When to Use Your AMS & When to Go Custom
Your Board wants a new member directory. Your meetings team is unveiling new pricing options for the annual meeting. The web team wants to publish committee rosters on the website.
Should these new website features and functions be powered natively by your membership database or should you invest in custom development? When does it make sense to go custom? How do you make sure you don’t interfere with your ability to keep your database upgraded?
Join us on Wednesday, April 17th at 2pm Eastern where we’ll guide you through this decision making process, showing you:
- How to understand the WWW capabilities and limitations of your AMS (versus admin capabilities)
- The features that should almost always live in your AMS or CRM
- How to evaluate whether or not the out of the box forms, rosters, directories, and workflows in your AMS will meet your members’ needs
- The different flavors of custom development
- How to determine costs and benefits of AMS vs. custom development
- Ways to ensure that custom development does not hinder your ability to upgrade your database in the future
We’ll also share real life examples of AMS configuration and custom development projects that we’ve worked on for clients, digging into why those decisions were made and why those choices were the best for their needs. We’ll explore projects like:
- Member and supplier directories
- Rosters and lists
- Conference websites and online registration
- Online stores
- Workflow applications
- Maps and reports
Register now for the secret sauce on how to answer the $64k question: do we use our AMS or do we go custom?
About the Presenters
In 2015, with more than 20 years’ experience serving the association community, Rebecca Achurch founded Achurch Consulting, a company that helps associations with technology implementation and digital transformation. Rebecca has been uniquely positioned throughout her career as an association executive, supplier, and now consultant to see clients through change by leaning into innovation. Her commitment to bringing value to mission-based organizations, combined with decades of multifaceted experience and understanding of the complex business requirements of the sector, make her a trusted partner and advocate for her clients.
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Gayathri Kher’s reputation as a trusted advisor and technologist helping associations and nonprofits implement scalable solutions, along with her passion for mission-driven organizations, led to the co-creation of fusionSpan. As the CEO and Co-founder, she is responsible for continued growth and spearheads the organization’s strategic direction, vision, and mission. Since the inception of fusionSpan, she has executed on market opportunities that drove revenue and brand awareness. In addition to her commitment to providing seamless solutions for clients, she fosters a values-driven work culture with a sense of urgency and accountability, collaboration, transparency, and trust. Gayathri is an alum of the University of Maryland with a Master of Science in Telecommunication Engineering. She serves on the Key Consultant Committee with the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and previously served as the Chair of the ASAE Technology Council. She also juggles her time as a mother of two sons, Araran and Ronan, and their adopted puppy, Ozzy.
Joanna Pineda is CEO and Chief Troublemaker of Matrix Group International, Inc., a digital agency that works primarily with associations and nonprofits to help them increase membership and generate revenue. Joanna’s staff and clients call her Chief Troublemaker because she likes to ask a lot of questions, think outside the box, question reality, and ask the hard questions so stuff gets done. She is passionate about the user experience, aka the member or customer journeys.
Janna Marks, MatrixMaxx AMS Client Success Manager, is truly a Renaissance woman, having served in several roles for Matrix Group, including web producer for MatrixMaxx™, senior designer, application tester, implementation manager, client liaison, and trainer. Janna came to Matrix in 1999 with several years of web production experience, including expertise as a webmaster, information architect, and web designer. Before Matrix, she was the senior designer at Business Information Networks (BIN), a web solutions company.
