Meet the Northwest Berry Foundation
The Northwest Berry Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to strengthen the NW berry industry through on-farm research, grower education and information sharing, and reducing food waste. Since 2014, they have filled gaps in service offerings and research for NW berry growers, helping to support a strong small fruit industry in the Pacific Northwest. They are a hub of research, information & resources for PNW berry growers, researchers, and industry organizations.
The organization has a busy schedule from facilitating the flow of information and research between industry organizations, researchers and berry producers, to conducting research on the use of drones to monitor pest and diseases in berry crops. They also recently launched a pilot program the Berry Recovery Project, which is aimed at addressing food waste & hunger with berry industry-specific solutions, resulting in more than 6,000 pounds of surplus fresh and processed berries donated from various berry producers.
On top of all that great work they are doing they also managed to host three conferences which includes various educational workshop events, and has helped more than 250 growers access the latest research and industry updates!
To do this they chose Event Smart for their online conference registration solution. Here is what they had to say about why they chose Event Smart for their event registrations:
“I didn’t like the all in one services available elsewhere. They didn’t target conference registration well or they were sized for giant groups with endless cash flows wanting everything from abstracts to badges. I also appreciated that with this I only had to pay for what I needed. In the end, I chose this option because the technical support was really high and personal.”
Besides offering a scalable solution to fit any size project, and the high touch support, they also found the cost to be a big factor in their decision to use Event Smart:
“We are a nonprofit running on fumes, so it allowed us to afford online registration and collecting sponsorship money to fund the event. Before we manned phones and collected checks. This year only had to handle a handful of checks.”
How the Northwest Berry Foundation uses Event Smart
Throughout the year the Northwest Berry Foundation holds a variety of educational workshops and conferences. And to manage these events, they use Event Smart for their online event registrations.
Attendees can browse the list of conference and workshops on their Event Smart page which will list all upcoming events and find out more by going to the specific conference registration pages for each event.
Within the event details page they have used many of the basic [and free] features within Event Smart to provide their prospective attendees with a lot a great detail to help them to understand more about each event.
In this example event description, they provide specific information to help the user understand more about the event and to urge attendees to register and pay for their attendance online. Plus, they reassured them that an account is not needed to pay with PayPal, as it will also allow them to pay for their conference registration with a credit or debit card [no sign in required].
Additionally, they have also utilized the Venue Management feature to provide detailed hotel information and specific instructions to get a group discount rate within the venue details, and included on the conference registration page along with the other event details.
Ticketing and Registration
In the example shown below, an attendee can select from one of two ticket types, regular or a student discounted ticket.
However, they are also able to accept online donations along with the conference registration in a unique way by adding another ticket type called “Charitable Sponsorship ($250 Increments).” If the registrant wants to donate more than $250, they can simply add more ticket quantities to increase the amount by $250 for each ticket. This allows them to leverage another opportunity where they can collect charitable giving along with their event registrations.
Here is an overview of what their ticket settings look like in the back end. The event administrator can set the ticket sale dates, price, and the maximum quantities available, along with other advanced ticket settings like early bird tickets and price modifiers that will allow you to add or subtract specific flat dollar or percentage amounts from a ticket.
Learn more about how to set up a conference with Event Smart.
Are you ready to get started with your own online conference registration solution? Create your own non-profits events website through Event Smart today or contact us about your upcoming event.
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