diff --git a/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md b/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md
index e5fae60c0a..1074e42bff 100644
--- a/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -36,13 +36,19 @@ The following directions will be for running CouchDB via Docker Compose.
 
 This should launch a new CouchDB instance on `http://localhost:5984`, create system database, configure CouchDB as Single Node, enable CORS, create `hospitalrun` database, create a default admin with a username of `admin` and password of 'password'
 
-4. Create a sample user with a username of `username` and password of 'password' to use new login page [#2137](https://github.com/HospitalRun/hospitalrun-frontend/pull/2137)
+4. Make the `hospitalrun` database a public database by removing its member permissions:
+
+    ```
+    curl -X PUT http://admin:password@localhost:5984/hospitalrun/_security -d '{"members": {}, "admins": {"roles": ["_admin"] }}'
+    ```
+
+5. Create a sample user with a username of `username` and password of 'password' to use new login page [#2137](https://github.com/HospitalRun/hospitalrun-frontend/pull/2137)
 
    ```
    curl -X PUT http://admin:password@localhost:5984/_users/org.couchdb.user:username -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name": "username", "password": "password", "metadata": { "givenName": "John", "familyName": "Doe"}, "roles": [], "type": "user"}'
    ```
 
-5. Launch `http://localhost:5984/_utils` to view Fauxton and perform administrative tasks.
+6. Launch `http://localhost:5984/_utils` to view Fauxton and perform administrative tasks.
 
 **_Cleanup_**
 To delete the development database, go to the root of the project and run `docker-compose down -v --rmi all --remove-orphans`