Hawai’i Farmers Union United Has New Look & Functionality

After five years of steady growth, along with the usual twists and turns experienced by all upstart endeavors, Hawai’i Farmers Union United (HFUU) is launching a new communications platform. NeonCRM (customer relations management) is a top rated system used by leading non-profits and political campaigns to keep their constituents, customers and/or members engaged in the goals of the host organization.

The new database and back end functionality was launched in an effort to improve communications accuracy to members, streamline membership accounting, and integrate other features that will further vitalize our growing community  of farmers, gardeners and foodies (and more).

HFUU Communications Chair and NeonCRM lead admin for HFUU, Keith Ranney, was recruited by the organization in June of 2015 to gather stories, regenerative farming techniques and breakthroughs by members of the nine statewide chapters, along with growing the communications committee to be represented by each chapter. While that initiative moves forward, Ranney was vocal to the executive board about the need to move to the NeonCRM system. His colleague, membership chair, Melissa Jenks-Olivit was the first to offer support for the change. Due to the previous CRM’s complexity and general “clunkiness” she was managing the organizations data offline – a most undesirable and inefficient way to manage a non-profit in the dynamic digital age. Finance chair, Karen Reid, added her voice to the recommendation because of NeonCRM’s integration with Quickbooks, making reporting to our chapters and the National Farmers Union far more efficient.

“In working with the other chapters, we needed a newsletter platform that was well vetted and easy to use. NeonCRM integrates with MailChimp. Additionally, Z2Systems, inc., the creator of NeonCRM recently rolled out it’s Neon Web Studio – offering WordPress templates designed for non-profits while also seamlessly integrating the back-end forms and functionality of NeonCRM. What you are seeing with our new look and functionality is this front-end / back-end integration put to use.”

All of HFUU’s membership data has been imported into the new system so when existing members renew their annual membership, they can also update their profile. This allows the system to auto-populate data fields when making purchases through the new HFUU online store (coming soon), purchase tickets to events (like the annual convention in October at OK Farms near Hilo) and make donations toward our education and training programs.