Greetings, Friends of MASF!
This past year we celebrated our Golden
Anniversary and are moving forward towards our next 50 years.
As part of this process, we are revamping our technology systems.
Currently we are running on very old and unsupported systems.
They were created years ago by very talented programmers designed
to meet our needs at that time. However, our needs have changed,
in part due to your very inspired recommendations and in part
due to our desire to make MASF more responsive to our membership.
Initially, we have been focusing on creating
a membership application which will enable you to fill out information
online rather than printing out a form and mailing it in. This
will automatically create a database for better communication
of our activities and avoid errors due to manual entry off of
paper forms.
At the same time, in response to a number
of requests, we are offering a secure online payment system,
not only for membership renewals but also for our annual exhibition,
donations, and workshops. This system will enable you to pay
by credit card or ACH debit, and for membership, you can set
up an automatic annual payment. It will also track payments and
will deposit funds into our account without having to deal with
checks. Of course, if payment by check is your preference, you
have that option.
We will be using Zeffy for our financial
transactions because, since MASF is a non-profit, we will receive
100% of the funds without credit card fees and no fee for using
the platform. However, Zeffy does request an additional payment
to provide this service. They automatically add 17% charge but
give you the opportunity to set the amount to a lower %, including
$0, when entering your payment information at the end. Implementation
of this system is being pilot-tested this summer and will begin
to be used in August for membership, donations, and exhibition
entry.
For the forthcoming year, we will be
expanding our system development to include a reworking of the
exhibition entry form and the creation of a workshop registration
system. The modular database created by this automation as well
as the training of multiple individuals to use the disparate
components will enable more personalized service and outreach
to expand our activities.
Thank you for bearing with us while we
go through this process. If you have any questions, please contact
me or our systems developer. Have a great summer.
Cheers, Julie
Julie J McGowan, President
Kim
DiVito, Systems Analyst
President@miniatureartsocietyflorida.org
IT@miniatureartsocietyflorida.org
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