Sonoma County Herb Association
The Sonoma County Herb Association and Exchange is an amazing organization. They have been promoting the ethical cultivation and use of medicinal herbs for more than 30 years. When they approached us to build a new website and membership platform, we were honored. Eleni volunteers on their board, so we know the folks over there and they are a great group of people and amazing herbalists.
After our initial meeting, we knew what they needed:
A beautiful new website that they can easily keep updated with upcoming events, association news, and posts about what herbs are currently available for sale at the exchange.
A membership platform to manage member information, renewals, and automated emails
Member data and reports: For example, how much can they expect to bring in from membership renewals this month? This year?
Tools to contact groups of patrons, members, donors, volunteers for fundraising and membership drives.
Integration of their newsletter subscriber lists, offering options of what content they would like to receive.
The ability to capture members’ credit card information and automatically set up auto-renewing accounts (with automated emails informing members up upcoming payments).
The website portion of the project came together fairly easily. They already had an existing website, so a lot of the content was already there, and they had a nice folder of images. Close ups of herbs and flowers make great page headers, and they are right on brand for an herb association, so we were off and running.
The membership platform was more challenging. Their membership lists were paper-based with no system to track current memberships, renewals, etc. Their director has the experience to make things go smoothly, but we knew that with a proper database of customers and members, they would be able to greatly increase member retention rates and fundraise much more effectively.
We implemented MembershipWorks, a customizable cloud-based platform, to handle online sign-ups for multiple membership levels and payment options. The platform also supports offline signups, a needed feature as much of their customer base of gardeners and herbalists don’t use computers much and prefer to pay in person with cash.
You can check out the site Here. While you are there, consider becoming a member. They are volunteer run and member supported. They are a great asset to the herbal community and the human community in general and are a crucial piece of keeping people connected to the earth and her healing plants!
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Cost:
This project included two distinct aspects: The website and the membership platform.
The website contains 27 pages total (including member areas, payment gateway, signup forms, etc.).
A website like this costs about $4000. See our Services page for more information.
Membership platform integration costs can vary greatly. Budget $500 - $2500, depending on complexity (this project required extensive conception, planning, data entry, configuration and testing as well as integration of existing Mailchimp accounts).
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Webpage build requirements and features:
News blog.
Herb update blog.
Events page (blog).
News, Herb update, and upcoming events dynamically (automatically) populate to front page.
Testimonials slider.
Signup for multiple membership types, with integrated payment gateway.
Contact form.
Transfer existing URL (configure DNS at domain host).
Password protected Admin SOP page with detailed instructions on how to add News/Herb Updates/Events to the site, how to add in person member signups, payments, or donations to the membership platform, how to search the member database, contact members, manage accounts, backup the database, etc.
Membership platform requirements and features:
Signup forms, donation forms, and member profile pages embedded in the main website for seamless integration.
Member profile pages where members can select mailing list preference (All News, Herb Updates only, or no newsletters) as well as update billing information, make payments, or cancel membership.
Multiple membership types supported (Herbalist, Business, Grower, Supporter).
Multiple payment/billing types (members are designated as online/card or offline/cash/check)
Automated emails (welcome, upcoming renewal, past due renewal, etc.) specific to recipient membership type and billing type.
Targeted bulk emails can be sent to very specific subsets of members and/or donors.
Mailchimp integration. Mailchimp audience automatically synched to member lists and tagged with member type and other information.
Easy admin of member database to update member info, manually add members, enter in person or mailed in payments, send invoices, keep member specific notes, contact individual members, etc.
Extensive metrics and reporting with specific breakdowns of financials and overall membership trends and information.
and more!