierarchy

Organizations can have a parent-child relationship. For example:

- **First Baptist Church** (parent)
  - Youth Ministry (child)
  - Women’s Prayer Group (child)
  - Men’s Fellowship (child)

Each sub-organization operates independently with its own members and permissions. Being a member of the parent does not automatically make you a member of the child organizations — you need to be invited to each one separately.

### Per-Organization Permissions

Your permissions are set **independently for each organization** you belong to. This means you might be an admin in one organization but a regular member in another. The organization admin controls what each member can do.

### How Prayers Connect to Organizations

When you submit a prayer, you choose which organizations it belongs to. A prayer can belong to **multiple organizations** at once. For example, you could add a prayer to both your church and your small group.

**Shared prayers are public.** Anyone can see a shared prayer, including people without a PrayerConnect account: on its prayer page, the Prayer Wall, organization Prayer Displays, our public prayer feeds, and PrayerConnect’s social media (such as Discord, Facebook, YouTube, X, and Instagram). It shows your name, or “Anonymous” if you post anonymously. Prayers you don’t share stay private to you. See our [Privacy Policy](https://prayerconnect.church/privacy-policy/).

If you don’t select any organization when submitting a prayer, it automatically goes to the **PrayerConnect Community** (the default organization).

### Prayer Display

Each organization has its own **Prayer Display** page — a customizable, branded display of shared prayers from that organization’s members. Organization admins can customize the colors, fonts, and layout of their Prayer Display.

### Requesting a New Organization

If your church, ministry, or group isn’t already on PrayerConnect, you can request that a new organization be created for you. Any registered user can submit a request — no special permissions required. Every new top-level organization is reviewed by the PrayerConnect team before it can be used. Once approved, you’ll become the organization’s owner with full administrator access, and you can create sub-organizations under it right away, without another review.

For the full step-by-step guide, see [Requesting an Organization](/docs/requesting-an-organization).