How this association eliminated hours of processing time with this web-based membership database solution.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities

Overview

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities was established in 1986 with eighteen member institutions. Today, as HACU celebrates its twentieth anniversary, HACU represents more than 450 colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education success in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Thousands of young Hispanics benefit with internships, scholarships, college retention and advancement programs, pre-collegiate support and career development opportunities.

The organization’s Web site (http://www.hacu.net ) provides a watershed for communications among the colleges, government and business.

Situation

HACU had grown rapidly and it was hard for a small IT staff to keep up with the demand for constantly changing information on the website. Concurrently, the membership database of colleges and universities was constantly growing and changing, which required more people and more time to manage.

Ricardo Latapi, Assistant Director of Special Finance Projects, identified three areas of financial impact:

• Updating memberships and ensuring that dues are paid on time
• Maximizing attendance at the HACU annual conference by simplifying online registrations
• Increasing opportunities for members with consistently up-to-date contact information on the website

Challenge

HACU needed “a website that could talk to its membership database,” Ricardo concluded. But how can one technology solution satisfy the plethora of growth-related stress HACU was experiencing?

Solution

“ESX provides a total solution,” says Ricardo. “The Association Catalyst integrates our website and member database so that information is constantly updated, we only have to make changes once, and members find our website much easier to use.”

Not only does Association Catalyst satisfy the three financial issues Ricardo identified, it has helped HACU eliminate unnecessary data entry time by automating these key processes:

• Website “talks to” member database so updates are available internally and externally as soon as changes are made
• Members have “self-service” updating privileges on the website, which eliminates staff time to process changes and it keeps member university contact information more current
• Press releases and member advisories are posted within 24 hours and appear on the homepage
• Online registration to the annual conference is much easier with Association Catalyst; one college administrator can register a batch of conference attendees in one session, which reduces time from hours to minutes for a large group
• Printing bar codes on registration materials (using a special, inexpensive printer) helps speed up and further simplify the entire registration process
• Association Catalyst provides HACU the ability to automatically invoice membership renewals and invoice tracking reports download in Excel® format

Ricardo reports that as many as 75 percent of the central staff participate in managing content of their own area of the website, which takes a load off of IT and helps keep web content fresh and up to date.

Growing Forward

HACU is still growing and looking forward to another decade of service and accomplishment. The HACU staff can embrace their growth knowing that Association Catalyst will grow with them.