We’re proud to partner with Arkansas 4-H to help their team manage registrations and payments for their youth development programs.
Angie and Valerie have become experts in using Regpack in 2020 after switching from their previous registration and payment platform.
With all the transitions happening this year, especially with COVID-19, having a system that makes supporting their in-person and virtual programming is essential to keeping things going.
We spoke with Valerie and Angie about how they are using Regpack, what they love about it, and how it helps them to manage all of their youth program offerings efficiently.
Tell me more about 4-H and your offerings
4-H is a youth development organization. We use non-bias information that’s research-based to deliver programs.
We have educators in every County in Arkansas and 4-H obviously is in every county as well, so we at the state office are responsible for developing programs, content, evaluations, and state competitions.
We also facilitate national 4-H competitions and we have been using Regpack to do that for six months now officially.
Families started January 2nd signing up in the system, but we were on board last July, just trying to get the system built. We also utilize Regpack for membership, enrollment, and any kind of camps that we have, programs that we’re going to have competition-wise. We’re still using that for people to sign-up even in this virtual world that we live in right now. So, we could just keep track of who’s participated in what activities. That’s it in a nutshell.
What software were you using prior to this year?
We were using another online program, which is, I would say the program that 99% of 4-H programs use. Mostly, it’s a state organization who uses the program and that just trickles down to the county people, but we just started looking around for something else that might meet our needs a little better than that program was meeting.
What functionality was important when you were looking for new registration systems?
I think the most important feature would be versatility.
We are able with Regpack to tailor-make the questions to exactly what we needed them for our state. The other program was not quite so flexible, where we had a template that we used, and all the states kind of used the same template, and if we needed to adjust it, we could manipulate the system to do that, but it wasn’t exactly what we needed most of the time.
With Regpack, we literally have control over every single line that we use, every question that we use.
The best quality of Regpack is our ability to go in and manipulate every single field.
You’ll find you’re doing membership or a summer program, that the flexibility extends to the different kinds of things you have going. Regpack allows you to tailor make whatever you need for the different things you’re having registration for.
Additionally, Regpack is constantly adding new features, and they’ve been very helpful.
What benefits have you experienced from Regpack regarding managing payments?
We have a very complex payment option system within our system because people can pay with the regular methods that are available through the website or through Regpack. We also have a County office payment option where the County office staff offset the cost of our competitions and events.
We can run payment reports in Regpack and it’s very easy to understand our financials. So that’s great! While we have some manual grants and cash payments we need to enter, families can go into their account and see their payment status, which is great.
How is working with your team and the county office staff in Regpack?
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture/RYAN MCGEENEY 02-12-2019 Hundreds of 4-H members from around the state congregate at the Arkansas State Capitol Building in Little Rock to meet with state representatives and elected officials.
So we have about 200 assistant admin accounts in Regpack! (All free on the Regpack annual plan!) We have 75 counties and some counties have two or three admin accounts each.
When a family brings in a payment or applies for a grant with their county, a county secretary can easily log into Regpack and update the payment status of the family. And now we’ve got the payment recorded.
How do your families like registering with Regpack?
It’s easier for our people to sign-up in the system initially and create their account.
I would say for the families, for the most part, the feedback that I received from the county admins was that it has been easier for the families to go in and sign-up for things this year than in the past!
Would you recommend Regpack to other youth program organizations?
I would, I would definitely!
The interface is very attractive. It is a definite improvement over our last system. It just looks nice and it is easy to read and follow.
One of the reasons that that would give would be the cost. I think Regpack is a good deal. We just signed up for two more years and we’re looking forward to all the new aspects that we’re going to get from the system. Regpack is constantly adding things that are helpful to us.
The communication has been good. Regpack is very responsive to us, and there’s a team of people in Support that will reach back out to us when we have a question. I probably send four or five emails a week to Support, and they’re always very friendly in their responses. I appreciate that.
I would say for me the best part is that you are continuing to develop the software. I like that it’s not just a software that remains stagnant and that you keep trying to improve it and are adding new benefits and things that we can use to make our process better.
Regpack just keeps listening to what we need.
