StarChapter Association Management Software

It helped me organize the membership as it was increasing.

Pros

It is robust and can stand mistakes.
It give a really good site appearance.
Once you have mastered it quirks it works very well

Cons

Not easy to use for someone that is not a techie.
The newsletter feature still causes me a lot of grief.
It does not sync with Quick-books.

Pros

This software offers the best value for your money. It has the capabilities of more expense software without the price tag.

Cons

Not having the ability to set-up sessions makes registration a bit harder to maintain. It would be nice to have a functionality that allows people to pick and choose specific tracks.

A web site

Pros

There is a lot of flexibility and relatively easy to modify as you go. They provide a lot of videos and tutorials that are helpful if you have the time to watch them.

Cons

It is a little complicated and not super userfriendly, though they have many tools and instructions to help get you to where you need to be--but it still requires a lot of time to learn--it is not intuitive.

Pros

The software makes the job of a volunteers chapter leader less stressful. I also lke I like the professional polished look of the website templates.

Cons

You have to be willing to dig in and figure things out. Depending on your clients demographic there will be slight slight learning curve, but the tutorials they have really help.

Assistance with record keeping, member management, a better looking website.

Pros

The system is fairly easy to use. I use other association management software and it is similar to those other services.

Cons

Some of the functionality is buried, so it takes some time to resolve the issues that I've been presented with.

Pros

Helps to have professional help to build our website for our local chapter of CMSA, Southeastern CMSA Chapter. This software has allowed us to reach a larger audience of potential case managers for membership and improved our services

Cons

Waiting for update of tutorials that are more focused on new users especially those of us who lack expertise in IT and social media. There is not 24 hour coverage for concerns that occur outside of their business hours.

Better communication.

Pros

User friendly and easier to communicate with members and keep track of the communications. I also like having the ability to pay on line and be able to keep track of it.

The platform should free up some time and effort put in by various board members who had to publish a monthly newsletter, send out announcements, set up event registrations and process payments.

Pros

Seems flexible and includes many features which were improvements over our previous website. Event pre-registration and payment is a key feature we will take advantage of, plus the newsletter content and announcement email features should free up the board members.

Cons

The Lite plan was 'self implemented' which was different from what we thought from the initial sales pitch from StarChapter. The training time offered by StarChapter with this Lite plan seemed rushed and difficult to capture all the great features of the platform.

I did recommend it. That is how you got Pacific Pug Rescue

Pros

The interaction between emails going out and recording them on each individual, the tickets sales is fantastic!

Cons

The email blast new builder is difficult to use. Check out Constant Contact, so much more intuitive

Pros

I like that it is fairly easy to use. Also, the features available really aid small organizations that don't have the time and resources to dedicate staff to managing the website full time. There are also great tools to help expand potential revenue sources that you don't find with every website provider.

Cons

My least favorite piece is the learning curve, which comes with any new program. It's not hard to navigate, but understanding all the features and abilities takes some time and research.

Pros

We have monthly dinner CEU meetings and the Star Chapter accounting of these sign ups is very efficient

Cons

Occasionally we have had an issue with CMSA active members not being able to sign in as members, but over all I have not experienced any real "cons" to the implementation of the Star chapter system.

Star Chapter helps us get our information out to members, create meetings, communications, and keep it all organized.

Pros

We love the ease of use of Star Chapter and the way it looks. Everything is updated and professional and we do not have to work on any of that - we simply type in the information and they do the rest.

Cons

It has been a bit difficult to find time to do all the last minute items needs before the website went live. I would have liked more hands on help.

Pros

The ease of implementation and the support. The training opportunities to use the tools and level of service has been great to allow my organization to focus on other things.

Cons

The ability to customize. I would do some things differently that require your enhancement team to make modifications. I have no idea how long the enhancement will take. Currently I make a suggestion and I have no idea when it will take place.

1. blast emailing 2.vendor emailing list 3. Access for payment on line for vendors, sponsors, members and event.

Pros

the instruction videos were very helpful when I needed to get something done from an administrative perspective.

Cons

I would like more instruction videos, as I am not that familiar navigating in the admin area of the website.

Web Setup, Meeting and Invitation Creation, Payment Portal

Pros

I love the ease of use of StarChapter. They offer teching webinars nad short tutorials, but I've found it's easy to login to the Admin site and look around to get to know the software. It's user friendly with all the features and functionality needed to make navigation and web input simple.

Cons

Some of the features have extra steps that I do not feel are necessary, but they may be for the backend of the software.

Pros

Our members have their own log-ins to access member-only information, mass emails can be easily sent, and the site is mobile friendly.

Cons

Editing certain content is in multiple places (page content, form builder, newsletter, articles, classifieds.)

Pros

Starchapter is easy to use & they have the best tutorials too! The customer service is always there when you need them. I can definitely trust service!

Cons

I wish that they would have more options when it comes to page designs just to make our material look more appealing.

Gives us much easier to understand, hands-on control over the functions we need to run for our organization's operations.

Pros

The system allows us to easily set up events, run reports and add and edit web content. StarChapter's support system is the best I've ever experienced; I can't overemphasize the positive experience myself and many of my fellow site administrators have had interacting with the various support people, all of whom have been committed to resolving issues or helping us understand how to accomplish different tasks.

Cons

Though the support people are excellent, and the support ticket system works very well, some of the help files are hard to decipher or don't include certain answers, which leads to sometimes needing to involve a support person directly.

Pros

It is aesthetically pleasing to the person browsing. Information about events is relatively easy to find.

Cons

It is extremely complicated to use on the admin side. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time for something this tedious. It was sold to my organization as something easy to use and it is not.

Good question. I had never developed a website with an outside source before let alone able to actually program some things. I would say it's been an overall learning experience.

Pros

Some great options. I really don't know what else to say. In the beginning it seemed to start to come together but then our rep was gone and I just felt we missed out on days and time that should have been made up later. Not being able to talk to a person to walk you through is not the greatest support system. For them, they use it everyday to make changes and if changes were not needed ever then it would be fine but there is several areas a person with no technical experience could not achieve. Again, I am not downing any customer support person as I feel they are super friendly and get back to you but just not the support I expected after the initial ended.

Cons

Not user friendly. I feel like it was more than likely not really compliant with what we needed but I came on after the initial decision and realizing some options just did not work well for us. We have only kept this as we spent the initial money and I don't have time to go another direction.