Executive Summary
The North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools (NCAPCS) used Whova to successfully manage their in-person 2023 conference, “Moving Mountains.” NCAPCS was able to create smooth and effective communication for over 70 sessions with the use of announcements. Additionally, NCAPCS was able to maximize sponsor visibility, resulting in over 350,000 sponsor impressions. With Whova, NCAPCS had a platform to help increase sponsor ROI and connect attendees across the charter school community.
About NCAPCS
NCAPCS empowers North Carolina children as the largest charter school advocacy organization in North Carolina. They represent 140,000 students and over 200 charter schools, and they have successfully championed 10 bills to support childrens’ education.
Their 2023 conference was titled “Moving Mountains” to honor hardworking advocates for charter schools. It offered attendees connections, resources, learning and inspiration so that they could confidently face charter schools’ changing obstacles.
NCAPCS has organized with Whova since 2019, using it to increase sponsor presence and build community for leaders, educators and supporters of charter schools. This year, Whova helped them facilitate and track over 450 sponsor webpage views and 2,300 community board posts.
Private Messages Between Attendees
%
Attendees Who Made Personalized Agendas
Community Board Posts
%
Announcement Open Rate
Sponsor Impressions
Challenges/Goals
1. Increasing Sponsor Visibility
NCAPCS had secured 73 sponsors for their event. While this was an accomplishment, it also opened a challenge: satisfying all of them in one event. Whova offered NCAPCS more opportunities for sponsor-attendee interaction, including pre-event visibility and digital booths. With this exposure, NCAPCS’s goal to highlight their sponsors would be very feasible.
2. Generating Name Badges with Ease
In the past, NCAPCS did not use Whova to generate name badges, and this led to more challenges when creating their name badges. At their events now, NCAPCS turns to Whova so they can generate quality name badges in a hassle-free manner.
3. Forging Attendee Connections
The charter school community can sometimes be difficult for networking, so the NCAPCS conference became a rare opportunity for meeting new people. As NCAPCS prepared attendees for another year of “moving mountains,” they wanted attendees to maximize their connections. This would boost information sharing across the community and help attendees grow stronger together.
Attendees could use the discussion board to talk about the conference and get to know each other.
4. Switching from Print to Digital
NCAPCS has been transitioning to more paperless events, and, for 2023, they went fully digital. This was new for attendees and exhibitors, who had felt comfortable with their old conference style. To ease the transition, NCAPCS wanted their digital resources to be as simple to access as possible.
Solutions
1. Highlighting Sponsors No Matter Attendees’ Locations
No matter their location or the time of day, attendees could access digital sponsor booths from the mobile or web app. This let them check out sponsors’ websites, descriptions and more as well as reach out to sponsors from their page. With this function, organizers could eliminate physical barriers between sponsors and attendees and boost sponsors’ ROI before the event started.
2. Creating No-Fuss Name Badges
With Whova’s name badge feature, NCAPCS could generate name badges effortlessly. Whova prefilled name badges with each individual’s unique information using details straight from their attendee list. NCAPCS also appreciated how badges could have unique attendee QR codes, which could be scanned to trade digital profiles between attendees.
NCAPCS customized their name badge template with all their event information, and then they chose which details Whova would include for each individual’s badge.
3. Building Community Online for In Person Connections
NCAPCS’s best feedback often came from participants and vendors who made new connections at the event. By coordinating through Whova’s community board, over 300 attendees scheduled meetups for coffee, spa trips or even hikes at the nearby Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Then, they’d post their pictures on Whova to win a prize in the event leaderboard competition.
Attendees could schedule and join meetups based around common interests.
4. Exploring the Extra Benefits of an Event App
84% of NCAPCS’s attendees used the Whova app, and Whova’s layout was easy for them to understand. Because of the gentle learning curve, attendees could appreciate Whova’s additional, uniquely online opportunities. For example, NCAPCS organizers could provide additional communication with in-app announcements. That meant that, beyond the scheduled plan in their agenda, attendees could learn about event changes as they happened – a feature they definitely couldn’t get on print.
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