Wild Apricot

Commentaires: I have been a long time client of WA (7 years), but we are unlikely to renew. 3 years they ago they had a 40% price increase, but they allowed you to renew for up to 2 years at the previous rate. That increase was somewhat understandable because they had not raised fees for the previous 4 years we were clients. 2 years later they had another 40% increase but did not offer the same renewal. Neither increase coincided with major functional additions other than normal enhancements to existing functions. Today they announced a new 20% penalty if you don't switch to their payment processing system (US/Canada only). We have no intention to switch from PayPal so this was the last straw. We will be looking for an alternate option. They were acquired by a larger company and subsequently and equity firm. These increases are obviously cash grabs from current clients without considering the impact to the organizations. My suspicion is the company has a major cash flow issue and this is a way to get money now. I would be very leary of the stability of the company as they will lose many clients over this. This is really unfortunate because their tool is excellent!

Avantages: WA has a great feature set that includes a lot of the functionality we need to completely manage our membership, communication, and payment collection. I especially like that we can have bundle memberships and can create saved searches for email distribution or member management.

Inconvénients: There are occasionally issues with some of the search fields that can only be resolved by logging off and back in. I would like to have group texting capabilities.

Avantages: I was the Secretary for my Chapters well known organization. The Secretarial duties are vast and important to the life of the organization. Wild Apricot appears to have everything a non-profit organization needs. It allows me to do all of the required things necessary.
The membership database allows for custom as well as preset categories with specified access. I can keep track of membership categories, addresses, dues due, and
Quick books is a part of the application. Reports can be easily generated using the information entered into the database. My favorites are the communication sections. I can announce events that all members can quickly view, be registered for or wait listed. Reminders can also be sent to all members or those specified.
Payments can be taken and recorded, invoices and receipts sent. The confirmation emails are customized and can be personalized. Documents that need to be shared can also be done.
I find that Wild Apricot can complete all necessary duties assigned to an organization. While all officers can have premium access to all documents, reports and finances 24/7, it also allows for all shades of transparency to members while keeping confidential information secure.
I haven't run across any application as thorough as Wild Apricot. I've only used the application a few days as they allow a 30 day trial to try it out and show off their goods to potential users.

Inconvénients: My only concern is that the way in which things are laid out aren't as intuitive as I would have liked. I would rather have an illustrated manual on the dashboard for when a new user signs in. There is a quick 4 minute video guide that I may find usable later on the opening page. But its definitely not a deal breaker for me.

Commentaires: Our small, non-profit organization of internationally located English teachers needed a "home" for our members to connect. Nobody on the board was particularly tech savvy; nor were we confident enough to build our own website. So we were thrilled to discover Wild Apricot (WA). The tutorials are fabulous, thankfully using simple English and easily understood, and the structure is intuitive to even the most novice user. The Customer Service team quickly replies anytime I have a question. We initiated a small annual membership fee to cover our cost, and WA's automated system tracks our member renewals with ease. We are still able to offer free memberships to our global and student members, and the general membership fees easily cover our annual costs. Our little site hosts all of our organization's history (past conferences, journals, newsletters, etc.), and we're hoping to soon add a Resources tab where our members can share unpublished curriculum ideas for teaching English language learners. I love that we can have a members-only viewing for some things on our site, and open everything else to the public. Our annual conference registration is so much more organized now, and we love the ease of the Paypal system for payments. Of course, there are changes we'd like to see, particular to our organization's needs and goals. Three times I've made suggestions to WA for site improvement, and the follow-up was quick, respectful, and thorough. Suggestions are taken seriously and are useful to the WA team for making site improvements and upgrades. I am happy to write this recommendation and assure you that anyone, absolutely anyone can create a useful and attractive website with the help of Wild Apricot!

Avantages: Ease of use for general public, ability to create an attractive, efficient website, Paypal link for easy registration for memberships and conference fees, great customer support

Inconvénients: Some limitations for the structure of the website

Commentaires: I would definitely recommend Wild Apricot for any organization with a membership and events that require registration. They manage this amazingly well!!. I love the fact that it is so easy for both admins and users to use. Most of my admins and membership are not technical so this is important to us. It's easy to enable blogs, forums, and photo galleries to create community pages -- somewhere that members can connect to the club and each other.

Avantages: We are a recreational tennis club with 70 members. I created a great website with a customized membership application form in just one day with no coding required. Within a week, we were live, with online applications and online event registration for tennis tournaments and even electronic payment. I have ALL contact information plus player rankings available when it is time to do the draw; it is so much easier than taking paper entry forms which are not filled out completely or legibly. Thanks to customized event registration forms, I can solicit volunteers at the time that they register. No more calling people at their homes trying to find someone to help!!! I appreciate the security measures too -- I am able to provide club newsletters and photo galleries to club members only. My membership is very pleased with the functionality and everyone says that the club feels more connected this year. The Wild Apricot support team has been responsive to all questions and problems.

Inconvénients: The finance side of Wild Apricot is a little weak as their reports do not take into account the finance fees that Google Checkout and PayPal deduct. And you can't modify the numbers manually to reflect actual amount received, either due to finance fees or if someone sent in a partial payment. They are aware of these issues and are working on them. The other enhancement request that we have is to have users be able to see who else is signed up for tournaments. That's because we are a social organization and because we make use of changing volunteers to help with every event. Wild Apricot is working on this but it was not an early priority because professional organizations that were hosting seminars, for example, had no need for participants to see who else was attending and did not necessarily use any volunteers.

Commentaires: Database that is accessible for any of the administrators of the club. Members can self manage accounts. Automatic upgrades and easy to manage Web content. Automatic billing through predefined time periods etc. Ease of use. We were up and running in a few weeks. Data import was easy as well.

Avantages: The primary driver was to find something that was intuitive to use. Our staff are all part time volunteers and needed to be able to use the software with minimal instructions from their homes. Wild Apricot provided this by making the import of data simple as well as creating a new Web site that had same look and feel of existing site. Also migrating the DNS was easy. There are plenty of tutorial and FAQ pages to guide you along. Once you under stand the basic concept everything else becomes easy. Best part is being able to grant limited admin access to certain pages for updates and changes. Also by letting users update their own information we saved a lot of time updating Membership data. Creating Events proved very popular as well with Members now being to sign up on line and also remit payments. Integration with PayPal was easy as well. The application packs enough features to make it much easier to manage the Swim Club without making it too complicated to use. Everything beforehand was Excel driven and therefore never synchronized or up to date. I also like the mobile app a lot. Easy to take a look if new members signed up, paid or if member are delinquent without going online.

Inconvénients: We have encountered some minor issues we wished were a little different but nothing to deter from the overall functionality. I think that would be the case with any software packages. So no major cons to report. We like the software. It is easy to use and has powerful reporting etc capabilities.