The Historical Association brings together people who love history, study history and teach history. Its members and subscribers want access to an unparalleled depth of history-related learning resources and to engage with a like-minded community. The Association has delivered this as a charity since it was founded in 1906.
Today it is a vibrant organisation serving over 27,000 people – and through them influencing far beyond this number in schools, colleges and universities. The Historical Association has a network of over 50 UK branches which run over 350 events per year.
Employing just 10 staff, the Association “punches above its weight”. By using efficient systems, processes and data, it is able to serve members through increased focus on publication of journals, magazines and podcasts, and many other services.
Improve, Upgrade, Automate
Emily Randall is the Membership Manager. For four years she has worked to improve the Association’s membership systems and increase engagement from members and subscribers.
Emily explains: “We had a legacy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system which was not fully integrated with our website. This led to a lot of manual work to find and eliminate duplicate records and update details. We needed a new integrated system.”
Emily had clear outcomes in mind. These included maximum automation and self-service by members, elimination and prevention of duplicate records, minimising internal administrative work and having all data connected to each member in one place. In addition, she wanted the organisation to have dynamic, relevant and clear reports.
Emily continues, “Our careful stewardship of revenue from member subscriptions means we can add more value to members. The benefits of process improvement and data accuracy go beyond the financial. They release the passion of our staff from administration to higher value tasks which add further value to our members.”
Accuracy, Service and Confidence
The Association believes that member acquisition and retention and the collection of membership subscriptions rely on address data being correct – so that journals, renewal notices, and other communications reach the intended recipients.
Emily concludes: “Having used AFD for address validation within some of our legacy systems we were familiar with the solutions and knew they were reliable. We had a good relationship with our account manager and were keen to continue using AFD products. Putting AFD at the heart of our new system – which incorporated new functionality for member self-service and internal staff use – has been easy. Occasionally mail is returned. This can be due to people moving and not updating us and is now easily manageable. We are confident in our data and can concentrate on content and member services.”
Time and Money Saved
The Historical Association has significantly reduced the time spent on mundane but essential administrative tasks – including identifying and eliminating duplicates; and re-keying address data entered into one system onto another.
AFD Postcode Plus software plays a hidden but active role in helping the Historical Association expand the number of members, cut costs and improve data accuracy.
Time and Money Saved
The Historical Association has significantly reduced the time spent on mundane but essential administrative tasks – including identifying and eliminating duplicates; and re-keying address data entered into one system onto another.
AFD Postcode Plus software plays a hidden but active role in helping the Historical Association expand the number of members, cut costs and improve data accuracy.
We serve thousands of organisations and a network of hundreds of partners across multiple industry sectors, enabling them to have full confidence in their contact data.