When SU Australia led the merger of eight organizations into one, they realized the tech stacks across each organization were vastly different. The individual orgs were using everything from paper forms and fillable PDFs to variations of CRMs and event management systems to collect, store, and share data. Andrew needed to find a single system he could implement quickly to serve the data collection needs of 8,500 volunteers and 500 events per year.
Once Andrew discovered the Formstack Platform, he knew he’d found the all-in-one solution required for the many nonprofit workflows he needed to manage. Using Forms, Documents, and Sign, he’s able to build out robust workflows quickly that save his team hundreds of hours on collecting, processing, and sharing data. In fact, using Formstack for just one credit card application process saves the finance team around 40 minutes per submission.
Now, data doesn’t need to be input two or three times across various spreadsheets, forms, and tools. All their volunteers, donors, and employees need to do is use the Formstack Platform. From event registrations and merchandise requests to payment processing and volunteer waivers, multiple workflows are now managed in Formstack to run their national nonprofit.
Formstack allows me to make a difference in the lives of young people and spend more time doing that and less time doing paperwork.
I'm Andrew Beavers. I am the solutions delivery specialist with SU Australia.
What were the challenges before using Formstack?
We merged seven state entities and another organization into one in SU Australia. No one was using the same thing. Everyone was using a mix of different CRMs, different event management tools. Everything from downloading Word documents to filling in paper application forms to online forms that didn't sync with databases.
So how do we manage 8.5 thousand volunteers, 500 events, eight different states with different regulations? So how do you build all that into systems that allow volunteers to do things really simply?
How do you use Forms, Documents, and Sign together?
At the moment, we're rolling out a really big event management. So we're running 500 events across the country, from fundraising dinners, to holiday camps, to missions, to schools groups. And so we're implementing Formstack in a multitude of ways, from the initial registration process to credit card applications, payment request forms, internal funds transfer forms, merchandise request forms.
So there's a whole series of forms that we can embed into our system and allow people to go on that process. If we need documents, it'll automatically straight fill into the documents. And the many signatures, we can do that as well. So being able to get that really nice mix together and they're all working really nicely in a workflow is fantastic.
What results have you seen with Formstack?
We've just run through a new credit card application process. It's going to save about 35 to 40 minutes on every credit card application form just because someone fills in an online form, it merges into a doc, it gets sent out for signature, digital signatures come back. It's a really nice smooth process.
What impact has Formstack made on your team?
If I can simplify their administrative workload and reduce the time they're spending filling in forms, looking at spreadsheets, it's really freeing to go, oh, there is a better alternative to the way we were working is, if we can implement these Formstack forms, we're going to save ourselves time and we're going to make life easier for our volunteers out in the field, which is fundamentally what we're here to do.
What does the future look like with Formstack?
Having the forms, docks, and sign all in one place just allows us options to go, OK, where do we need to collect and where do we need an outcome? And so we've got this suite of tools that allows us to sit down with a user group and go, OK, this is your current workflow. How do we improve that? How do we streamline that? How do we make that more effective and just putting in the right tools to solve each of our user groups problems? So we're really excited about where we can take some of these tools into the future.
