CLIENT STORIES

Goodwill

What Non-Profit Management Software does Goodwill Use?

In this week’s Client Spotlight, we talk with our amazing client, Kimberlye Bernabe, HR & Leadership Development Specialist at Goodwill Industries International, Inc. Goodwill is using Regpack;s non-profit membership management software for their internal training programs, including their Senior Leadership, Executive Development and Manager Development programs as well as for event and conference registration.

Not only has switching to Regpack made a huge difference for their nonprofit organization, they have been so happy and impressed with what Regpack can do, they are currently in the process of uploading their historical data that was captured in their previous system so they can see a whole data history of their programming. Previously they had no found a system that allows them to create the unique reports that they’ve been wanting to create for quite some time and just couldn’t do with their old system.

A big thank you to Kim for taking the time to speak with us. We’re so honored to work with such a great organization and happy that Regpack is able to improve their events, programs and reporting so they can spend less time on manual data entry and more time inspiring and creating leaders in their field!

You change lives. Let our software change yours.

Tell me a little bit about Goodwill and what’s your position is in the organization?

We are a national and international nonprofit primarily gaining revenue through our retail stores. Profits from those stores go back into our mission, which is workforce development and employment training.

I’m work in the member services center and we are a support system for all of the local Goodwills. They have a local network of 165 in North America and we are a support center for them. We put on several conferences a year that our members attend, we do brand protection which is one of our primary roles as far as serving our members. I support the human resources and leadership development program. Those are the training programs that we are utilizing Regpack for, including our leadership development programs: management development, senior leader program and executive development.

What system were you using before Regpack?

We used a program called etouches. The reason we started the conversation with Regpack about, not even event registration although that’s what we moved to, customizing an application system for our program so people could apply online. We were not happy with the online application system that we had prior to moving to Regpack. Regpack just let us automate so many things and that’s what we really liked about it.

We’ve also now moved our event registration to Regpack as well.
We’re also using Regpack and working now to do a data download from our old system and I’m in the process of getting that into a format that Regpack can use to upload it and then we’ll have all of our historical data and information in Regpack. That way we can run reports and it can give us an overview of the last several years, even though we just started using Regpack.

How will having your historical data merged with your current data in Regpack be valuable to you?

Well I think one of the big things we’d like to do once we get all that historical data into Regpack is look at our demographics. We ask some demographic questions in our application and we’re always trying to improve the diversity of our programs. So looking overall at the past several years at the diversity of the people who have applied to our programs, it will let us know where we need to focus on program recruitment for diversity. Just geographically as well, different parts of the country where we have Goodwills that are not participating, it will let us look at that and recruit from those areas.

What about your old system wasn’t cutting it and caused you to move to Regpack?

What we were using prior to Regpack was internally built and an open sourced platform. It was very difficult to use from the back end. It was ok from the users perspective but Regpack is a whole lot better. It makes running reports much easier and allows us to manipulate our data. It’s just overall a nicer platform for the user and gives us more options as far as the types of questions we can ask.

How was Regpack improved your workflow?

It’s given us a lot of time back when it comes to running reports. In our old system we had to dump everything into a spreadsheet and do things manually to create charts whereas in Regpack you just pull up the question and click on it and it gives you the chart and it’s wonderful.

Have you received any feedback from applicants now that you’ve switched to Regpack?

We don’t have anyone now who would have used the old system. However, I can definitely say that with our old system, I always had people contacting me because they were having issues while they were filling out their applications. And now with our application system with Regpack, I’ve had maybe 1 phone call? And that was primarily because of a browser issue or pop up blockers. That’s another way that it gave me some time back, just not having to respond to those issues that people were having in the old system.

What about Regpack do you value the most?

The automation of things that Regpack allows you to do. Also, the customization and email system have been great.

If you were speaking to other organizations similar to Goodwill, for what reasons would you tell them they should be using Regpack too?

Well one thing I can definitely say, from the nonprofit perspective, is that when you don’t have a lot of money to spend on something like a registration system or the money you do have to spend you’re trying to use wisely because you’re a nonprofit, the price of Regpack is very reasonable compared to what we were looking for, much less actually than we were paying for the previous system. I just think a lot of nonprofits have a membership structure like we do and it makes dealing with and communicating with people in membership easy.

Would you recommend Regpack to others?

Absolutely, yes!

In terms of customer service, especially compared to other softwares and services you’ve used, how would you rate Regpack’s customer service?

On a scale of 1-10, it’s been a 10. The responsiveness has been impressive and we’re impressed with how quickly someone will get back to us by email with a question or an issue. Also, just the customer service of never really saying “no”. Even if we have a request for something that the system can’t currently do, Regpack has never said “no our system can’t do that”. Instead, they figure out a way to customize it and allow the system to do what we wanted it to do.

We’ve been very happy and impressed with the customer service.

What I can say right now, we’re getting ready to start another project with even further customization than what we’ve previously done with Regpack and we’re excited to get started with that and excited about how that will come into play.

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Regpack just let us automate so many things and that’s what we really liked about it.

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We’ve included some important tasks all event planners need on their event checklist, including:

• Event Goals
• Event Budget: ticket costs, sponsorship, etc.
• Transportation / Parking
• Sub – Contractor Lists
• Staff / Volunteer Selection
• Creating an Event Marketing Plan
• Create an Event Website
• Develop an Event Schedule