Vol. 1 - No. 38
February 2008
NWC evaluates Wild Apricot Membership-based Web Application Service
and adds value with new consulting and communications services
"Membership-based non-profit associations and organizations challenged by "older think" ideas about how web sites should be "upgraded", and how organizations should be managed and run, need to take a serious look at what advantages a "newer think" approach can now afford." - Art Johnson/New World Communications
... and you can both quote us and credit us for saying this. For several years now, we've observed how challenged not-for-profit organizations working with a lot of well-meaning volunteers and paid staff continue to struggle over mission-critical issues of membership management, donations management, sponsorship development and donor development, tryng to increase revenue and build organizational capacity.
Even the larger, more established not-for-profit organzations continue to be challenged, investing huge sums of money in proprietary fund-raising software, and IT infrastructure, or else falling off the edge of the world by trying to implement complicated, and daunting open source web applications, like Drupal, or Joombla, and running into significant support issues and consulting dependencies going that way. |
Well now, thanks to Wild Apricot...and New World Communications, not-profit agencies and membership-based associations can get a lot more value for their hard-earned dollars via a "newer-think" and more intelligent, exciting and lucrative approach. Here's the difference and how this all works.
"The Older-think Way:" This is the way that most organizations are still going about things. The typical scenario is to approach all the mission-critical business stuff of managing membership, doing and managing events, fundraising and managing donor development with effficiency-challenged and often times costly "physical world" approaches. Some of the more developed and better-funded organizations will also sink huge sums of money on proprietary fundraising applications or special fundraising application services, or on expensive fundraising consultants, while their amateurish-looking websites continue to be nothing to write home about. Added to this challenge is the fact that most executive directors, and organizational officers and board members still think that this older-think way is still the best way to do things and " is as good as it gets."
As far as communications go, this "older-think" way still depends upon having its cause "picked up by the media" and gets ecstatic when it finally sees the organization written up in print, and published in a full-color regional magazine. Getting on television or radio is out however because of the way the commercial and public media marketplace has gone ...unless Oprah finds what you are doing interesting enough to give you some national exposure... nice if you can get it...but even this is not is "good as it gets".... not after you take a look at a "newer-think" way of doing things. |
"The Newer-think Way:" Wild Apricot membership-based web application service, implemented, supported, administered and further extended by New World Communications lets organizations go about doing their business a different and more cost-effective way. What's new to the scenario is that key business functions can now be more cost-effectively managed on-line in a "virtual world": |
From Wild Apricot web application service
1) Attractive, professional-grade web presence...at low cost...even at no cost!: Even the smallest not-for-profit group or organization can afford to look good with stylish templates, crisp text, and excellent formatting, and custom branding ability..a special ad-supported version (with innocuous ads at the bottom of pages) ..is even "*free"!
*"Free" version is stripped down with limited membership capacity and features...but it is free.
2) Powerful, revenue-adding, tiered membership-management: The Wild Apricot membership-based web management system is designed to manage different kinds of membership packages with different member benefit and different pricing at nominal monthly flat fee cost. Adminstratively this is way better than paying for more head count to manage this.
3) Big blast, targetted opt-in e-mail marketing: This is way better and less costly than using third-party e-mail marketing services that are not integrated with contacts in your database ...see next section.
4) Built-in contact database and customer relationship management system with forms integration, and with integration right into the website is way better and way more cost effective than paying extra to integrate more expensive third-party fund-raising software into your website.
5) Fee-based events management and calendar: If you are thinking about offering fee-based monthly events to add more value to your offering and to add "net new" monthly revenue to your bank account, Wild Apricot has excellent capabilities to manage this.
6) Donations management: This system will even manage donations....and very cost-effectively...right in the same system!
7) Widgets functionality and much, much more: Widgets functionality allow you to integrate powerful Wild Apricot functionality into your own existing web site. The list of other powerful features is just too long to include here: Contact us today and we can go over some of them with you - (425) 844-8908 |
From New World Communications
1) Management consulting and organizational development services: People and organizations, in order to be able to take advantage of this, need to engage in facilitated conversations that can help them start thinking differently and operating in newer more innovative ways.
2) Implementation services: There is a lot of robust functionality to be implemented here that goes well beyond the skill sets of conventional "web developers", most of whom are not that well-versed in addressing some of the leadership-related, management development and business operational issues.
3) Integration of additional communications and e-learning communications: New World Communications has "net-new" front-running ways that stakeholders can even meet and learn.."inside" your website using next-generation face-to-face web conferencing and e-learning tools and strategies. Here are just some of the additions and possiblities to think about:
* Virtual Board Room: Meet "face-to-face" with up to five people using multi-point web cams and work on collaborate documents and spreadsheet-type budgets together ...without driving... anywhere
* Virtual Conference and Convention Center: This is way more powerful and way more cost-effective than spending all that money on "physical world" hotel-type multi-day conferences. New World Communications, working with its strategic technology partners can do large audience webcasting, small audience webinars, and even virtual tradeshows with virtual booths where vendors and attendees can even e-meet "face-to-face" using webcams and take advantage of "show specials" using secure on-line shopping functionality
* Virtual Learning Center: Offer fee-based online classes to add revenue and create "net-new" revenue streams by integrating in links to an online learning management system, with rich-media courseware that New World Communications can instructionally design and develop for you...courseware that can even the training & development power of the new web television...see next section.
* Web Television : Working with New World Communications, you don't have to wait to be picked up by the media or discovered by Oprah, before you can leverage the power of television to get the word out about your organization's unique value proposition. Web television is even potentially more powerful than conventional broadcast, cable, or satellite television because it goes across the entire Internet, locally, regionally, nationally, and even internationally. Your audience also is potentially way bigger and the exposure, much longer
Call us today if you need more info moving forward with next-generation, membership-based website, uniquely implemented, extended and supported by New World Communications- (425) 844-8908. |
Best regards,
Art Johnson
New World Communications
425-844-8908
e-mail: ajohn@newworldcom.com |
New World Communications provides intelligent communications solutions for a 21st century world..and delivers the mission-critical learning a new world needs."
New Communications is also a "green" company, working with telecommunications solutions that:
- use not one drop of gas.
- add not one micron of pollution
- ...and that can help you "get there" and "get back"...faster than a rocket.. just by logging on and off.
You just need to learn how to "walk through the virtual door" ...doing more things online...and we can help you with that.
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