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| Customer Success Stories |
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| Craigslist Foundation |
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| Nonprofit Chooses Acteva for Comprehensive Reporting & Tracking Features |
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| Challenge |
Improve registration and payment tracking |
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| Solution |
Utilizing questionnaires, surveys and custom reporting features |
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| Results |
Accurate real-time reporting on attendee payment & registration data |
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| Background |
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Craigslist Foundation - the nonprofit Foundation of the social website craigslist.org – is a
worldwide organization that produces both events and online resources to help emerging
nonprofit leaders accomplish a wide range of goals.
Since their founding in 2000, Craigslist Foundation has organized 8-10 events for nonprofits
each year, including two major events known as the Craigslist Nonprofit Boot Camp. One
event is held in Brooklyn, NY while the other takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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Business Challenge |
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| Improve registration and payment tracking |
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As the boot camps have continued to grow in attendance, what they really needed was an
easy-to-use, yet comprehensive reporting system for tracking Boot Camp registration data
to help improve event planning, scheduling, and marketing. “We have entrepreneurs and
small non-profits from all over the country trying to get their business up and running,”
says Darian Rodriguez Heyman, Executive Director for Craigslist Foundation. “We wanted
to know when they registered, how they registered and what payment method they used.
Basically, we lacked quick access to vital attendee information.” |
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| His primary goal as an organizer was to add a comprehensive system for reporting and
tracking attendee data from various sources. Being able to determine, in real-time, who was
coming to the events, was essential to ensure up to the minute accuracy. “Even though our
boot camps are regional events, people come from all over the U.S. to network and learn
about nonprofits,” he says. |
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Another problem facing the Foundation—and one that virtually every event planner faces
was the amount of time and effort required to process registrations and payments. A single
employee was responsible for these labor-intensive tasks, and with the growing popularity of
the Foundation’s events, they badly needed a more efficient process. “Those who work for
non-profits and start-ups are already stretched for time,” says Heyman. “When it comes to
attending our boot camp, the last thing they want to do is take the time to fill out more forms
or deal with processing payments.” |
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| Acteva Solution |
| Utilizing questionnaires, surveys and custom reporting features |
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| After attending a 45-minute demo, Heyman was convinced that Acteva could provide exactly
what he was looking for. Acteva’s primary advantage over the competition was its powerful
tracking features. Acteva lets event planners keep all attendee data in one place, making it
easy to extract the information they need and communicate with attendees, quickly and easily. |
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| “Basically we wanted to get the specific data we needed - when we needed it,” says Heyman.
“Acteva allows us to consolidate all of our data so we can communicate with them as they
come on board with us. Also, our sponsors are key participants and some information that
comes from the reports, such as mailing lists, can be provided to the sponsors as a reward for
their support.” |
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Another major advantage of the Acteva solution is the ability to include fully customizable
questionnaires on registration pages. Event planners can use the questionnaires to learn who is
signing up for their events, their preferences, and anything else they need to know. “We use the
questionnaire to pull all kinds of statistics and track information,” says Heyman. “We can also
create customized questions as we see fit or utilize the option that’s available to help register
‘special guests’ we identify internally, such as friends, family or scholarship recipients.” |
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| The Foundation included a 25-question survey with both optional and required questions to
help determine such things as whether they are a new attendee or alumni as well as identify
the key issues they face as a nonprofit enterprise. The benefit to the Foundation is they can use
this data to improve the overall quality of the boot camp for all involved. “We can learn what
they like about the boot camp as well as get feedback on areas where we need to improve,”
he says. |
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| Branded Registration Pages |
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In order to re-create the look and feel of their website, the Foundation chose to create a fully
branded registration page. Heyman notes that, “With Acteva, we can easily customize our
registration pages with our own logo, colors, and graphics.” Recently, they’ve also added a
‘Donate’ button so attendees have the option to contribute additional funds while registering.
“Overall, the page was very easy to set up, even for a non-techie, non-designer like me. I’m
sure visitors think it’s just another part of the Craigslist Foundation website.”
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| Results |
| Accurate real-time reporting on attendee payment & registration data |
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| Acteva not only improved the Foundation’s event registration tracking and reporting
capabilities, it has also vastly simplified registration and payment management, and it lets
Heyman maintain close contact with attendees. Auto-replies are now sent automatically to
each new registrant immediately instead of sending manual replies hours or days later. |
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| For Heyman, “The best part is all the customization options. There are so many different ways
Acteva helps me accomplish my goals as an organizer. Acteva has really made my job much
easier. I have plenty of insight into who’s coming to our boot camps, why they’re coming, and
what we can do to improve their overall satisfaction with the program.” |
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| Experience that counts |
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| Acteva is the trusted leader in online event registration, ticketing and payment management
services. Since 1998, over 12,500 customers have used Acteva to manage more than 215,000
events and process more than 3.4 million registrations. Acteva’s customers include Bausch &
Lomb, Pfizer, SAP, Girl Scouts of America, Whole Foods, Craigslist Foundation, Lending Tree,
and thousands of small to large-sized businesses and organizations. |
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