Nonprofit

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival Enhances Enrollment Process with Intuitive Web Forms

Will Crockett

Associate Director of Research and Engagement

Case study snapshot

The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival is known for offering free local Shakespeare performances in the Bay area and for hosting educational camps and programs for school-age children. As part of the organization’s integration to Salesforce, staff members began using FormAssembly to eliminate paper forms while conveniently syncing data to their new CRM. Intuitive web forms allow the organization to save time and effort while keeping track of the community they serve.

About

Offers educational programming for children ages 6-18 years old.
Performances designed to demonstrate Shakespeare’s relevance in today’s society.
Inspires students and audiences to seek out additional theatrical experiences.
501(c)3 nonprofit organization offering performances since 1983.

500-700

students reached in a calendar year.

5

different outdoor venues in the San Francisco Bay area.

8

full-time staff members.

10

minutes saved per student application.

Challenge

Disconnected enrollments and data silos

. . . we got a great education in the journey a customer may take with us, and thinking about their experience from beginning to end.

Before the organization revamped their data collection processes, enrollments for camps and programs were completed through a paper-based system. After a family submitted an initial online application, staff would locate and print the form and record the information manually. They were operating out of 3 separate databases, including Microsoft Access.

Staff encountered issues not only with time and effort, but also with tracking a person’s history. Some individuals phased out of educational programs and became donors, but this was nearly impossible to see. Data silos sprung up out of the inability to connect records. When the organization transitioned to Salesforce, they implemented FormAssembly for one seamless switch.

“I’m really glad that FormAssembly was part of our initial migration into Salesforce, because the two products are really one and the same for us. When we learned both at the same time, we got a great education in the journey a customer may take with us, and thinking about their experience from beginning to end,” Crockett explained.

Solution

Integrated, online application system

FormAssembly’s powerful Salesforce integration is the backbone for the work that the organization does to manage their data.

The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival experiences the benefits of better data to power its nonprofit goals. In turn, that data helps create better business processes that keep everyday tasks more manageable. Whereas it used to take roughly 10 minutes to process one student’s application fully (multiplied by 400 students), staff can now sort through hundreds of student enrollments in a fraction of the time.

“It’s literally like we got an employee back. There’s just no comparison between what we used to do to get all our enrollments in, versus what we did last summer that took maybe an hour a week,” Crockett explained.

Salesforce integration

FormAssembly’s powerful Salesforce integration is the backbone for the work that the organization does to manage its data. The organization values the ability to see the customer journey from start to finish, which becomes more manageable with FormAssembly.

“When you think about the architecture of a web form and the architecture of Salesforce at the same time, it helps you think more critically about what you’re doing with the people you interact with,” Crockett said.

Staff also use complex Salesforce lookup rules to keep track of participants within the same household. As their daily work involves serving siblings with similar names and age ranges, matching forms to predetermined records in Salesforce eliminates frustration and disorganization.

Easy troubleshooting and customer support

Even without extensive web development or coding knowledge, staff members can operate and edit forms as needed. They even use hidden fields to their advantage when camps fill up or they need to close enrollment. FormAssembly’s professional Customer Support has also proven helpful during the implementation stages.

“If I make a mistake in building or connecting the form, or have logic in there that’s not working as it should, it’s very easy to fix something,” Crockett said.

Use cases

The organization implements FormAssembly web forms

Using Salesforce to efficiently enroll students and track households

The primary use case involves enrollment forms for student programs that take place over the summer and throughout the academic year. Camps take place at a variety of local locations, including schools, parks, and churches. An important aspect of the enrollment form is to ensure that respondents know not only when they’re attending camp, but where they need to be in order to attend.

Staff use conditional logic features throughout the forms, as some programs mandate that campers live within certain area codes. Pricing of each camp can also change, as rates transition from early bird to regular enrollment rates. The organization’s enrollment forms integrate with Authorize.Net to simplify the payment collection process.

What’s next?

In the future, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival hopes to implement FormAssembly as part of their donor prospecting efforts. Although not everyone in the organization has a donation or fundraising background, most of the staff regularly interact with potential donors. Moving forward, they want all staff to be able to record interactions with potential donors, which can easily be accomplished through Salesforce and FormAssembly.