Modernizing and Updating Technology Expands Reach for One Association
The American Needlepoint Guild, Inc. (ANG) is a 501(c)3 educational organization that offers active participation and fellowship through programs and instruction in needlepoint for more than 6,000 members.
ANG came to AH for a much-needed new database and to modernize and update their website to improve the functionality for members. ANG was also looking to replace its outdated Yahoo! Group discussion list with a new community system so members can easily communicate.
Registration for ANG’s Seminar, the organization’s annual meeting, required registrants to sign up through a manual, labor-intensive lottery, which meant registrants waited up to six weeks to learn whether they had gotten into the classes they wanted.
Using the YourMembership.com association management software allowed ANG to move Seminar registration online for the first time ever. The new registration was streamlined, with an on-demand “first come, first served” action. Instead of waiting weeks to see if they got the classes they wanted, registrants what classes they got into immediately.
On the first day of the new website being live, a record-breaking 306 attendees registered online for Seminar.
After the rousing success of the website, ANG rolled out an online community to replace the outdated Yahoo! Group discussion list. The new community added highly desired tools for ANG’s volunteer leaders, chapters, and individual members, including a mobile app that allowed users to interact with ANG and other members anywhere.
In a span of one year, ANG experienced an impressive increase in their online engagement with the new technology:
- 593 new members
- 4,500 renewals
- 45,100 site logins
- 85 class registrations
- $70,000 online donations to ANG’s endowment campaign
- $27,000 raised during an online auction for the operational fund
