StarChapter Association Management Software

Star Chapter

Pros

Ease of use with meeting emails. Templates for newsletters. Survey functionality.

Cons

The small box to edit emails/webpages. Lack of design capabilities.

Good for Starter Nonprofits - Awful Otherwise

Awful. I'm tired of opening tickets for every single matter that isn't addressed in the Knowledgebase.

Pros

This software is affordable and great for nonprofits that are just starting out. It provides everything you need to get started, including a website, dues structure, member letters and member CRM.

Cons

This software lacks a lot of functions that nonprofits really need. There doesn't appear to be a platform for managing CEUs, there is no membership card template, customizing emails with member data appears to have limited functionality, extracting membership data for dashboards is near impossible - you can only customize the data so much and the reports and charts built in are limited. Member categories are tracked poorly - our system doesn't categorize expired members, you have to go to the non-members section to find them - even though Expired is a category in the data filter! One screen has a specific number of active members, and another screen will have a different number. And the Knowledgebase is terrible. I've had to open like 50 tickets because so many of the concerns I have or matters I need help with are not on the Knowledgebase! My nonprofit has decided to move on with another platform.

Customers First!

Star Chapter allows our non profit association the ability to manage not only our website but also our membership, communications and dues payments. It also allows us advertising opportunities. Star Chapter has amazing customer service and support! I would recommend them to other non profits.

Pros

The software is fairly easy to navigate and the customer support is fantastic!

Cons

I wish there were more font options and better tools for design work. I also wish we could make the sponsor sections on the front page look better....

One Stop Shop

Pros

The updated back-office portal is easy to understand and navigate

Cons

Payment processing is still slightly clunky, but that's because we use PayPal too.

Good Basic Tool

Decent. It gives us the basics we need but would be great if the system was a bit more robust. Areas of opportunity: 1. Website will not track a started membership without causing issues. If you start a membership but don't finish all the way to pay screen it acts like your a member but there's no way for you to continue your order. The person supporting site then has to go back and either contact the member who didn't finish and manually enter them or delete the started profile and begin again. 2. When you order multiple tickets under same name (like in meeting you're doing for a golf tournament) you have to fill out the same person name over & over. No way to bypass or say same as above. 3. No place to put orders for things that don't relate to membership and/or meeting. It'd be great to have a section for these types of things that we sell. For example, A yearly sponsorship that can be ordered at anytime on website but doesn't confuse the dues system. Which brings me to point 4 4. Currently if they order anything listed in dues it acts as if the member has renewed. So if they order a name change it's acting as though they paid their dues but they didnt.

Pros

Great for setting up & tracking memberships & meetings.

Cons

A bit rudimentary. There are areas where the website makes steps too convoluted.

Association Management with Ease and affordability

Absolutely fantastic! I have been with them for many years with 3 different groups and have never been let down.

Pros

I enjoy working in Star Chapter, they have ease in functionality and accomplishes all my organizational needs.

Cons

On the meeting screen, I wish you could edit the questions once you have had registrations on an event. Not a big deal, but a nice to have.

Star Chapter

Payments are easy to keep track of and all in one spot especiall for our fund raiser.

Pros

It is accessible
One spot
Organized
These are the words that come to mind in using the software.

Cons

Not user friendly or ease of use... It is really good when anyone can easily comebehind the person that knows it well and

Add StarChapter to the Payroll

The customer service team is very responsive in answering questions and taking suggestions to the team for consideration in future implementation.

Pros

Star Chapter has helped us streamline our Chapter activity so we can accomplish more with our limited staff!

Cons

Not being able to get past this question without answering.

Review from TCCFE

It's good. I wish I had done some training up front as I've really had to learn on my own as I've gone along.

Pros

I love the new Dashboard view. The app itself is relatively easy to use.

Cons

It would be nice if there was a 'push' notification out to the admin saying there are e-mails that haven't been verified so do this, or 'x' members will let their membership expire in one month, or other info that's relevant to the admin person. Also, a feature that sends a reminder to members and non-members about an event 'x' days before the deadline for sign-up.

