National Association of Campus Activities
Meet NACA
“Good service shines when you figure out problems together.”
Amber Shaverdi Huston, Executive Director of NACA
The National Association for Campus Activities is a US-based non-profit organisation that brings together 800+ colleges & universities (School Membership) with entertainment agencies, vendors & artists (Associate Membership) - making it easier for them to buy and sell extra-curricular campus activities.
NACA does this through a programme of events, webinars and multi-day conferences such as NACA Live - an annual convention attended by hundreds of colleges, artists, agencies, and businesses from across the US.
Inefficient and disconnected
A multi-step manual renewals process also took up three staff members’ time. If a member wanted to upgrade they would have to email the team, who would have to raise and send invoices and wait for payments.
Events were also challenging to manage. College organisers who manage multiple delegates had to call the team - admin which took up valuable time. Their customised events management platform was difficult to use with staff needing to know it inside out to be able to use it.
The visibility of members’ data and interactions was limited. NACA staff couldn’t see how many members had logged into the website, what content they clicked on or what resources they downloaded. This lack of insights meant that they couldn’t develop or target personalised resources and events that would give members more value.
Poor provider partnerships
NACA’s multiple systems meant paying and managing several technology providers. As well as being costly, poor customer service delivered poor value for money. Providers didn’t respond to problems promptly and created more issues with custom solutions.
After looking at the membership platform alternatives at AMS Fest Chicago the NACA team approached ReadyMembership.
The Project
NACA and the ReadyMembership team reviewed their entire member journey together and streamlined it at every stage. This was something that NACA hadn’t considered from a technology point of view before because they didn’t have that skill set.
Now their fully online join journey is much more member-centric. Members can create their profile and build their organisation’s roster of contacts as part of the joining process. This saves time for both members and NACA staff as members start their membership hitting the ground running - instead of going back and forth to add information.
The renewals process was also transformed from a multi-step manual process that required members to contact the NACA office, to one where they can easily upgrade or downgrade their membership online.
“When a company really knocks it out of the park, they hear a question, think about it, then think ahead about other potential problems and implications”, says Amber Shavari Huston.
The ReadyMembership project team prioritised tasks and monitored the trickier ones which could impact the delivery of the project. Where they proved problematic, senior leaders from both organisations came together to talk issues through, discuss the way ahead and work out new timelines.
“I really appreciated the care and the follow-up from the team,” explains Amber. “Good service shines when you figure out problems together in partnership and not by just following standard operating procedures.”
My team finds the training videos and documentation that ReadyMembership provides super useful. They make it easier for staff to learn the platform and are very helpful to check things at any time.
Finding the right platform and partner
“I need a company where they care about their clients, not just in the honeymoon phase”, says Amber Shaverdi Huston, Executive Director of NACA. “I asked ReadyMembership’s leaders ‘Can I contact you during implementation if anything is wrong?’ The immediate response was ‘yes’.”
The NACA team could see how ReadyMembership could break down their silos by unifying CRM, CMS, email, events, finance and more in one platform. With no in-house IT team, they could also see how all their staff could learn and work on the same platform.
The ability to deliver hyper-personalisation using ReadyMembership’s rules engine was another big draw.
But why did they choose a British vendor as their provider?
“One factor was that data security standards are higher in the UK than in the US”, says Amber. “This meant we would always be ahead of federal and state requirements. However, the ReadyMembership teams’ open approach was also key.”
Jameson agrees: “The timely responses we received during the sales process and the open and honest communication about what could and couldn’t happen were promising. We were looking for people who would come on a journey with us, work well with our staff and deliver within a tight timeframe. We didn’t want just to be handed a product and be left to get on with it.”
Results Explained
Thanks to NACA’s new online join and renewals processes and self-service tools that include events booking and profile management. While staff are still learning the ReadyMembership platform, it is much simpler to use, with all functions in one place - and is making their lives much easier.
NACA also has clear visibility of their members’ interactions, bookings and interests for the first time - giving them much better insight into what their members want.
Saving time for staff & members
- Up to 20% of the team’s time saved managing events - thanks to online booking, payments & automated emails
- 16 hours saved per week in admin saved through automated online join process
- 16 hours saved per week updating the NACA website (from hand-coded HTML to accessible CMS)
- 3 people working on renewals - down to 1
Better engagement & insights
- 3500 people have logged into the NACA platform for the first time (information not available before)
- 800+ views of each of their digital magazines, journals & blogs - 3x what it was previously
Ease of use
- Faster events bookings thanks to online self-service - 2024 NACA Live bookings tracked ahead of last year.
- Updating resources across the website is much easier - as updated once in the platform and automatically replaced everywhere they are published
- Online join and renewals have replaced time-consuming manual processes - making life easier for members and staff
I’m really pleased that our new membership platform has freed up the NACA team to focus on the future - positioning them to develop even better events and online services that bring our community together. ReadyMembership has given us powerful tools which will help us and our members succeed. I’m looking forward to seeing it support our mission of delivering amazing experiences and memories for campus students everywhere.
The Future
NACA’s next steps are to bring their volunteer community onto the ReadyMembership platform using the groups function. This allows different communities to manage their own business and create conversations through message boards.
Their artists and colleges directory will also move onto the ReadyMembership - providing a single home for everything the community needs.
Now the NACA team has freed up their time and has the right tools and member insights, they can focus on their long-term strategy. They want to make even greater use of ReadyMembership’s powerful personalisation tools to build even stronger connections between their members - helping to deliver memories of campus experiences that will last a lifetime.