Sunday, September 13, 2009

How to Communicate

The non-profit parenting organization that I volunteer for, Golden Gate Mothers Group (http://www.ggmg.org/index.html), has revolutionized large group communication.



Many moms (like myself) spend two to four hours each day catching up on their Yahoo! Groups forums, shopping online, and updating their social status on Facebook or Twitter. With GGMG's new communication solution on https://www.bigtent.com/ I will be able to do most of my online tasks in one place! Yipee!



The people at BigTent like to refer to their service as a "dashboard for your community involvement." I like to think of it as an online master planner where I can connect my volunteerism with my involvement at my kids' schools and more. The forums are similar to Yahoo Groups! since you can check all your forums by logging in to one place, but the capabilities of BigTent go far beyond.



Some of the extras BigTent provides are:

event calendar (collect RSVPs and no need for Evites)

manage memberships online (and volunteer duties)

collect dues or event registration fees online

email blasts to members (especially helpful for event or news posts)

group news (basically a group blog)



I like the fact that I can merge the information from all my groups that I belong to on BigTent.com. For example, I only have to manage one event calendar. With the click of a button I can see everything I have coming up, no matter what group it was originally listed under. I can check a box to populate my BigTent calendar with all my BigTent group activities, deadlines, etc (and just as easily I can uncheck and list them in their original separate calendars again).



All in all, I feel BigTent will do 2 things for our 4000 mommy members at GGMG: free up time and help our membership develop a deeper connection.



Kudos to BigTent for a great development and GGMG Board of Directors for taking our organization to the next level.