Transitional times for Changing the Leadership of the Group

Ease of registration, collection of fees and easy listing of the attendees to an event. After learning to set up the fees and times of publication then Star Chapter earns its value to the organization.

Pros

After elections of new officers the ability to bring those members up to speed in use of the System by Star Chapter using the free training in the various positions.

Cons

Some of the categories are not easy to locate for modifying the page content.

Highly recommend Star Chapter!

Wonderful - they are so quick to reply to any questions or concerns!

Pros

That everything is in one place - membership, event registration, membership dues. It's so easy to look up one member and find all details.

Cons

There could be more features to the event registration section.

good spend

works pretty well for our chapter's needs

Pros

Our website through StarChapter is pretty easy to use.

Cons

Unfortunately, there are not as many features as we would like

Works for Our Needs

It is a great product. You can tell the team really cares!

Pros

I like that they are constantly trying to improve, update, and wow. The customer service support team is fantastic, and somehow know what my needs are even despite my layman terminology.

Cons

The functionality could be improved. Pulling reports doesn't always work, and with the new platform, it sometimes takes a while to find what im looking for.

PRSA Buffalo Niagara

Pros

I like that the StarChapter team seems adept at keeping websites (and their functionality) up to date. I also like that you have the ability to maintain and leverage data for your communication needs in one system.

Cons

Managing pages on the back end of the website is much more confusing than other systems I've used before.

Great for our association chapters!

Pros

This has provided association chapters the opportunity to roll in several services into one product creating a more streamlined management for association business. This is great because the chapters are run by volunteers. They are now only managing one system for their members versus multiple.

Cons

The only con we have is not because of the product but because it is run by volunteers. They need a little more assistance since this is not what they do for a living. However, StarChapter has been a great support to them directly, as well!

Very good platform for clubs and societies

Generally Good experience for limited use. Tech support is very responsive.

Pros

Pretty straight forward for setting up meetings and memberships.

Cons

Limitations on customizations for member types, marketing and messaging. Text interface is not intuitive.

Not As User-Friendly As I Hoped

Friendly staff who are usually quick to respond to an inquiry (even if it's not the answer I need) - i just wish the program was more user-friendly on the back end of things, and that the support staff would listen more closely when I have a problem...many of their answers revolve around options that I have already tried, and even though I explain this to them, they don't seem to understand that their "fix" doesn't work for me.

Pros

The membership database works very well, the layout of the website looks great.

Cons

Many basic aspects of the softward can not be changed by the admin user (or StarChapter staff), and so far many functions have been very difficult to get used to. Also, the email marketing feature is NOT user friendly, and continues to create problems for me. I miss using Constant Contact...but have invested too much in StarChapter at this point to consider going back to the old way we did things...

Star Chapter

Pros

manageable, flexibility, don't need to be an expert at we design to manage the site. Good preview screen to ensure the end result is what I am looking for

Cons

not the most intuitive....spend a lot of time searching around for how to accomplish what I want

Easy to use, full featured, and great support

Great - full featured and complete. The best part is the support. I've never seen support so complete and responsive - they are the best.

Pros

Simple, any one of the chapter officials can use it. FUll featured. We can handle almost all the chapters business through starchapter. The only thing we don't do on star chapter is document storage. Everything else is done through starchapter, planning & managing events, newsletters, email notifications, member activity tracking, - its great.

Cons

The only negative is that the new version was rolled out before the documentation was ready. But the system is so intuitive that it wasn't an issue.

Star Chapter

My overall experience was fine, support is great.

Pros

Fairly easy for the members to use. Like the reporting. Like the look. I like everything but the three things I mention below.

Cons

You need to figure a way that one member company can have more than one person registered. And we would be able to see how many member companies we have, without the extra people.
You need to be able to refund someone on a registration or ticket
The email blast engine is hard to work with and not very creative.