Full Method Case Study

Meet Lighthouse family Retreat

Go Method | Feb 1, 2021

WHAT IS LIGHTHOUSE RETREATS MISSION?

Lighthouse Family Retreat is a faith-based non-profit that exists to strengthen every family living through childhood cancer. We host restorative retreats and develop valuable resources so that families and their support systems can find hope in God and help in their fight.

WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?

Lighthouse Family Retreat had seen multiple system changes over consecutive years as we tried to find a mission trip registration platform that met all of our needs.

Our week-long domestic mission trips allow entire families to serve together. We needed something that could keep these families grouped together inside the context of the trip and make it as easy as possible for them to register. We also have a high volume of volunteers that serve with us each year. Most are returning volunteers, so we needed a system that would allow us to roll over data year-over-year. Finally, we needed the fundraising to be seamless while allowing flexibility and customization across families and trips.

WHAT LED YOUR ORGANIZATION TO TRY GO METHOD?

The year prior we had done our best to develop and launch an in-house registration platform. Unfortunately, it didn’t perform as we needed it to and was very costly.

Phone numbers weren’t collected, birth dates were inaccurate, and the system couldn’t handle the online visitor load during key registration times. It also required us to have a separate fundraising tool that proved extremely time-intensive to administer for our volunteers.

The year before this, Lighthouse was using a registration system designed for summer camps. This system did some of the things we needed well, but it wasn’t a good long term solution. It created lots of manual work arounds, we needed a better software.

WHAT STOOD THE MOST WHEN YOU STARTED USING GO METHOD?

During our due diligence phase, one of the platforms stood out immediately from a user interface design, and that was GO Method (previously Focus Missions). This was extremely important because we want our volunteers to have a positive experience when they interact with the tools we provide them. We felt like we had let them down in the past and wanted to make sure we didn’t repeat that failure.

Not only that, but the more I tested (GO Method) the more our essential criteria began to be checked off our list. The GO Method team was adept at fielding my questions and they also had a roadmap of innovations they could point to in the future that aligned with our needs.

SOME OF THE BIG ITEMS ON OUR “MUST HAVE” LIST WERE:

• Limit trip registration by adult users
• Admin tiers for users
• System can handle hundreds of visitors registering at the same time
• Automated alert when new application submitted
• Ability for admin users to add trip participants
• Fundraising visibility in user dashboard
• Fundraising visibility in admin dashboard
• Ability to edit groups and move to different trips
• Ability to export lists as CSV files
• Ability to sync with Salesforce database (required outside help)
• Registration landing page generation for specific trips
• Ability to move/edit participants among active trips
• Ability to require trip deposit during application process
• Separate applications for different groups that link to specific trips e-signature compatibility
• Requirements and checklist dashboard
• System remembers user history and keeps user profiles active for future

I began to create presentations to give our team clear step-by-step visuals of what our volunteers would experience using GO Method.

I shared my findings with the team and walked them through the process that our volunteers would go through. I gathered their questions, concerns, and objections and did more research. We had to make sure there would be no surprises. In the end, I created the following list of presentations for our team to review:

• Managing team members
• Reviewing and approving applicants
• Registration preview
• Creating trips
• Group registration
• Family & guardian registration
• GO Method implementation plan

Our team had seen what they needed to see and I was confident that we had identified our new registration system. We signed up with GO Method and I began preparing for our upcoming registration season with one of our most important audiences.

After completing a test registration with our staff, we made a few last-minute updates to application questions and then prepared to go live a few weeks later.

CAN YOU OFFER 3 METRIC BULLET POINTS TO SHOW HOW GO METHOD HAD A POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOUR ORGANIZATION?

1. 1100% uptime! Our previous unreliable system crashed under heavy volume whereas GO Method easily handled our high-volume registration windows with 0% system failure.
2. 2We went from 10 team members handling registration launches to only 1 team member fielding customer service questions. We also had a dramatic reduction of inbound call and email volume.
3. 3Overall cost from our previous system was reduced by more than 50% when we switched to GO Method!