Arts & CultureHow Preservation Houston Serves their Community of 4,000+
Since 1978, Preservation Houston has voiced strong support for better public policy and protection of Houston’s irreplaceable architectural and cultural historic resources through advocacy, education, and committed action.
Their members, volunteers, and staff have been instrumental in the adoption of citywide preservation ordinances, the designation of local landmarks and historic districts, and the development of preservation ethics in Bayou City.
All of a sudden, managing spreadsheets got unattainable and stopped working altogether. Their capacity to track contributions and manage events and memberships hit a wall due to tracking everything in spreadsheets. They needed a cloud-based system that could manage and track their events, fundraising, and memberships.
Finding a Solution for Preservation Houston
Prior to Neon One, Preservation Houston was maxing out available columns in their Excel spreadsheets.
Jim Parsons
Director of Special Projects
“Events lists, membership, mailing lists…it was all tracked in spreadsheets. We bumped up against the max number of Excel columns. We needed something to deal with all these spreadsheets.”
When they were initially considering Neon One, they made a list of their goals and functional needs to help them outline what they were looking for in a software.
Goals
- Track Contributions
- Manage Events
- Manage Memberships
Functional Needs
- Membership Management
- Membership Tracking
- Membership Renewals
- Events
Key Features and Benefits from Neon One
Once they realized that Neon One met their criteria along with each and every one of their functional needs, they made the switch. They were now equipped them with automated tools to keep better track of their members and so much more.
They found that the platform was checking the boxes to make them more efficient and had all of the features that they needed in their day-to-day work.
Efficiency Tools
- Quick creation of member-only event invitations
- Better work delegation
- Simplified paper membership mailing
- Better online form setup
Favorite Features
- Membership management
- Analytics and reports on membership and event attendance
- Automatic membership renewal emails
- Donation management
- Event tracking
- Online forms
And beyond the fact that the features and efficiency was hitting the mark, the results also spoke for themselves. Their shift to Neon One resulted in a 300% increase in total general donations and a 32% increase in memberships.
Improved Membership Management
Preservation Houston attributes the membership increase they saw to the ease of managing memberships online with Neon and the system’s automated membership renewal reminders.
They see results every time their system sends reminder emails for membership renewals. Now more than ever their members are joining and renewing online.
“Everything has been super easy, and everyone has been really responsive and nice.”
Jim Parsons, Director of Special Projects.
Onboarding & Ongoing Support
Preservation Houston also invested in the Data Import + Configuration consultation with Neon One to help their transition to the new platform easier on their team.
Data Migration
Neon migrated 2,000 individual and company records from Excel to the Neon CRM database. The migration removed many duplicate bad records, creating a much cleaner system moving forward.
Ongoing Support & Use
Preservation Houston was paired with a Neon Client Success Manager for on-going support. Their staff can now log in to their database quickly to update memberships and check event confirmation information on the go.
“Neon takes so much less time. Before, the ordeal of membership mailings meant we avoided and delayed them. Now emails go out, and it’s night and day.”
David Bush, Acting Executive Director
Advice for Nonprofits Looking for a New Software Solution from Preservation Houston’s Staff
When asked to share a few tidbits for other nonprofits who may be considering new technology, the Preservation Houston team shared the following:
- Find the system that does what you need it to do from the start.
- Not all software solutions will be cost-effective. When considering a solution, look for something that best serves the number of transactions you process on a daily basis.
- If you need something that focuses on membership, choose one that fits your specific needs. Just because it is a nonprofit focused software doesn’t mean that it serves all your needs.
Jim Parsons
Director of Special Projects
“Our constituents have appreciated being able to easily make donations and purchase tickets to events through Neon One—all of that makes life a lot easier for our stakeholders and our staff.”
Does your membership organization need a database solution? Let Neon One help.
See Neon CRM in Action
Take this self-guided tour and see how top nonprofits build community, raise more, and save time with a single platform that manages it all!
