Jennifer Foreshew | August 19, 2008
WHEN Diving Victoria took the plunge and rolled out a new technology platform, it didn't make a splash at first with some members.
Helen Hillard says the system cuts costs
After considering a range of options, including developing its own system, Diving Victoria, which represents the sport of diving in Victoria, chose Clubs Online from IMG eCommerce, a division of IMG Australia.
All Diving Victoria's communication, registrations, insurance, payments and database updates are managed online using the system, which was introduced two years ago.
Clubs Online is a commercial environment for membership-based organisations. It uses an application service provider (ASP) model, which means the program is purchased as a service over the internet.
"From our point of view it was fantastic right from the start," Diving Victoria state executive officer Helen Hillard says.
"Some members were initially very reluctant to use it, but now they don't know how we did without it."
Before introducing the system, Diving Victoria's communications were done by post.
"We had problems with insurance and having people covered as soon as they did something because there was a one-week turnaround," Hillard says.
"They had to send in paper work and we had to process a cheque, whereas now a payment is made online instantly."
Diving Victoria, which has about 800 members, has become more business-focused since introducing the online membership, subscription management and event registration system.
Members now manage data entry directly, which has saved days of work each week for staff maintaining the database.
Diving Victoria has two full-time staff and a bookkeeper. Based on current membership, the organisation would have required five to six full-time staff without the Clubs Online system, Hillard says.
"When we review our registrations, we are able to generate the subscriptions by member type - divers, coaches, officials or volunteers - and they all get an email to say it is due and they pay it online," she says.
"So in a matter of five minutes, all the registrations for the year can be done without the paperwork and mailouts."
From its newsletter alone, the postal savings amount to more than $10,000 annually.
By having all payments and processing online, Diving Victoria has reduced the need for a book-keeper from two days a week to just four hours a week.
This is a saving of more than $10,000 a year. A shop has been set up on the website to sell uniforms and competition equipment, freeing up the time of staff and volunteers.
Diving Victoria had no set-up costs to introduce the system but pays IMG a commission of 6 per cent of all transactions, which totals about $5000 a year.
"We found it was going to cost in the vicinity of $30,000 with some of the other quotes we got, and being a tiny organisation it was just not possible," Hillard says.
"What really won us over was that their banking systems are fully integrated and reconciled every month by them.
"A lot of the other ones went through the PayPal system, which is just so much more complicated from our point of view."
A $100,000 Diving for All project can be run by one staff member because the Clubs Online system allows all stakeholders to participate in its management.
Parents register and pay online, coaches can organise insurance from the pool deck if necessary, and provide progress reports online, while an online resource provides a program pathway that allows a diver's progress to be tracked over time.
The user-friendly Clubs Online system also allows Hillard to deliver comprehensive reporting for grant and funding providers.
"When you have government grants they like to know if a dive school project, as we are running at the moment, could result in someone ending up in the Olympics in eight years," she says.
"We have a 10-year-old girl in our talent identification program and we can track what programs she has gone through by what she has entered over that time. We couldn't do anything like that before."
Through strategic direction, change in administration, success in government agency grants and the Clubs Online platform, Diving Victoria has tripled its activities and participation in the past 18 months.
Hillard says the website is being rejigged. "The main thing is to get our newsletter into a more electronic format."
THE PROBLEM
A manual administration process that relied on mail made communications management costly and time-consuming.
THE PROCESS
The organisation installed IMG eCommerce's Clubs Online, an applications services platform, which manages membership, communications and databases online.
THE RESULT
Streamlined administration delivers time savings and minimises the staff required despite growing membership. Postal costs are down by $10,000 a year book-keeping fees are down by a similar amount.