What do you use for event planning payments

[Shannon Whitehead]

#513302

MCVO uses a combination of programs to get the job done. It’s somewhat cumbersome, but we’ve refined it over time and split the responsibilities, so it isn’t too bad. If you’d like to reach out to our Technology Director, Gary Rappaport, at garyrppprt@gmail.com he would be glad to lead you through it.

Bruce Heckman
President, MCVO

[Shannon Whitehead]

#513391

I use Constant Contact to send out all of our announcements and collecting money. First of all, the program is not free and has a monthly subscrition fee. It does handle the payment process through PayPal and people can also use their credit card on PayPal. There is a fee for PayPal use about 2.5%. MailChimp is free for use and can handle the same things but I don’t have much experience with it yet. I think we will switch to it next year to save the monthly subscription fees.

Sanjar Chakamian
President
NorCal Viper Club

[Shannon Whitehead]

#513449

For special events only we have been using mailchimp and Paypal. Seems to be the simplest for most of our members. We still send out quick reminder notices through our other social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, & Forums). For the first time we are trying a beginning of the year party. December, just seems to get so full with family and work obligations, it is hard to find a date that works for all. We are hoping the beginning of January members schedules are a bit more freed up and attendance will be better.

[Shannon Whitehead]

#513689

Thanks everyone! I am going to research Mailchimp, that is a nice lead. Bruce, I’ll also email your tech guy.

Wes – Funny coincidence about you considering moving your annual party, we have been doing the same. Considering a Halloween event this year instead of xmas for our big party. We think it’ll be an easier time of year to organize around, plus it gives an easy theme for the party, and it’s near the end of our driving season.

Thanks everyone,
Paul.

[Shannon Whitehead]

#34672

Hey everyone,

In the New England region we have been struggling to find a system that meets our needs for event co-ordination and payments. We had been using Evite, which has a good system for sign-up management (our members like that they can see who is and is not attending, and they can comment on the event or the signups, and can post event pictures there too), but does not handle payments. So when we used Evite we had to have a separate system for payments, which made everything harder and resulted in people showing up without paying, etc. This year we switched to EventBrite, which handles payments smoothly, but members don’t like the transaction fees, and they don’t like that they cannot see who else is attending. I’ve had to resort to emailing attendee lists to people, which isn’t very effective.

I am looking for an alternative which ideally:
– Is transparent about event attendees, so that invitees can see who is invited and who has responded (who is and is not coming).
– Manages payments with minimal (preferably zero) fees. I know that credit card fees are unavoidable, but I don’t want to pay fees on top of that.

I know that I could use Venmo or similar to manage payments without fees, but then the payments are still separate from the event signup, and the money is coming to me personally rather than the club account, which adds more complexity/risk.

What does your club use? What do you recommend?

Thanks,
Paul.

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