Arts & Culture
Meet The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance (MWPA)
Founded in 1975 and coming up on their 50th anniversary, The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance (MWPA) brings together writers, editors, publishers, booksellers and literary professionals at all stages of their careers to sharpen their craft, create community, and celebrate great writing.
The organization has a small but mighty 5-person staff, supporting over 1600 active members. Throughout the year, the MWPA provides workshops and literary events across the state and hosts their annual Maine Literary Awards and biennial Maine Lit Fest.
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, writer, poet, teacher and nonprofit professional, has been involved with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for many years in multiple capacities—first as a board member, then as a staff member, and, now, as their Executive Director.
Wild Apricot Wasn’t Getting the Job Done
When Fay-LeBlanc transitioned to Executive Director of MWPA, he quickly realized there were large gaps in many internal processes—especially when it came to tracking data.
While the organization had been using Wild Apricot for almost 10 years at that point, they were only using it to track memberships because their staff found the system too complicated to use for tracking things like daily tasks, communications, and events.
As a workaround, the staff was instead using Excel and various other one-off software solutions to manage a whole host of tasks. But this arrangement meant that maintaining their organization’s data was both time-consuming and prone to error—never a good combo .
And the problems didn’t stop there! On top of having to use various third-party solutions for data tracking needs, Fay-Leblanc also found Wild Apricot to be super limited when it came to membership reporting needs.
It was difficult for him to pull simple reports like lapsed members, or reports that could showcase changes month-over-month or year-over-year. With every board meeting came the added stress —when it came to presenting accurate membership data, Fay-LeBlanc didn’t trust the numbers that Wild Apricot was giving him.
“We had different systems for everything and Wild Apricot is a big system! We were just using it for membership because, to do more than that, it seemed like you needed somebody on staff with a computer science degree.”
–Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Executive Director, MWPA
Enter: Neon CRM
Fay-LeBlanc knew there was a better solution out there, and he was specifically looking for a system that was truly all-inclusive—one that could house contacts, memberships, events and workshops, email and direct mail communications, and daily task management.
It was a tall order, but Neon CRM fit the bill.
Neon CRM Can Handle Memberships and Donations
Switching to Neon CRM has been great for Gibson and his staff—they’ve been able to establish a trusted process for their member management needs—but it’s been a welcome change for the MWPA’s members, too.
Members can now manage their own accounts through Neon CRM’s Member Portal, easily renewing their membership and adding donations on top of their membership dues.
That last part is especially important, because a lot of the MWPA’s members, both new and renewing, have expressed a desire to donate above and beyond simply paying their membership fee.
Historically, the MWPA had to handle this process manually. But, with Neon CRM, they have been able to automate this entire process by including an ‘add donation’ option right on their membership form.
and Email…
When it came to solving the MWPA’s too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen approach to their tech stack, Neon CRM helped them slim down. Thanks to the system’s built-in email tool, the organization was able to stop using Mailchimp as a third-party email system.
Using Neon CRMs email campaign builder not only saved the MWPA money, but having everything live in a single system meant their staffers were saving precious time as well.
They can build and combine email audience segments, design campaigns, schedule send times, and get real-time insights into open and click through rates—-all without leaving their member database.
…and Events, Too
Did we mention that the MWPA also uses Neon CRM to manage their events? It really has been the all-in-one solution for their needs.
The ease of setting up and managing events and workshops within Neon CRM has been a huge benefit for MWPA—it’s easy, intuitive, and has saved their team a lot of time and headaches managing registrant and attendee information.
With a glance they can quickly understand who has registered, and then send out friendly reminders to those who may have not yet signed up for a particular workshop/event.
All in all, having events management as a native capability with Neon CRM has been a significant benefit for the MWPA—especially when you consider the organization’s extensive programming.
“I looked at a few different options, but the more I looked at Neon One, the more it seemed like it really had all the things that we were looking for. And as I dug in further, it became clear that we were going to actually pay less and get a whole lot more!”
–Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Executive Director, MWPA
Reporting to the Board with Confidence
In addition to the money saved on a reduced tech stack and the staff hours rescued from time-consuming manual processes, Neon CRM has delivered something that’s harder to put a price on: peace of mind.
Namely, the system restored Fay-LeBlanc’s confidence when presenting to the MWPA’s Board. With Neon CRM’s enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities, he’s getting numbers on memberships, fundraising, and events that he can count on.
If you want to learn more about all the features of Neon CRM that has made it such a great tool for the MWPA, please join one of our upcoming group demos! They’ll give you a great overview in a breezy 30 minutes with zero pressure to buy.
Find a time that works for you!
